ORCID Profile
0000-0002-5066-8303
Current Organisation
Australian National University
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Sensory Processes, Perception and Performance | Psychology
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 09-02-2023
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2020
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2020
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 04-03-2014
DOI: 10.3758/S13423-014-0593-6
Abstract: Humans appear to rely on spatial mappings to represent and describe concepts. The conceptual cuing effect describes the tendency for participants to orient attention to a spatial location following the presentation of an unrelated cue word (e.g., orienting attention upward after reading the word sky). To date, such effects have predominately been explained within the embodied cognition framework, according to which people's attention is oriented on the basis of prior experience (e.g., sky → up via perceptual simulation). However, this does not provide a compelling explanation for how abstract words have the same ability to orient attention. Why, for ex le, does dream also orient attention upward? We report on an experiment that investigated the role of language use (specifically, collocation between concept words and spatial words for up and down dimensions) and found that it predicted the cuing effect. The results suggest that language usage patterns may be instrumental in explaining conceptual cuing.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 27-11-2021
Abstract: Gaze direction is a powerful social cue, and there is considerable evidence that we preferentially direct our attentional resources to gaze-congruent locations. While a number of in idual differences have been claimed to modulate gaze-cueing effects (e.g., trait anxiety), the modulation of gaze cueing for different emotional expressions of the cue has not been investigated in social anxiety, which is characterised by a range of attentional biases for stimuli perceived to be socially threatening. Therefore, in this study, we examined whether social anxiety modulates gaze-cueing effects for angry, fearful, and neutral expressions, while controlling for other in idual-differences variables that may modulate gaze cueing: trait anxiety, depression, and autistic-like traits. In a s le of 100 female participants, we obtained large and reliable gaze-cueing effects however, these effects were not modulated by social anxiety, or by any of the other in idual-differences variables. These findings attest to the social importance of gaze cueing, and also call into question the replicability of in idual differences in the effect.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 15-05-2014
DOI: 10.3758/S13414-014-0686-3
Abstract: The ability of a stimulus to capture visuospatial attention depends on the interplay between its bottom-up saliency and its relationship to an observer's top-down control set, such that stimuli capture attention if they match the predefined properties that distinguish a searched-for target from distractors (Folk, Remington, & Johnston, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 18, 1030-1044 1992). Despite decades of research on this phenomenon, however, the vast majority has focused exclusively on matches based on low-level physical properties. Yet if contingent capture is indeed a "top-down" influence on attention, then semantic content should be accessible and able to determine which physical features capture attention. Here we tested this prediction by examining whether a semantically defined target could create a control set for particular features. To do this, we had participants search to identify a target that was differentiated from distractors by its meaning (e.g., the word "red" among color words all written in black). Before the target array, a cue was presented, and it was varied whether the cue appeared in the physical color implied by the target word. Across three experiments, we found that cues that embodied the meaning of the word produced greater cuing than cues that did not. This suggests that top-down control sets activate content that is semantically associated with the target-defining property, and this content in turn has the ability to exogenously orient attention.
