Attention Perception & Psychophysics最新文献

Learned regularities about contextual associations between objects and scenes allow us to form predictions about the likely features of the environment, facilitating perception of noisy visual inputs. Studies have shown that blurred objects that can be predicted based on their scene context appear subjectively sharper than the same objects that cannot. Experiment 1 addressed whether this effect could be modulated by the robustness of context-based predictions. Participants performed a blur-matching task between two images, each depicting a blurred object in context. They had to adjust the blur level of the right object to match that of the left object (Target). Robustness of context-based predictions was manipulated via phase-coherence alteration in scene contexts. Results showed that robustly predicted objects were subjectively perceived as sharper than less predictable objects when the Target object was noisy. Experiment 2 addressed whether object-based predictions also sharpen the perception of scene contexts. Participants performed a blur-matching task between two scenes and had to adjust the blur level of the right scene context to match that of the left one (Target). One scene contained an intact object (predictable context), while the other had a phase-scrambled object (unpredictable context). Results showed that at objectively equal blur levels participants perceived predictable scenes as sharper than unpredictable ones, again only when the Target scene was noisy. These results suggest that perceptual sharpening mainly occurs when the visual signal is noisy and predictions are robust enough to disambiguate it, and reveal reciprocal influences between context- and object-based predictions in shaping visual perception.

Important social information can be extracted from the eyes and gaze of others, such as intentions, states of mind, and the locus of attention. Research investigating people’s ability to interpret social signals has largely focused on the featural properties of the stimuli (e.g., where or how someone looks) and not on the social intent behind those eye movements. To explore this gap, participants were shown eye movement recordings of individuals (“hiders”) selecting hiding locations on a 3 × 3 computer grid. One group of participants was told that these eye movements were from a foe who did not want participants to discover their hiding location (Group Foe). A second group was told that the eye movements were from a friend who wanted participants to discover their hiding location (Group Friend). In fact, both groups saw deceptive (foe) and cooperative (friend) eye movements. When the intent of the hider aligned with participants’ beliefs about that hider—for instance, the hider was acting for a friend and the participants believed the hider was friendly—participants were more likely to correctly select hiders’ locations. Further, participants’ belief of the hider’s intent had a greater impact on interpretation than featural differences in deceptive and cooperative eye movements. The present study reveals that beliefs about someone’s gaze can play a greater role in performance outcomes than any actual changes in the gaze itself. It provides a rigorous and novel paradigm to investigate the complex interaction between the intent of social signals and how those signals are interpreted.

This study investigated ensemble perception of temporal (duration) as well as spatial (size) information with simultaneously and sequentially presented ensembles of different set size. The results showed that summary statistics can be extracted from temporal ensembles as well as from size ensembles, irrespective of whether the ensembles are presented simultaneously or sequentially, demonstrating the domain generality of ensemble perception. Nevertheless, the results also indicate clear domain-specific differences between the two dimensions. For simultaneous ensembles, mean estimates increased with set size for duration ensembles and decreased with set size for size ensembles, suggesting a possible bias by dimension-specific features; in the case of duration by the interoffset intervals, and in the case of size by the overall ensemble size. For sequential ensembles, there was a recency effect for size stimuli but not for duration stimuli, suggesting that the information is integrated for the two dimensions differently. For example, participants might rely on an internal prior formed by memory mixing more strongly in the case of relatively noisy representations of temporal information.

Visual short-term memory (VSTM) is a memory mechanism temporarily holding visual information for later use. In the real world, objects are located in spatial depth and such depth information may be processed when objects are remembered. The present study investigated how VSTM is modulated by three-dimensional (3D) depth. Previous work used the color of objects to measure memory and provided mixed results, and the impact of separability in depth on memory is unclear. In Experiment 1a, we employed color feature and examined the effect of 3D depth across Stereo (stereoscopic vs. monoscopic) and Plane (one plane vs. multiple planes). VSTM was not found to be influenced by depth information. In Experiments 1b and 1c, the color was respectively replaced with two distinct spatial features, orientation and direction-of-rotation. We found similar results that the performance on VSTM was superior in the stereoscopic multi-plane condition compared to the monoscopic multi-plane condition or stereoscopic single-plane condition. These findings confirm, also via Bayesian statistical analyses, that the VSTM can benefit from 3D depth information in stereopsis, while the benefit is severely limited when the task is non-spatial.

As an individual’s goals change, they must flexibly shift the focus of attention. In real-world scenarios, multiple stimuli, each with different likelihoods, can signal that it is appropriate to shift or to hold attention on a moment-by-moment basis. In the current study, we independently manipulated the likelihood of shifting attention and the likelihood of receiving particular cue stimuli by presenting multiple shift- and hold-attention cues to dissociate the behavioral costs associated with violations of shift readiness from stimulus identity predictions. After excluding trials with exact cue stimulus repetitions—where response times were significantly shorter than for other trials—we observed additive updating costs for shift and stimulus identity likelihood prediction errors across two experiments. Together, our results suggest that when cue stimuli do not consecutively repeat, the processes of updating attention-shifting readiness and stimulus identity are best explained by a serial processing architecture. The data, materials, and analysis code for this experiment are available online (https://osf.io/zdtvc/).

The connectedness effect is the tendency to perceive connected items as fewer units, such as two connected dots seen as one. It commonly occurs with intermediate numerosity perception alongside the activity of the approximate number system (ANS), indicating that intermediate quantities are perceived as discrete units rather than continuous magnitudes. The present study explored how this effect influences the enumeration of small numerosities (fewer than 5), which are accurately assessed through a mechanism known as subitizing under normal conditions. In the single enumeration task, where participants enumerated 2–4 dots solely from the indicated target patch prior to stimulus presentation, connectivity did not induce underestimation, indicating that subitizing is impervious to the connectedness effect. Conversely, connectivity led to significant underestimation in the dual enumeration task, where participants had to simultaneously estimate dots in both patches and respond upon cueing of the target patch. Furthermore, the connectedness effect is more pronounced in the simultaneous comparison task compared with the sequential task. Weber fractions for small numerosities correlate with those for intermediate numerosities in the simultaneous comparison task, whereas no such correlation is observed in the sequential task. This suggests that subitizing prevails in single/sequential tasks, while estimation takes precedence in dual/simultaneous tasks under attentional load. The connectedness effect does not impact the subitizing mechanism in single tasks, but it occurs alongside estimation regardless of the number regime, leading to significant underestimation in dual tasks. Approximate estimation relies on segmented objects, rather than continuous magnitude, even for very small numerosities.

This study investigated patch-leaving strategies in mixed hybrid visual foraging scenarios, focusing on how target specificity and the number of target sets influence overall outcomes. In mixed hybrid foraging, participants collect targets from patches with varying types (specific and categorical) and numbers (three or six) of targets. Despite the complexity introduced by having multiple target types, participants’ patch-leaving behavior remained broadly consistent with the predictions of the marginal value theorem (MVT), suggesting that quitting strategies are based on similar rules across different conditions. While overall foraging performance varied with target specificity and the number of sets, patch-leaving decisions consistently adhered to a simple, rule-based approach. This study highlights the robustness of visual foraging strategies and suggests that effective patch-leaving behavior is maintained even in complex visual environments.