Journal of Experimental Psychology-Human Perception and Performance最新文献

The visual system can encode many stimuli simultaneously, but there are limits to how well multiple objects can be identified in parallel. At the extreme, some objects might have to be identified serially. The redundant target paradigm is one tool for distinguishing specific parallel and serial models. It compares responses to displays containing one target versus displays containing two targets. The typical result is a positive redundant target effect: faster correct responses to two targets, as predicted by many parallel models. Here, we generalize three standard models to account for response accuracy as well as speed. Surprisingly, two models predict a reversal of the redundant target effect (slower responses to two targets than to one target): the generalized standard serial model and a specific form of a fixed-capacity parallel model. To test that prediction, we measured performance for three different judgments of written words: color detection, lexical decision, and semantic categorization. The color task yielded positive redundant target effects, which reject the standard serial model. The semantic task yielded consistently negative effects, which are consistent with either the standard serial model or some limited-capacity parallel models. Thus, redundant targets can have negative effects, and they demonstrate limits that impair simultaneous recognition of two words. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Perceived or actual time limits can negatively affect performance of motor tasks. Based on the integrative framework of stress, attention, and visuomotor performance, time pressure should affect visuomotor performance outcomes if it prompts, in turn, perceiving demands to exceed resources, a state of threat, and distractibility. We put this framework to a partial test by examining whether subjective distress, a marker of a state of threat, is a mechanism by which time pressure affects performance in two online studies (Ns = 93 and 148; 2022) of adults in the United States. Participants completed a route planning and tracing task in which we manipulated time pressure using a within-subjects urgency messaging (UM) manipulation. We measured subjective distress and fine motor behavior indexing information processing efficiency, route efficiency, and accuracy. We partitioned the total of effects of UM on performance into indirect and direct pathways and meta-analyzed them. In indirect pathways, UM increased distress which hampered information processing efficiency and route efficiency, but not accuracy. In direct pathways, UM increased information processing efficiency and route efficiency and decreased accuracy. The total effect of UM was to increase information processing efficiency but not route efficiency, and decrease accuracy. In sum, consistent with the integrative framework of stress, attention, and visuomotor performance, perceived time pressure affects visuomotor performance efficiency in part because it elicits subjective distress. Overall, these studies highlight the importance of modeling mechanisms and the utility of assessing two forms of performance efficiency and the effectiveness of fine motor behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Recent research has highlighted the importance of information about adiposity in the visual perception of both bodies and faces. Behavioral and neuroimaging studies have demonstrated the existence of category-selective visual representations of faces and bodies, as well as integrated whole-person representations. It remains unknown whether visual perception of adiposity arises from category-selective or whole-person mechanisms. Here, we show that whole-person representations are involved by showing cross-category transfer of adaptation aftereffects to adiposity between faces and bodies. In Experiment 1, we demonstrate that adaptation to a gaunt face biases judgments of subsequently presented faces, complementing previous research demonstrating adiposity aftereffects in bodies. We then demonstrate cross-category transfer of such aftereffects from faces to bodies (Experiments 2 and 3) and from bodies to faces (Experiment 4). Cross-category transfer, however, was substantially weaker than within-category transfer and was not consistently observed across all individual conditions. A control study (Experiment 5) showed no adaptation when adapting face stimuli were inverted, suggesting that the effects are unlikely to result from nonspecific low-level features of the stimuli. These results demonstrate functional interactions between visual representations of faces and bodies in the perception of adiposity, suggesting the involvement of integrated whole-person representations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

The sense of agency is a fundamental aspect of human experience. Temporal binding, the subjective compression of the perceived time interval between an action and its outcome, has previously been assumed to be an implicit measure of the sense of agency. Here, we investigate whether the characteristic directionality of the temporal binding effect is consistently present at the individual level. We first deaggregated the data from three temporal binding data sets and systematically reanalyzed and revisualized these effects at the individual level. This analysis revealed consistent differences in the directionality of the temporal binding effect at the individual level. We next implemented a validated Bayes factor mixed-method modeling approach (Rouder & Haaf, 2021), which simulated individual true effects in two additional data sets and determined that the observed differences in directionality remained after accounting for sampling noise. Model comparison determined that the least constrained model, that is, the one that allowed for individual differences in the magnitude and directionality of the effect, was the best fitting model. These results provide strong support for the presence of qualitative differences in the temporal binding effect. Implications for both the theoretical and applied future of this literature are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Humans and nonhuman animals can anticipate the timing of events to react fast and accurately, an ability called temporal preparation. Events in the environment can be initiated either externally or voluntarily, yet research on temporal preparation has so far focused mainly on externally initiated events. This study examined how voluntary actions influence temporal preparation for visual stimuli. Across four experiments conducted between 2022 and 2024, we compared reaction times using variable and constant foreperiods (FPs). In each experiment, target stimuli were self-initiated (action task) or externally initiated (external task), with FPs ranging from 0.6 to 2.8 s. Participants performed a go/no-go task (Experiment 1) or an orientation discrimination task (Experiments 2-4). We observed slower reaction times for self-initiated stimuli than for externally initiated stimuli, particularly at shorter FPs. The effect diminished as FP duration increased. This pattern was observed only in variable-FP experiments, indicating an interaction between voluntary actions and FP variability. In contrast, a constant-FP experiment did not show significant differences between action and external tasks. These findings suggest that voluntary actions influence temporal preparation in the presence of temporal uncertainty. We discuss how these results relate to current theories of temporal preparation, proposing new perspectives on the role of voluntary actions in shaping anticipatory behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Our attention is influenced by past experiences, and recent studies have shown that individuals learn to extract statistical regularities in the environment, resulting in attentional suppression of locations that are likely to contain a distractor (high probability [HP] location). However, little is known as to whether this learned suppression operates in retinotopic (relative to the eyes) or spatiotopic (relative to the world) coordinates. In the current study, two circular search arrays were presented side by side. Participants learned the HP location from a learning array presented on one side of the display (e.g., left). After several trials, participants shifted their gaze to the center of the test array (e.g., located on the right side) in which all locations were equally likely to contain the distractor. Due to the saccade, the test array contained both a spatiotopic and a retinotopic matching location relative to the original HP location. The current findings show that, following saccadic eye movements, the learned suppression remained in retinotopic coordinates only, with no measurable transfer to spatiotopic coordinates. Even in a rich environment, attentional suppression still operated exclusively in retinotopic coordinates. We speculate that learned suppression may be resolved by changing synaptic weights in early visual areas. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