Publisher: Association of Reptilian and Amphibian Veterinarians (ARAV)
Date: 30-12-2021
DOI: 10.5818/JHMS-07-2020
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2017
DOI: 10.1016/J.ACTPSY.2016.12.008
Abstract: Synaesthesia is the neuropsychological phenomenon in which in iduals experience unusual sensory associations, such as experiencing particular colours in response to particular words. While it was once thought the particular pairings between stimuli were arbitrary and idiosyncratic to particular synaesthetes, there is now growing evidence for a systematic psycholinguistic basis to the associations. Here we sought to assess the explanatory value of quantifiable lexical association measures (via latent semantic analysis LSA) in the pairings observed between words and colours in synaesthesia. To test this, we had synaesthetes report the particular colours they experienced in response to given concept words, and found that language association between the concept and colour words provided highly reliable predictors of the reported pairings. These results provide convergent evidence for a psycholinguistic basis to synaesthesia, but in a novel way, showing that exposure to particular patterns of associations in language can predict the formation of particular synaesthetic lexical-colour associations. Consistent with previous research, the prototypical synaesthetic colour for the first letter of the word also played a role in shaping the colour for the whole word, and this effect also interacted with language association, such that the effect of the colour for the first letter was stronger as the association between the concept word and the colour word in language increased. Moreover, when a group of non-synaesthetes were asked what colours they associated with the concept words, they produced very similar reports to the synaesthetes that were predicted by both language association and prototypical synaesthetic colour for the first letter of the word. This points to a shared linguistic experience generating the associations for both groups.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 04-2011
DOI: 10.1037/A0018740
Abstract: In object substitution masking (OSM) a sparse, temporally trailing 4-dot mask impairs target identification, even though it has different contours from, and does not spatially overlap with the target. Here, we demonstrate a previously unknown characteristic of OSM: Observers show reduced masking at prolonged (e.g., 640 ms) relative to intermediate mask durations (e.g., 240 ms). We propose that with prolonged exposure, the mask's visual representation is consolidated, which allows processing of the lingering target icon to be reinitiated, thereby improving performance. Our findings suggest that when the visual system is confronted with 2 temporally contiguous stimuli, although one may initially gain access to consciousness above the other, the "losing" stimulus is not irreversibly lost to awareness.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 02-2021
Abstract: Visual search is a psychological function integral to most people’s daily lives. The extent to which visual search efficiency, and in particular the ability to use top-down attention in visual search, changes across the lifespan has been the focus of ongoing research. Here we sought to understand how the ability to frequently and dynamically change the target in a conjunction search task was affected by ageing. To do this, we compared visual search performance of a group of younger and older adults under conditions in which the target type was determined by a cue and could change on trial-to-trial basis (Intermixed), versus when the target type was fixed for a block of trials (Blocked). Although older adults were overall slower at the conjunction visual search task, and both groups were slower in the Intermixed compared with the Blocked Condition, older adults were not disproportionately affected by the Intermixed relative to the Blocked conditions. These results indicate that the ability to frequently change the target of visual search is preserved in older adults. This conclusion is consistent with an emerging consensus that many aspects of visual search and top-down contributions to it are preserved across the lifespan. It is also consistent with a growing body of work which challenges the neurocognitive theories of ageing that predict sweeping deficits in complex top-down components of cognition.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Date: 10-2016
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2016
DOI: 10.1016/J.COGNITION.2016.10.006
Abstract: When the human brain is confronted with complex and dynamic visual scenes, two pivotal processes are at play: visual attention (the process of selecting certain aspects of the scene for privileged processing) and object in iduation (determining what information belongs to a continuing object over time versus what represents two or more distinct objects). Here we examined whether these processes are independent or whether they interact. Object-substitution masking (OSM) has been used as a tool to examine such questions, however, there is controversy surrounding whether OSM reflects object in iduation versus substitution processes. The object-in iduation account is agnostic regarding the role of attention, whereas object-substitution theory stipulates a pivotal role for attention. There have been attempts to investigate the role of attention in OSM, but they have been subject to alternative explanations. Here, therefore, we manipulated the size of the attended region, a pure and uncontaminated attentional manipulation, and examined the impact on OSM. Across three experiments, there was no interaction. This refutes the object-substitution theory of OSM. This, in turn, tell us that object-in iduation is invariant the distribution of attention.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 22-11-2021
