Attention Perception & Psychophysics最新文献

Vibration perception thresholds (VPTs) are used in fields like health, work, and traffic safety. To assess them, international standards recommend two psychophysical methodologies: the von Békésy method, or variants of the up and down algorithm, for example, the Staircase method. However, their impact on the results of threshold measurement has not been explored much, including on assessments at frequencies > 250 Hz. Thus, this study compared VPT results obtained by the two methods to determine what differences could be found between them. Using the Staircase (3 Down/1 Up rule) and von Békésy methods, VPT assessments were conducted at the pulp of the right index and ring fingers of 30 healthy subjects, at vibration frequencies of 250 Hz, 375 Hz, and 500 Hz. Analysis revealed significant differences between the mean VPTs across the three frequencies, regardless of method (VPTs increasing as frequency increased). Significant differences were also found between results from both methods (lower thresholds with Staircase). Significant differences were further found between VPT results assessed at the index and ring fingers (lower on the latter). However, this was only verified in results obtained using the Staircase. These findings highlight the importance of method selection during experimental design and when interpreting or comparing findings between studies using different VPT assessment techniques. All data related to the study presented in this paper is available at the Open Science Framework (OSF), at the following URL: https://osf.io/3uqsb/overview?view_only=03e228c15a274cb781045e3b61ccb052. This study was not preregistered.

Recently, a new audiovisual illusion, the beep-speed illusion, was discovered in which a visually presented, linearly moving object is perceived to be faster if directional changes occur simultaneously with a short auditory burst compared to a purely visually presented moving object of the same speed. The present study uses this new illusion to test the representation of motion speed in human perception. Across two experiments (each N = 30), the beep-speed illusion was observed with circular motion of the objects and across different speeds of the audiovisual object. Interestingly, the size of the illusion, as well as the precision of the speed estimation as measured by the just notable difference, was not proportional in size to the audio-visual object speed across the different speeds. These results contradict predictions of proportionality in speed estimation derived from classical Weber law, and are discussed in light of recent theoretical developments in the field of motion/speed perception.

Target selection and distractor suppression can be facilitated through learning-dependent processes. Targets are found faster when appearing in a high-probability color or location and distractors produce less interference when appearing in a high-probability color or location. Such effects of statistical learning on attention have been demonstrated almost exclusively in the context of paradigms that do not systematically vary the number of items in the display, precluding assessment of learning-dependent changes in the efficiency of search through successive items, or search guidance. In the present study, I directly measured the influence of statistical learning on search guidance. In Experiment 1, target color and location were manipulated orthogonally, such that the target could appear in a high-probability color, a high-probability location, both, or neither. Location-based and feature-based statistical learning were found to produce additive benefits for search guidance, each reducing search slope, while only location-based learning reduced search intercept. In Experiment 2, the target was never rendered in a particular color, which resulted in participants to some degree filtering items of this color during search, producing a benefit that scaled with the number of items of the critical color presented in the display (i.e., reducing effective set size). Together, the results of the present study highlight an important role for selection history in facilitating search guidance.

Time-to-contact (TTC) is the remaining time for a moving object to reach its observer. A good estimation of TTC is essential in everyday situations such as crossing a road or catching a ball. So far, most studies have only looked at estimation of TTC at constant speed, and in visual condition, whereas it is a multisensory task by essence. In our study, we investigated TTC estimation at constant or accelerated speed for three modalities: Auditory, Visual and Audiovisual. At constant speed, it has been demonstrated that TTC estimation performance is already accurate so the addition of auditory cues would not lead to significant performance changes. However, at accelerated speed, visual estimation of TTC becomes more impaired. In this context, auditory cues were expected to play a more prominent role in improving performance. For this reason, we hypothesized that V and AV performance would be identical at constant speed, whereas at accelerated speed, auditory cues would allow a better performance in AV compared to V. Our results show that observers do use both modalities in the AV condition and therefore demonstrate a multisensory integration, but for both levels of acceleration and better performance is not always observed in the multimodal condition. Specifically, auditory cues lead to an underestimation of TTC, which compensates for the visual overestimation. Therefore, whether multisensory integration has a beneficial or detrimental effect on the performances of TTC estimation depends on the level of baseline error in the visual-only and auditory-only conditions.

Perceptual and action representations consist of multiple independent features such as color and location of an encountered stimulus, or effector and direction of a performed action. Performing an action further establishes bindings between perceptual and action features, so that reencountering one feature retrieves all bound features. When errors are committed, both erroneous and correct responses are usually strongly represented. In Experiment 1, we investigated the binding between erroneous responses and their effects for different types of errors, with the goal of replicating and generalizing a previous single finding. In Experiment 2, we investigated whether perceptual features bind to correct or erroneous responses depending on whether they appear before or after response execution. These bindings had so far been studied separately. Participants categorized letters via key-press responses, and an irrelevant sound was played after their response (Exp. 1 and 2) or before (Exp. 2 only). Then the same or another sound was played, signaling participants to spontaneously choose a response. After an error in the letter task, participants chose the previous erroneous response more often when the sound was repeated than when it was changed. Surprisingly, neither the error type nor the timing of the sound relative to the response modulated this preference. Thus, the data unanimously support binding and retrieval between perceptual features and erroneous responses. Whether and how binding and retrieval also emerge for the nonexecuted correct response, however, seems to depend on contextual factors and might not be as ubiquitous as has been suggested before.

