Perception最新文献

This study examined whether preterm infants possess a predisposition to follow face-like patterns and investigated the potential consequences of limited visual exposure to faces during the first weeks of life in preterm infants who experienced temporary visual deprivation due to phototherapy. The orienting responses (i.e., eyes and head movements toward two types of stimuli [face-like vs. scrambled]) of preterm infants were compared using a visual tracking paradigm. They were divided into two groups: preterm infants who underwent phototherapy for hyperbilirubinemia (experimental group) were compared with those who did not receive phototherapy and had no hyperbilirubinemia (control group). Both groups were assessed at 7 and 14 days of life (i.e., before and after phototherapy for the experimental group). Results demonstrated that both groups presented a preference for face-like stimuli at 7 days of life, which decreased in the experimental group at 14 days. This decrease may be due to the lack of visual experience with faces from wearing safety glasses during phototherapy. The findings supported theoretical views on how visual experiences mediate changes in face preferences.

There are several studies that compare perception for written words and faces. However, many draw conclusions from different experimental paradigms, complicating direct comparison between these stimuli. Such comparisons are of interest because of hypotheses based on neuroimaging and neuropsychological data that face and word processing may have common underlying mechanisms and neural substrates. To facilitate such comparisons, we created a novel paradigm studying face recognition that closely resembles the word-superiority test, in which a letter is more easily identified when it is embedded in a whole word than when seen in isolation or in an unpronounceable random string of letters. Forty subjects each completed both of our tests. In the traditional word-superiority test, they briefly saw a word, a pseudoword, or a nonword, then a single test letter, and were asked if the letter had been part of the initial stimulus. In the face-superiority test, they briefly saw a learned, new, or scrambled face initially, then a test facial feature in isolation, and were asked to respond whether the feature had been part of the initial stimulus. For both categories of stimuli, there were similar differences between real, pseudo-, and non-stimuli. Accuracy was lower for non-stimuli compared to pseudo- and real stimuli, which in turn did not differ from each other. Response latency was greater for non-stimuli compared to pseudo-stimuli, which in turn was greater than real stimuli. Bivariate analyses revealed significant correlations between interstimulus trials for reaction times. Our study replicated a face superiority effect utilizing a similar methodology to the word-superiority test. Additionally, response latencies follows similar patterns in the recognition of written words and faces.

Psychological studies have revealed that people can easily draw inferences regarding others' personal traits from their faces, which has a considerable impact on social decisions. Impressions from faces can be summarized into two orthogonal dimensions: valence and dominance. Owing to their prominence in social relationships, faces appear in paintings across all ages and cultures. These observations lead to the question of whether the structure of trait impressions from illustrated portraits is similar to that of real faces. To examine this issue, we collected trait ratings of illustrated portraits of historical individuals from old Japanese artwork. In the Study 1 section, we applied a principal component analysis to 13 traits by Japanese raters and observed two orthogonal dimensions consistent with the valence and dominance model; the first component was correlated with trustworthiness but not with dominance, while the second component was correlated with dominance but not with trustworthiness. In the Study 2 section, we collected the trait ratings of real faces by Japanese raters and directly assessed the similarity between the two components. Highly similar structures were observed for the illustrated and real faces. Our findings provide evidence that portraits of historical individuals were painted to convey distinctive impressions of trustworthiness and dominance. This suggests that these traits were fundamental dimensions of people's perception in medieval Japan similar to today's society.

Searching for a target amongst distractors is faster when moving an aperture over the search display than when moving the search display beneath an aperture. Is this because when moving the aperture, each item is sampled at a different position, while when moving the search display, all items are sampled at the same position? When moving the aperture, it might therefore be easier to keep track of where one has already searched. Experiment 1 showed that, when the extent of the search display is visible to provide an additional reference frame, participants still found targets faster when moving the aperture. Experiment 2 showed that, even when the aperture and search display constantly moved around the screen together so that remembering where on the screen one had already searched is less useful, participants still found targets faster when moving the aperture. Experiment 3 showed that inverting the mapping between movements of the mouse and the item they were toggled to reversed the outcome: for the inverted mapping, search was faster when moving the search display than when moving the aperture. We conclude that the congruency between the user's movements and the spatial region of the search display that they are sampling from is critical for speeding up search.