DOI: 10.3758/S13414-021-02392-0
Abstract: The formation of ensemble codes is an efficient means through which the visual system represents vast arrays of information. This has led to the claim that ensemble representations are formed with minimal reliance on attentional resources. However, evidence is mixed regarding the effects of attention on ensemble processing, and researchers do not always make it clear how attention is being manipulated by their paradigm of choice. In this study, we examined the effects of Posner cueing - a well-established method of manipulating spatial attention - on the processing of a global motion stimulus, a naturalistic ensemble that requires the pooling of local motion signals. In Experiment 1, using a centrally presented, predictive attentional cue, we found no effect of spatial attention on global motion performance: Accuracy in invalid trials, where attention was misdirected by the cue, did not differ from accuracy in valid trials, where attention was directed to the location of the motion stimulus. In Experiment 2, we maximized the potential for our paradigm to reveal any attentional effects on global motion processing by using a threshold-based measure of performance however, despite this change, there was again no evidence of an attentional effect on performance. Together, our results show that the processing of a global motion stimulus is unaffected when spatial attention is misdirected, and speak to the efficiency with which such ensemble stimuli are processed.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 06-09-2019
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 02-01-2020
DOI: 10.3758/S13423-019-01690-X
Abstract: Emotion-induced blindness (EIB) is the impaired processing of neutral images when they are preceded in close temporal proximity by an emotive distractor. Dual-stream EIB contains two visual streams so the distractor and target can appear in either the same or opposite streams. Results from these studies suggest that the EIB effect is spatially localised. That is, for EIB to occur, the target must appear in the same stream as the distractor. An early spatially localised attention model has been proposed to account for these results. However, such an explanation is incompatible with the involvement of a high-level attentional-bottleneck in the processing of emotive stimuli. Here we propose and test an alternative account of the dual-stream EIB findings - specifically, a vigilance-avoidance (VA) account that is compatible with the high-level attentional bottleneck. We tested this model by using both negative and positive distractors and by measuring the trait anxiety of the participants. VA predicts that spatial localisation of the EIB effect would only occur with negative (threat-based) distractors with participants who have high levels of trait anxiety and that for all other conditions EIB would be obtained in both streams, while the early-localised-attention account predicts spatial localisation for both types of distractors, regardless of trait-anxiety levels. Results supported the VA model. This means that the results of EIB studies as a whole are consistent with conventional-attentional-bottleneck theories and therefore support the use of the EIB paradigm to investigate the impact of emotive stimuli on attentional processing.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 14-06-2022
DOI: 10.3758/S13414-022-02525-Z
Abstract: Scientists have long been interested in understanding the influence of emotionally salient stimuli on attention and perception. One experimental paradigm that has shown great promise in demonstrating the effect of such stimuli is emotion-induced blindness. That is, when emotionally salient stimuli are presented in a rapid stream of stimuli, they produce impairments in the perception of task-relevant stimuli, even though they themselves are task irrelevant. This is known as emotion-induced blindness, and it is a profound and robust form of attentional bias. Here, we review the literature on emotion-induced blindness, such as identifying the types of stimuli that elicit it, and its temporal dynamics. We discuss the role of dimensional versus categorical approaches to emotion in relation to emotion-induced blindness. We also synthesize the work examining whether certain in iduals, such as those high in anxiety versus psychopathy, succumb to emotion-induced blindness to different extents, and we discuss whether the deficit can be reduced or even abolished. We review the theoretical models that have been proposed to explain the phenomenon. Finally, we identify exciting questions for future research, and elucidate useful frameworks to guide future investigations.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 25-03-2014
DOI: 10.3758/S13423-014-0622-5
Abstract: A growing body of evidence indicates that the perception of visual stimuli is altered when they occur near the observer's hands, relative to other locations in space (see Brockmole, Davoli, Abrams, & Witt, 2013, for a review). Several accounts have been offered to explain the pattern of performance across different tasks. These have typically focused on attentional explanations (attentional prioritization and detailed attentional evaluation of stimuli in near-hand space), but more recently, it has been suggested that near-hand space enjoys enhanced magnocellular (M) input. Here we differentiate between the attentional and M-cell accounts, via a task that probes the roles of position consistency and color consistency in determining dynamic object correspondence through occlusion. We found that placing the hands near the visual display made observers use only position consistency, and not color, in determining object correspondence through occlusion, which is consistent with the fact that M cells are relatively insensitive to color. In contrast, placing observers' hands far from the stimuli allowed both color and position contribute. This provides evidence in favor of the M-cell enhancement account of altered vision near the hands.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 10-05-2019