Visual stimuli that have emotional meaning gain priority when competing for perceptual priority. One phenomenon that reflects this is emotion-induced blindness (EIB), in which the quick presentation of an emotional picture impairs people’s awareness of a subsequent target. EIB has been proposed to reflect perceptual competition between targets and emotional distractors, with competition increasing the closer in time they appear to each other. We tested whether exposure to emotional pictures – and practice ignoring them – reduces the competitive edge of emotional distractors, as reflected in reduced EIB. Across two experiments, we probed for reduction of EIB when targets and distractors were separated by three temporal separations: lag 1 (where perceptual competition is strongest), lag 2, and lag 4 (where perceptual competition ‒ and EIB ‒ is weak). In Experiment 1, participants trained to ignore negative distractors, ignore neutral distractors, or simply received equivalent exposure to negative distractors over 720 trials. Analyses appeared to reveal no evidence for an effect of prior exposure when tested at lag 1. Experiment 2 investigated whether effects of prior exposure might emerge when EIB was tested at longer distractor-target intervals (lags 2 and 4) and added an additional, no-distractor comparison condition. Analyses of Experiment 2 provided evidence that exposure to negative emotional stimuli may reduce the competitive advantage of novel negative emotional stimuli, reflected in reduced EIB.

Serial dependence in vision refers to the fact that perceptual judgements are biased by earlier experiences, and has been thought to reduce sensory uncertainty and sustain perceptual continuity over time and space. While vision changes with eccentricity, little is known about if and how serial dependence differs in the periphery relative to fovea. Here we aimed to reduce this gap by comparing serial dependence for centrally and peripherally presented stimuli. Experiment 1 presents a reanalysis of an existing dataset from an earlier working memory task requiring the memorization of differently oriented gratings, presented either centrally or at 15° eccentricity. Experiment 2 also varied pre-knowledge of the item’s location through spatial cueing. Experiment 3 replicated Experiment 1 but with lower contrast levels and equating the probabilities of central and peripheral stimuli. Across all experiments we observed an attractive bias towards the orientation of the preceding trial at all locations. Crucially, this bias was always larger in the periphery relative to the central position, and it was mainly the current item’s location that drove this effect, rather than the previous item’s location. Pre-knowledge of item location failed to influence the eccentricity effect serial dependence, nor did reduced contrast or differential probabilities change the conclusions. Our results thus demonstrate that serial dependence is not equal across eccentricity. The data and the scripts are available at: https://osf.io/v56hn/?view_only=6d4d5bba493b4bc788c3eed8decd8370

In a single glance at a collection of objects, we can appreciate their numerosity. But what are the “objects” over which this number sense operates? Most work in this domain has implicitly assumed that we estimate the number of discrete, bounded individuals actually present in the visual field. However, in many instances we can construe such individuals as potential parts of composite objects that they can create—as when we assemble furniture or complete a jigsaw puzzle. Here, we demonstrate that visual numerosity estimation is sensitive to such part–whole relations, such that the number of items in a display is underestimated when it contains spatially separated but easily combinable objects. Participants saw brief displays containing noncontiguous “puzzle-piece” stimuli, and reported which display had more pieces. Crucially, most of the pieces appeared in pairs that either could or could not efficiently combine into new objects. In four experiments, displays with combinable pieces were judged as less numerous than displays with noncombinable pieces—as if the mind treated two geometrically compatible pieces as being the single whole object they could create. These effects went beyond various low-level factors, and they persisted even when participants were explicitly trained to treat individual pieces as the units that should be counted. Thus, despite the many ways that sets of objects may be construed for the purposes of counting, visual perception automatically takes into account the ways that object parts may combine into wholes when extracting numerosity from visual displays.

Recurring questions in visual perception concern the role of experience and the relationship between parts and wholes. We investigated these questions in an experiment in which observers reported where they perceived a figure relative to a central border in bipartite displays in which the region on one side depicted either: (1) an identifiable configuration of a familiar basic-level object in its typical upright orientation (a “whole” familiar configuration); (2) an inverted version of (1); (3) a part rearranged (PR) version of (1) comprising the same parts as the upright familiar configuration; (4) an inverted version of (3). Previous research showed that regions are perceived as figures more often when they depict upright familiar configurations rather than inverted or PR configurations, supporting claims that familiar configurations are figural priors, but familiar parts are not. Here, displays depicting the four configuration types were counterbalanced over four trial blocks to elucidate the role of parts versus wholes in figure assignment and to examine whether previous experience with one configuration altered performance with another. Results showed that inverted familiar configurations were weaker figural priors than upright, but were stronger than PR configurations, revealing the importance of inter-part connectivity. Moreover, a reliable effect of block was observed for all configurations, revealing a role for familiar parts in figure assignment. Finally, no influence of the type of configuration viewed in block 1 was observed for any configuration in block 2. We attribute the pattern of results to neural populations representing parts and wholes of well-known objects.

Recent research on validity sequence effects (VSE) has drawn on conflict task theories to explain the psychological mechanisms underlying the VSE. This study analyzed a confound-minimized arrow cueing task and a prime-probe task using the aimed-movement method, which separates reaction times into initiation time (IT) and movement time (MT). Neutral stimuli were included to isolate the benefit/facilitation (or cost/interference) effects of the cues (or the primes). Distributional analyses showed that significant cueing effect and VSE only appeared in the IT data. In addition, the size of the cueing effect increased with the extension of the response latencies, mainly attributed to the increase in the cost effect by invalid cues. The size of the VSE did not vary at different response latencies and was mainly reflected by the enlarged cueing effect after previous valid cues. In comparison, the size of the congruency effect in the prime-probe task increased with the extension of the response latencies only in the MT data. Like VSE, the observed congruency sequence effect (CSE) appeared at IT data and the size of it did not vary at different response latencies, but the CSE was mainly reflected by the reduced congruency effect after previous incongruent trials. These findings are discussed and compared with literature findings from conflict tasks. The results indicate that the cueing effect of cueing tasks has qualitative difference with the congruency effect of conflict tasks, but the adaptive cognitive mechanisms (i.e., sequence effects) under these tasks are less different with each other.