We present new evidence on the role that action representations play in the speeded naming of tools/utensils. In a series of experiments (minimum sample size = 30), participants held in working memory (WM) a sequence of two hand actions, both of which involved a particular hand (left or right) and orientation of the wrist (horizontal or vertical). While under this load, participants named objects that had a horizontal or vertical handle aligned to the left or right. Naming time was elevated when the WM load and the object's handle were congruent on one dimension (hand or orientation) but incongruent on the other, relative to when both dimensions were congruent or incongruent. We assumed that features of the action sequence in WM, including the laterality and wrist orientation of the hand postures, are bound together. If just one of these features (say, hand laterality) is recapitulated in the object presented for naming, a mismatching feature (in this instance, wrist orientation) would automatically be retrieved from WM. The resulting conflict induces a delay in the naming response (partial-repetition cost). No such effect was observed when the task required a decision about the upright/inverted status or the semantic category of an object (i.e., whether the tool/utensil is typically found in a kitchen or garage). Furthermore, no partial-repetition cost occurred on a speeded reach-and-grasp action afforded by the handle of a depicted object. We infer that the effect of action features in WM occurred because motor representations were directly consulted for name retrieval. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

People vary widely in how strategically they guide their attention during visual search. What drives this variation? We contrasted two possibilities: one in which individuals are predisposed to attend to different stimulus aspects, and another in which individuals flexibly choose their strategies depending on the task parameters. Using the adaptive choice visual search paradigm, we measured participants' search strategies while probing various display features to index how participants attended the displays. Experiment 1 showed that participants who attended the stimulus properties that are essential for the optimal search strategy-specifically, the numerosity subset information-exhibited more optimal performance. In Experiment 2, we made the subset information irrelevant for optimal task performance and found no relationship between attention to the subsets and search optimality, which is consistent with the strategic choice account. Experiment 3 encouraged attention to the subset information without explicitly requiring optimal search. Results showed a small but significant boost in optimality, suggesting that overcoming a reluctance to engage in numerosity judgments fosters better strategy use. Overall, these results help to explain individual variation in attentional strategy use, with optimal searchers judiciously directing their attention to process the critical stimulus properties while nonoptimal searchers avoid doing so. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Studying numerical interferences has become a widely used method for investigating the representations that underlie numerical cognition. Here, we contrast the classic pure approximate number system (ANS) framework and a more recently proposed hybrid approximate number system-discrete semantic system framework with respect to their distinctive predictions for the nonsymbolic and symbolic spatial numerical associations of response codes (SNARC) effect (the most extensively studied interference between numbers and space). We compare the symbolic (Indo-Arabic numerals) to the nonsymbolic (arrays of dots) version of a SNARC paradigm (n = 77). In contrast to previous studies, in the present experiment, (a) the magnitude is irrelevant for solving the task (a color judgment task), and (b) the nonsymbolic stimuli contain arrays of dots outside the subitizing range, ensuring to activate the ANS. We found clear evidence for the SNARC effect in the symbolic color task. However, we found no indication of the SNARC effect in the nonsymbolic color task. This pattern of results supports the hybrid approximate number system-discrete semantic system framework, assuming that the SNARC interference is a symbolic effect while refuting the pure ANS view of the SNARC effect, which necessitates the presence of the SNARC interference using a nonsymbolic format, too. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Negative valence images benefit memory tasks as well as visual statistical learning (VSL) tasks. Another factor that strongly drives memory performance: image memorability-an inherent property of the image regarding its likelihood to be remembered across observers. Here, we examined the influence of image memorability and emotional valence on VSL and the potential role of memorability explaining the benefit of negative valence in VSL tasks. In three VSL experiments, participants viewed a stream of repeating triplets of images. Importantly, the triplets were constructed of varying images in their emotional valence and memorability scores. Memorability significantly influenced VSL performance, with high-memorability images enhancing learning compared to low-memorability images. The benefit of negative valence was also replicated but emerged only under low-memorability conditions. Similarly, when valence was held constant, the effect of memorability was evident only for neutral images. These findings indicate that memorability is a robust and consistent driver of VSL. However, its influence is not fixed, it can be modulated by emotional valence and cannot fully account for the benefit seen with negative emotion. Taken together, our study provides new insights into the role of image memorability in VSL and highlights the importance of considering its interaction with emotional valence in incidental visual memory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).