Abstract: One of the core ways that attentional resources can be regulated is the breadth of attention: the tendency to concentrate one’s attentional resources over a small region of space (i.e., “narrow scope”), or to spread them over a larger region of space (i.e., “broad scope”). It has long been understood that humans have a preference towards the broad or global level of processing. More recently, beyond any static preference, researchers have increasingly appreciated the importance of rapid rescaling of attentional breadth to meet task demands, especially for real-world tasks such as driving. Here, we examined whether there was any asymmetry in the human capacity to resize attention from a narrow to broad scale (expansion) versus a broad to narrow scale (contraction). In Experiment 1, we found remarkable symmetry in expansion and contraction efficiency, even under conditions where the global stimuli were demonstrably more salient. This indicates that humans can flexibly adapt to the attentional demands of the context. However, in Experiment 2, an asymmetry was revealed, whereby attentional expansion was more efficient than contraction. The key difference between Experiments 1 and 2 was whether or not the initial baseline block demanded frequent attentional resizing, suggesting that recent experience can impact attentional flexibility. We also found reliable in idual differences in participants’ ability to resize their attentional breadth, identifying a group of high-flexibility in iduals who excelled at both attentional expansion and contraction.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 18-04-2013
Abstract: Object-substitution masking (OSM) is thought to reflect a failure of object in iduation. That is, a briefly presented target surrounded by four dots is perceptually fused with the four-dot mask when the mask is visible after the target has disappeared, thereby obscuring the visibility of the target. If OSM depends on the inability to temporally segregate objects, then increasing the temporal precision of the visual system should reduce OSM. In the study reported here, we manipulated temporal precision by varying the proximity of participants’ hands to visual stimuli, because stimuli in near-hand space have been found to enjoy enhanced attentional processing, and attention is known to speed visual processing. Hand placement was indeed found to affect OSM: Placing participants’ hands near the visual stimuli reduced the magnitude of the masking. This finding demonstrates that object in iduation can be facilitated by increasing the temporal resolution of vision via increasing the proximity of visual stimuli to the hands.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 16-03-2017
DOI: 10.3758/S13414-017-1306-9
Abstract: There are volumes of information available to process in visual scenes. Visual spatial attention is a critically important selection mechanism that prevents these volumes from overwhelming our visual system's limited-capacity processing resources. We were interested in understanding the effect of the size of the attended area on visual perception. The prevailing model of attended-region size across cognition, perception, and neuroscience is the zoom-lens model. This model stipulates that the magnitude of perceptual processing enhancement is inversely related to the size of the attended region, such that a narrow attended-region facilitates greater perceptual enhancement than a wider region. Yet visual processing is subserved by two major visual pathways (magnocellular and parvocellular) that operate with a degree of independence in early visual processing and encode contrasting visual information. Historically, testing of the zoom-lens has used measures of spatial acuity ideally suited to parvocellular processing. This, therefore, raises questions about the generality of the zoom-lens model to different aspects of visual perception. We found that while a narrow attended-region facilitated spatial acuity and the perception of high spatial frequency targets, it had no impact on either temporal acuity or the perception of low spatial frequency targets. This pattern also held up when targets were not presented centrally. This supports the notion that visual attended-region size has dissociable effects on magnocellular versus parvocellular mediated visual processing.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2022
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 09-08-2010
Abstract: In object-substitution masking (OSM), a sparse, common-onset mask impairs perception of a target when the mask’s offset is later than the target’s offset and spatial attention is dispersed. OSM is thought to reflect the interaction of feed-forward and reentrant processes in the brain: Upon stimulus presentation, a low-resolution representation of the target and mask progresses from sensory to anterior brain regions, triggering reentrant processing to confirm stimulus identity. It is hypothesized that dispersing spatial attention prolongs the required reentrant iterations, increasing the likelihood that only the lingering mask stimulus will remain physically present and thus substitute for the target in consciousness. However, empirically, it remains unclear whether substitution stems from delayed feed-forward or reentrant processing. Here, we demonstrate that delayed reentrant processing causes OSM, by showing that a task tapping high-level brain regions involved in reentrant processing leads to a spatially attended target being replaced by the mask. Our results confirm a key role for reentrant processing in conscious perception.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2014
