Psychological Research-Psychologische Forschung最新文献

Humans share with many animal species the ability to perceive and approximately represent the number of objects in visual scenes. This ability improves throughout childhood, suggesting that learning and development play a key role in shaping our number sense. This hypothesis is further supported by computational investigations based on deep learning, which have shown that numerosity perception can spontaneously emerge in neural networks that learn the statistical structure of images with a varying number of items. However, neural network models are usually trained using synthetic datasets that might not faithfully reflect the statistical structure of natural environments, and there is also growing interest in using more ecological visual stimuli to investigate numerosity perception in humans. In this work, we exploit recent advances in computer vision algorithms to design and implement an original pipeline that can be used to estimate the distribution of numerosity and non-numerical magnitudes in large-scale datasets containing thousands of real images depicting objects in daily life situations. We show that in natural visual scenes the frequency of appearance of different numerosities follows a power law distribution. Moreover, we show that the correlational structure for numerosity and continuous magnitudes is stable across datasets and scene types (homogeneous vs. heterogeneous object sets). We suggest that considering such "ecological" pattern of covariance is important to understand the influence of non-numerical visual cues on numerosity judgements.

Past research indicates that concepts of infinity are not fully understood. In countably infinite sets, infinity is presumed to be perceived as larger than any finite natural number. This study explored whether symbolic representations of infinity are processed as such through contrasts with Arabic and verbal written numbers. Comparisons between the infinity word and number words were responded to faster than comparisons of two number words, but not when the infinity symbol was solely compared to Arabic numbers. Moreover, infinity comparisons yielded distance-like effects, suggesting that infinity (both word and symbol) can be misconceived as a "natural number" closer to larger numbers than small ones. These findings demonstrate difficulty perceiving the physically smallest stimulus (∞) as the upper end-value and seem to reflect a limited understanding of symbolic forms of infinity among adults. They further highlight the impact of notation and numerical syntax on how we process symbolic numerical information.

Studies of perception, cognition, and action increasingly rely on measures derived from the movements of a cursor to investigate how psychological processes unfold over time. This method is one of the most sensitive measures available for remote experiments conducted online, but experimenters have little control over the input device used by participants, typically a mouse or trackpad. These two devices require biomechanically distinct movements to operate, so measures extracted from cursor tracking data may differ between input devices. We investigated this in two online experiments requiring participants to execute goal-directed movements. We identify several measures that are critically influenced by the choice of input device using a kinematic decomposition of the recorded cursor trajectories. Those using a trackpad were slower to acquire targets, mainly attributable to greater times required to initiate movements and click on targets, despite showing greater peak speeds and lower variability in their movements. We believe there is a substantial risk that behavioural disparities caused by the input device used could be misidentified as differences in psychological processes. We urge researchers to collect data on input devices in online experiments and carefully consider and account for the effect they may have on their experimental data.

Mental arithmetic is widely studied, both with symbolic digits and with non-symbolic dot patterns that require operand estimation. Several studies reported surprising biases in adults' performance with both formats while their direction (over/underestimation in addition/subtraction) remains controversial (operational momentum effect or OM; Prado & Knops, Prado and Knops, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, in Press., 2024). Theoretical accounts of OM make opposing predictions, thus enabling a decisive test: Using symbolic stimuli and responses, we enabled accurate operand encoding and result reporting, thus leaving mental calculation as only source of bias. Importantly, we manipulated operand order through calculation instructions (e.g., "29 + 19" vs. "add 19 to 29") to assess the crucial role of first operand size as cognitive anchor. With both auditory (Experiment 1, N = 30) and visual presentation (Experiment 2, N = 30), we observed reverse OM, i.e., overestimations in subtraction and underestimations in addition. Importantly, this instance of operation-based anchoring was independent of a second anchoring effect related to operand order: A large operand is a stronger anchor when mentioned first. Our discovery of both operation-based and order-based anchoring extends the well-known anchoring effect into mental arithmetic and eliminates several competing theories about the origin of OM.

Navigating environments is a fundamental ability of daily life, with survey knowledge playing a crucial role. Survey knowledge varies between individuals, and these variations may be related to individual differences in visuospatial working memory (VSWM) ability. However, other factors, such as the modalities of recall (cued vs. free recall) of survey knowledge, could interact with VSWM resources. The present study aimed to clarify whether various types of VSWM contribute to survey knowledge under specific recall modalities or regardless of how spatial information is retrieved. A sample of 74 young adults performed VSWM tasks with varying processing demands and degrees of active involvement. Then, they actively learned a virtual city path in a Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE) environment, and their survey knowledge was assessed using a sketch map task in free and cued recall modalities (within-participants). Cued recall demonstrated an advantage in sketch map accuracy over free recall. VSWM with simultaneous processing and active mental imagery is associated with sketch map accuracy, but not other VSWM. Importantly, no interaction was found between VSWM and the modality of recall. Therefore, survey knowledge is primarily related to VSWM, regardless of recall modality, emphasizing the importance of VSWM ability in capturing survey knowledge after active navigation.