Impulsivity is consistently linked to various problematic behaviors, including aggression, substance abuse, pathological gambling, risky driving, and numerous psychopathological disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and personality disorders. This study aims to investigate the relationship between self-reported impulsivity, measured by the Behavioral Inhibition/Behavioral Activation Scales, and emotional states (pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral), in the context of time estimation deviations. A time estimation task was administered to 129 adult participants (88 females) from the community to assess this deviation. The findings reveal that participants underestimated time across all emotional conditions, enhancing our understanding of how impulsivity relates to time perception. Therefore, it is crucial to continue neuropsychophysiological research on impulsivity to explore its causes, manifestations, and connections with other aspects of cognitive and affective functioning. This research will lead to a more precise definition and comprehensive understanding of impulsive behavior.

Studies have shown that the transposed-letter effect is moderated by visual factors, but whether the transposed-character effect in the Chinese language is moderated by visual factors such as contrast display remains unknown. Accordingly, we conducted two experiments using a single-presentation lexical decision task with real words (), transposed-character () and replacement-character () pseudowords that manipulated the visual features of the stimuli, with four characters in the same color or the first two characters and the last two characters in different colors ( vs ) in Experiment 1 and critical characters in plain or highlighted text ( vs ) in Experiment 2, to explore whether contrast display moderates the transposed-character effect. The results revealed that color segmentation and critical character highlighting did not significantly moderate the transposed-character effect. The stability of the transposed-character effect suggests that this effect may be influenced mainly by language factors. This is important for achieving a comprehensive understanding of the transposed-character effect and the core mechanism of the Chinese reading process.

Faces are important communicative signals in humans and face perception is believed to involve specialised mechanisms in the visual system. Several other categories of stimuli are also thought to involve specialised processes, including bodies, letters, places, and food. A recently described face size illusion shows that upright faces appear physically smaller than identical inverted faces. This illusion appears to be highly face-specific, not occurring for other stimulus categories, such as bodies, letters, and hands. In this study, we investigated whether an analogous size inversion illusion occurs for items of food, a category which has recently been found to also involve specialised processes in the visual system. The results provided a clear replication of the face size illusion, with upright faces seen as smaller than inverted faces. In contrast, items of food and everyday objects showed an effect in the opposite direction, appearing larger when upright than when inverted. These results provide further evidence for the highly face-selective nature of the face size illusion. They also provide evidence for a different size illusion which affects visual perception of food.

Perceptual learning is a process of developing the skill to differentiate previously undifferentiated information. In this study participants learned to identify novel objects (feelies). To test the role of visual exploration, objects were viewed from either a side or a top view and displayed as either static pictures or rotating about a vertical axis, with moving objects facilitating more visual exploration. In Experiment 1, a simple object discrimination task was used. Participants reached perfect accuracy sooner in static conditions than in motion conditions, regardless of viewpoint, suggesting that although movement may have promoted greater exploratory activity, the information provided by movement did not influence object shape discrimination. Experiment 2 investigated if a functionally relevant task would necessitate the use of greater exploratory activity for perceptual learning. Participants were required to either (1) think of potential uses for the feelies, (2) think of a predetermined use, or (3) describe the object's physical appearance. Visual exploration of objects benefited learning most in the condition in which observers generated potential uses for objects themselves. The affordance prime promoted functionally relevant learning. The most efficient pattern of learning was observed when participants generated uses for moving objects viewed from the side. These findings suggest that exploratory activity facilitates perceptual learning of affordances.

The scintillating grid illusion induces the phenomena of disappearance and scintillation. However, it is unclear in which peripheral region these phenomena occur. This study aimed to investigate the spatial properties of disappearance and scintillation phenomena in the scintillating grid illusion. In Experiment 1, participants binocularly observed a single-unit scintillating grid illusion and responded whether a white disk and illusory blackness were perceived. As a result, the perceptual region of the white disk was larger in the horizontal direction than in the vertical direction, as well as the perceptual region of the illusory blackness. This result indicates that both perceptual regions have spatial anisotropy. In Experiment 2, the same task as in Experiment 1 was performed with monocular viewing. The results did not exactly reject spatial anisotropy in monocular vision, regardless of the perceptual regions. This study may contribute to understanding how disappearance and scintillation phenomena coexist in the scintillating grid illusion.