DOI: 10.1037/A0035769
Abstract: The human visual system is continuously confronted with dynamic visual input. One challenge that the visual system must solve, therefore, is recognizing when two distinct objects have appeared at a given location despite their brief presentation and rapid succession, that is, temporal object segmentation. Here we examined the role of magnocellular neurons in this process. We measured temporal object segmentation via object substitution masking (OSM), which reflects the failure to distinguish the target and mask as distinct objects through time. We isolated the selective role of magnocellular neurons by comparing performance under conditions of pulsed luminance pedestals, which are designed to saturate the magnocellular response, with that in a steady-pedestal condition that leaves both magnocellular and parvocellular channels available to process the target. Across two experiments, we found that OSM magnitude was enhanced under pulsed-pedestal conditions, in which the magnocellular response was impaired. This indicates that magnocellular neurons contribute to temporal object segmentation. Given that temporal object segmentation has consequences for which stimuli are consciously perceived, this demonstrates a functional mechanism via which magnocellular neurons contribute to determining the contents conscious perception. Implications for models of specialization of dorsal and ventral cortical streams are discussed.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 10-2019
DOI: 10.1037/XHP0000682
Abstract: Object in iduation: is the process whereby the brain infers that dynamic input reflects multiple discrete objects, rather than a single, continuing object over time. Object substitution masking: is a popular method for operationalizing object in iduation inferences in the laboratory. Although object substitution masking was historically thought to interact with attentional processes, an emerging body of literature indicates that this form of visual masking is impervious to some attentional manipulations. However, one form of attention that has not been systematically studied in relation to object-substitution masking is endogenous attentional orienting. This is important because in other domains, endogenous attentional orienting has been found to have qualitatively distinct effects from other forms of attention, including impacting visual perception when other forms of attention do not. Therefore, if attention does interact with object in iduation processes, then endogenous attentional orienting is the most likely candidate mechanism for such a relationship. Here, therefore, the impact of endogenous attentional on object-substitution masking was tested. Across 2 experiments, although endogenous attentional orienting impacted overall target perception, it had no impact on object substitution masking. This implies that object in iduation inferences are indeed independent of attention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2021
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 06-11-2012
DOI: 10.1007/S00426-012-0461-9
Abstract: The ideomotor theory of action posits that the cognitive representation of an action includes the learned perceptual effects of the action. Support for this theory has come from studies demonstrating how perceptual features that match the outcome of a response can facilitate selection of that response. We investigated another, complementary implication of ideomotor theory: would a bias toward selecting a response result in a perceptual bias toward the known effect of the response? In other words, would an action tendency direct attention to the anticipated perceptual features? Through an initial acquisition phase, participants learned that two possible responses (left/right keypress) consistently produced two distinct colors. Next, in a test phase, we manipulated response bias at the beginning of each trial, using an uninformative spatial prime presented at the left or right periphery. We then examined the extent to which color transients that either matched or mismatched the induced response bias can orient participants' visual attention. Results revealed a perceptual bias toward the color effect of the primed response, manifested in a stronger visual orienting toward this color. Thus, biasing response selection can bias perception. These findings extend the scope of the ideomotor theory to visual perceptual processes.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 27-04-2020
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 09-07-2023
DOI: 10.1111/JOPY.12861