Instructional language is one of three techniques in OPTIMAL theory that can be manipulated to foster an autonomy-supportive practice environment to enhance motor performance and learning. While autonomy-supportive language has been shown to be beneficial in educational psychology, coaching, and health settings, the wording of task instructions has received minimal attention in the motor learning literature to date. We investigated the influence of two instructional language styles on skill acquisition in a preregistered experiment. Participants (N = 156) learned a speed cup stacking task and received instructions throughout practice that used either autonomy-supportive or controlling language. Although the autonomy-supportive instructions resulted in higher perceptions of autonomy, there were no group differences for motor performance in acquisition or retention. Perceptions of competence and intrinsic motivation did not differ between groups at any time point. These data are difficult to reconcile with key predictions in OPTIMAL theory regarding a direct and causal influence of motivational factors on performance and learning. However, our equivalence test suggests these effects on skill acquisition may be smaller than what we were powered to detect. These findings are consistent with a growing body of evidence highlighting the need for much larger N experiments in motor learning research.

In two experiments we tested the contribution of linguistic markedness and affective evaluation (i.e., body specificity) to the representation of abstract numerical concepts, such as parity. To this end, we employed speeded parity judgments of digits (Exp 1) or number words (Exp 2) in a go/no-go task. Fifty right-handed participants completed four blocks of trials in each experiment. In two blocks, they responded to even numbers (2, 4, 6, or 8) and in the other two blocks they responded to odd numbers (1, 3, 7, or 9). In each pair of blocks, they responded once with their right hand and once with their left hand. Results revealed faster right-hand responses to even than to odd digits (Exp 1), and faster left-hand response to odd than to even number words (Exp 2). In addition, in both experiments, we found faster responses to small-odd than large-odd digits and number words. The results support the conclusion that the affective evaluation of parity and linguistic markedness makes independent contributions to the representation of parity.

The target velocity at the retina and the initial phase of target motion are known to affect the perceived velocity of a target in planar motion. For depth motion, however, the role of this information in velocity perception remains unclear. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to reveal the role of the angular velocity derived from the vergence angle and the initial phase of target motion on the perceived velocity for depth motion. We devised two experimental tasks with five stimuli and used a two-alternative forced-choice paradigm to investigate velocity perception. In the tasks, a target moving toward or away from the observer was used. The five stimuli in each task moved between 40 and 240 cm (standard stimulus), 20 and 240 cm, 20 and 220 cm, 40 and 260 cm, and 60 and 260 cm from the participants. In the comparison of the standard stimulus with other stimuli, the stimuli approaching or receding from a distance of 20 cm were perceived as faster than the standard stimulus approaching or receding from a distance of 40 cm. We also showed that the stimuli that receded starting from a distance of 60 cm were perceived as moving slower than the standard stimulus. Our results suggest that larger changes in angular velocity affect velocity perception for depth motion; thus, observers perceive the target velocity as faster when the target is closer to the observer.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of motor imagery (MI: imagining the success or failure of a forehand or backhand shot) training according to an internal visual modality centred on the movement and the target to be reached on tennis performance. 66 young (M_age = 12.1 years) players were randomly divided into three groups: control, failure MI or success MI, and performed 3 experimental phases. The pre-test consisted of performing 6 blocks of 5 forehand and backhand groundstrokes (sent randomly by a ball launcher towards the baseline) and a super tie-break. The acquisition phase consisted of 12 sessions, each including a standardized warm-up followed by 15 min of background rally in pairs. The participants of the MI group were instructed, after unprovoked errors on their part, to imagine performing the previous shot correctly (positive MI) or missing (failure MI). The post-test was identical to the pre-test. The efficiency score of shots and the number of errors committed at the pre- and post-test served as dependent variables. The results of this study indicate that participants in the success MI group performed better than the control and failure MI groups at post-test. The success MI, performed after errors, has positive effects on the quality of the shot and reduces the number of unforced errors of tennis players, while failure MI induces negative outcomes. The use of success MI, integrated in training session, is recommended.

In the motion-based stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) effect, responses are faster when the task-irrelevant stimulus motion is congruent with the response movement performance. In the present study, we tested whether smooth pursuit eye movements, related to tracking a moving object, influence motion-based SRC when present on their own or when combined with position-based SRC. We examined the motion-based SRC effect during both the response selection and response execution stages. When investigating motion-based SRC alone, participants responded with left or right movements of the single hand to the left or right movements of a centrally presented stimulus, either with their eyes fixated at the center or tracking the moving object. In the case of combined motion-based and position-based SRC, participants responded with left or right movements of the left or right hand to stimulus motion presented on the left or right side of the screen, again with eyes either fixated at the center or following the moving target. Results showed that during the response selection stage, smooth pursuit type eye movements had no effect on the motion-based SRC when the stimulus moved in the center, whereas the effect was enhanced when the stimulus presentation was lateralized. This aligns with the idea that attentional shifts differ between central and peripheral vision and that cognitive system computes various spatial maps for stimulus and response. In the case of response execution, smooth pursuit type eye movements had no effect on the motion-based SRC effect, regardless of stimulus location.