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

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).

Where a reader's eyes land in a word both reflects and affects their word processing efficiency. Readers tend to land short of the center of a word, missing the optimal viewing position (OVP), especially when they skipped the previous word. Once they land, landing position error, or the deviation from the OVP, leads to shorter fixations-an inverted optimal viewing position (IOVP) effect. However, deaf readers who are early signers are highly efficient-they read faster, skip more words without negatively impacting their comprehension-and this efficiency may be related to their saccade targeting ability. We investigated the landing positions and fixation durations for reading level-matched deaf and hearing readers in a study run from 2022 to 2024. We found that deaf readers (a) landed closer to the OVP, indicating more accurate saccade targeting and (b) showed smaller differences between landing positions following skipping compared to nonskipping saccades, suggesting their increased word skipping does not incur a penalty like skipping does for hearing readers. They exhibited similar inverted optimal viewing position effects as hearing readers, suggesting their increased saccade targeting accuracy does not come at a cost to word processing. We discuss how their overall reading efficiency may be due in part to their ability to target saccades accurately to the OVP, even after they skip the previous word, and the possibility that this might be related to their wider reading spans. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Lapses of sustained attention cause slips-of-action, but overt errors can be avoided if attention can be reoriented to task demands sufficiently quickly. Despite the ubiquity of such "near misses," little research has been dedicated to examining the speed of attentional recovery after a lapse of sustained attention. The present study investigated how frequently and how quickly participants are able to reorient attention after a lapse in a modification of the Sustained Attention to Response Task that required participants to make two simultaneous responses on target trials instead of withholding responses. On most trials in which a lapse occurred, participants were able to reorient attention well within the timeframe of a single trial, with corrective responses made within ∼200 ms of execution of the erroneous response, faster than responses to targets in a simple target detection task. These findings show, for the first time, that participants are able to rapidly and flexibly reorient attention to task demands after a lapse of sustained attention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Effective gaze-based joint attention requires distinguishing between communicative gaze and private gaze. Eye contact and repeated averted gaze shifts to the same location are key cues for gaze-based communication, but the temporal and perceptual dynamics of these cues in signaling communicative intent remain unclear. This study examines three perceptual properties of dynamic eye gaze displays and their influence on the perception of communicative intent. Autistic and nonautistic participants completed a semi-interactive task with an onscreen agent displaying dynamic eye movements searching for an object. Participants decided whether the agent was privately inspecting the objects or requesting the participant to "give" them one (i.e., attempting to communicate). We manipulated whether the agent displayed eye contact, made repeated gaze shifts at the same object, and the duration of gaze displays. We measured the frequency of "give" responses (indexing perceived communicative intent) and reaction times (indexing response certainty/bias). Participants were most likely to perceive communicative intent following displays comprising eye contact and repeated gaze. Gaze duration was a less potent signal, but increased perceptions of communicative intent in the absence of eye contact and repeated gaze. Autistic and nonautistic participants exhibited similar patterns, challenging the view that autistic people have broad "deficits" in understanding social gaze cues. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Previous studies have demonstrated that attentional selection is biased toward locations likely to contain a target and away from those likely to contain a distractor. These biases are thought to arise from statistical learning, which adjusts weights within a spatial priority map to optimize attentional selection. While prior work has shown statistical learning based on across-trial probabilities, it remains unclear whether individuals can learn associations between distractor and target locations within a given trial. To investigate this, two experiments employed the additional singleton paradigm, in which, sometimes, the location of the distractor predicted the location of the target. Results from Experiment 1 revealed that participants responded faster when the distractor appeared at a location predictive of the target, suggesting successful learning of the within-trial association. Experiment 2, which incorporated eye-tracking, showed that this benefit was not because of proactive suppression, but instead driven by faster disengagement from the distractor, as reflected in reduced dwell times. These findings demonstrate a novel form of statistical learning based on within-trial spatial associations. They also indicate that the spatial priority map can be dynamically updated following attentional selection, a process potentially reinforced by the execution of a motor response. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).