Abstract: To assess whether there are in idual differences in emotional reactions to bistable images, and if so, to identify some of the psychological factors that predict them. Bistable images – which have two competing perceptual interpretations – have long been used in the scientific study of consciousness. Here we applied a different lens and investigated emotional reactions to them. Participants were adult humans in a cross‐sectional study. Participants were presented with three bistable images and rated their emotional reactions to experiencing bistability. They also completed measures of intolerance of uncertainty, cognitive empathy, affective empathy, and negative affect. There were marked in idual differences in these reactions, ranging from feeling highly negative to highly positive. These in idual differences in emotional response to bistability were linked to a number of psychological processes: intolerance of uncertainty, cognitive empathy, and negative affect, but not affective empathy. These finding have important implications because: (a) these emotional reactions could distort scientific investigations that use these stimuli to study non‐emotional perceptual and cognitive processes and (b) they highlight that this approach offers a useful window into how in iduals react to these stimuli that demonstrate that there is not always a single viable interpretation of the world around us.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2022
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2018
DOI: 10.1016/J.ACTPSY.2018.06.009
Abstract: Spatial attention is a necessary cognitive process, allowing for the direction of limited capacity resources to varying locations in the visual field for improved visual processing. Thus, understanding how ageing influences these processes is vital. The current study explored the relationship between the spatial spread of attention and healthy ageing using an inhibition of return task to tap visual attention processing. This task allowed us to measure the spatial distribution of inhibition, and thus acted as a marker for attentional spread. Past research has indicated minimal age differences in inhibitory spread. However, these studies used placeholder stimuli, which may have restricted the range over which age differences could be reliably measured. To address this, in Experiment One, we measured the relationship between the spatial spread of inhibition and healthy ageing using a method which did not employ placeholders. In contrast to past research, an age difference in inhibitory spread was observed, where in comparison to younger adults, older adults exhibited a relatively restricted spread of attention. Experiment Two then confirmed these findings, by directly comparing inhibitory spread for placeholder present and placeholder absent conditions, across younger and older adults. Again, it was found that age differences in inhibitory spread emerged, but only in the placeholder absent condition. Possible reasons for the observed age differences in attention are discussed.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 30-04-2021
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2019
DOI: 10.1016/J.CONCOG.2019.01.008
Abstract: Psychological science has long been cleaved by a fundamental ide between researchers who experimentally manipulate variables and those who measure existing in idual-differences. Increasingly, however, researchers are appreciating the value of integrating these approaches. Here, we used visual attention research as a case-in-point for how this gap can be bridged. Traditionally, researchers have predominately adopted experimental approaches to investigating visual attention. Increasingly, however, researchers are integrating in idual-differences approaches with experimental approaches to answer novel and innovative research questions. However, in idual differences research challenges some of the core assumptions and practices of experimental research. The purpose of this review, therefore, is to provide a timely summary and discussion of the key issues. While these are contextualised in the field of visual attention, the discussion of these issues has implications for psychological research more broadly. In doing so, we provide eight practical recommendations for proposed solutions and novel avenues for research moving forward.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 03-2023
DOI: 10.1037/XGE0001294
Abstract: The detection of particular targets is critical in applied contexts, such as identifying cancers in diagnostic medical imaging and finding weapons in airport baggage security screening. Missed targets can have dire consequences in such contexts. These contexts are also typically characterized by low prevalence or rare targets such that most searched-through images do not contain targets. A substantive body of evidence demonstrates that humans are much more likely to miss targets when they are rare. Therefore, it is critical to understand the factors that may mitigate or exacerbate this general tendency to miss rare targets. The present study considered the relative role of in idual differences in cognitive failures, cognitive empathy, and negative affect (i.e., depression, anxiety, and stress) in predicting the detection of rare targets. Across two experiments, there was evidence that in iduals experiencing elevated cognitive failures were more likely to miss the rare targets. In Experiment 1, negative affect was also related to performance, but it was only cognitive failures that made a unique contribution to explaining target-present accuracy when they were pitted against one another. There was no evidence that cognitive empathy was linked to performance. These findings have important theoretical implications and also highlight potential avenues for intervention to improve the detection of rare targets. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 11-07-2016
DOI: 10.3758/S13428-015-0625-9
Abstract: Humans appear to rely on spatial mappings to describe and represent concepts. In particular, conceptual cueing refers to the effect whereby after reading or hearing a particular word, the location of observers' visual attention in space can be systematically shifted in a particular direction. For ex le, words such as "sun" and "happy" orient attention upwards, whereas words such as "basement" and "bitter" orient attention downwards. This area of research has garnered much interest, particularly within the embodied cognition framework, for its potential to enhance our understanding of the interaction between abstract cognitive processes such as language and basic visual processes such as attention and stimulus processing. To date, however, this area has relied on subjective classification criteria to determine whether words ought to be classified as having a meaning that implies "up" or "down." The present study, therefore, provides a set of 498 items that have each been systematically rated by over 90 participants, providing refined, continuous measures of the extent to which people associate given words with particular spatial dimensions. The resulting database provides an objective means to aid item-selection for future research in this area.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 06-10-2018
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 22-02-2016
DOI: 10.3758/S13414-016-1073-Z
Abstract: The visual system is constantly bombarded with dynamic input. In this context, the creation of enduring object representations presents a particular challenge. We used object-substitution masking (OSM) as a tool to probe these processes. In particular, we examined the effect of target-like stimulus repetitions on OSM. In visual crowding, the presentation of a physically identical stimulus to the target reduces crowding and improves target perception, whereas in spatial repetition blindness, the presentation of a stimulus that belongs to the same category (type) as the target impairs perception. Across two experiments, we found an interaction between spatial repetition blindness and OSM, such that repeating a same-type stimulus as the target increased masking magnitude relative to presentation of a different-type stimulus. These results are discussed in the context of the formation of object files. Moreover, the fact that the inducer only had to belong to the same "type" as the target in order to exacerbate masking, without necessarily being physically identical to the target, has important implications for our understanding of OSM per se. That is, our results show the target is processed to a categorical level in OSM despite effective masking and, strikingly, demonstrate that this category-level content directly influences whether or not the target is perceived, not just performance on another task (as in priming).
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 30-11-2016
DOI: 10.3758/S13423-015-0844-1
Abstract: Visual perception is altered near the hands, and several mechanisms have been proposed to account for this, including differences in attention and a bias toward magnocellular-preferential processing. Here we directly pitted these theories against one another in a visual search task consisting of either magnocellular- or parvocellular-preferred stimuli. Surprisingly, we found that when a large number of items are in the display, there is a parvocellular processing bias in near-hand space. Considered in the context of existing results, this indicates that hand proximity does not entail an inflexible bias toward magnocellular processing, but instead that the attentional demands of the task can dynamically alter the balance between magnocellular and parvocellular processing that accompanies hand proximity.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 03-05-2016
DOI: 10.3758/S13423-015-0904-6
Abstract: An important but often neglected aspect of attention is how changes in the attentional spotlight size impact perception. The zoom-lens model predicts that a small ("focal") attentional spotlight enhances all aspects of perception relative to a larger ("diffuse" spotlight). However, based on the physiological properties of the two major classes of visual cells (magnocellular and parvocellular neurons) we predicted trade-offs in spatial and temporal acuity as a function of spotlight size. Contrary to both of these accounts, however, across two experiments we found that attentional spotlight size affected spatial acuity, such that spatial acuity was enhanced for a focal relative to a diffuse spotlight, whereas the same modulations in spotlight size had no impact on temporal acuity. This likely reflects the function of attention: to induce the high spatial resolution of the fovea in periphery, where spatial resolution is poor but temporal resolution is good. It is adaptive, therefore, for the attentional spotlight to enhance spatial acuity, whereas enhancing temporal acuity does not confer the same benefit.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2011
DOI: 10.1016/J.COGNITION.2010.10.013
Abstract: Decades of research on visual perception has uncovered many phenomena, such as binocular rivalry, backward masking, and the attentional blink, that reflect 'failures of consciousness'. Although stimuli do not reach awareness in these paradigms, there is evidence that they nevertheless undergo semantic processing. Object substitution masking (OSM), however, appears to be the exception to this rule. In OSM, a temporally-trailing four-dot mask interferes with target perception, even though it has different contours from and does not spatially overlap with the target. Previous research suggests that OSM has an early locus, blocking the extraction of semantic information. Here, we refute this claim, showing implicit semantic perception in OSM using a target-mask priming paradigm. We conclude that semantic information suppressed via OSM can nevertheless guide behavior.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 02-12-2020
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2021
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2017
DOI: 10.1037/XHP0000395
Abstract: Object-substitution masking (OSM) refers to when the delayed disappearance of a sparse mask that spatially surrounds but does not overlap the target impairs target perception. Two major theoretical accounts have been offered to explain OSM: the object-substitution account, which stipulates that masking occurs when a separate mask representation replaces the target, and the object-updating account, which espouses that masking is the product of a single representation initially containing information about the target that is modified to reflect the mask. Here I critically review the evidence that has accumulated over two decades for the two models, and find the evidence overwhelmingly in favor of the object-updating account. This object-updating account places OSM in the larger framework of related phenomena such as a repetition blindness, apparent motion, and object correspondence through occlusion that gauge how the visual system assigns episodic object representations in the face of dynamic and ambiguous input. Implications for visual cognition more broadly are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 04-2022
DOI: 10.1037/EMO0000764
Abstract: One of the fundamental factors maintaining social anxiety is biased attention toward threatening facial expressions. Typically, this bias has been conceptualized as driven by an overactive bottom-up attentional system however, this potentially overlooks the role of top-down attention in being able to modulate this bottom-up bias. Here, the role of top-down mechanisms in directing attention toward emotional faces was assessed with a modified dot-probe task, in which participants were given a top-down cue ("happy" or "angry") to attend to a happy or angry face on each trial, and the cued face was either presented with a face of the other emotion (angry, happy) or a neutral face. This study found that social anxiety was not associated with differences in shifting attention toward cued angry faces. However, participants with higher levels of social anxiety were selectively impaired in attentional shifting toward a cued happy face when it was paired with an angry face, but not when paired with a neutral face. The results indicate that top-down attention can be used to orient attention to emotional faces, but that higher levels of social anxiety are associated with selective deficits in top-down control of attention in the presence of threat. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 02-05-2019
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 08-2021
DOI: 10.1037/EMO0000883
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 06-2019
DOI: 10.1037/XAP0000180
Abstract: There are multiple well-established situations in which humans' face recognition performance is poor, including for low-resolution images, other-race faces, and in older adult observers. Here we show that caricaturing faces-that is, exaggerating their appearance away from an average face-can provide a useful applied method for improving face recognition across all these circumstances. We employ a face-name learning task offering a number of methodological advantages (e.g., valid comparison of the size of the caricature improvement across conditions differing in overall accuracy). Across six experiments, we (a) extend previous evidence that caricaturing can improve recognition of low-resolution (blurred) faces (b) show for the first time that caricaturing improves recognition and perception of other-race faces and (c) show for the first time that caricaturing improves recognition in observers across the whole adult life span (testing older adults, M age = 71 years). In size, caricature benefits were at least as large where natural face recognition is poor (other-race, low resolution, older adults) as for the naturally best situation (own-race high-resolution faces in young adults). We discuss potential for practical applicability to improving face recognition in low-vision patients (age-related macular degeneration, bionic eye), security settings (police, passport control), eyewitness testimony, and prosopagnosia. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 03-2020
DOI: 10.1037/XHP0000708
Abstract: Originally, the zoom lens model of attention scaling proposed that narrowing attention to a small area of the visual field improves visual perception (Eriksen & St. James, 1986). A large body of empirical evidence supports this model, showing that narrow attention enhances performance in spatial acuity tasks. Despite this, the zoom lens model does not explicitly consider how attention scaling influences different elements of vision, such as temporal processing. More recent models of attention scaling suggest that attentional scaling has different effects on spatial and temporal acuity (Goodhew, Lawrence, & Edwards, 2017 Goodhew, Shen, & Edwards, 2016). However, the evidence to date supporting these models has had one major pitfall: different-sized
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 25-05-2020
DOI: 10.1007/S00426-019-01200-7
Abstract: Object files are a psychological representation that allows the human brain to keep track of objects, as they move and change across time. The question regarding what information is used to in iduate versus update object files has been the focus of considerable scientific debate. Historically, the role of an object's spatiotemporal history was emphasised, whereas more recent work has demonstrated a key contribution from surface features, such as colour. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the role of identity-level information in the formation and in iduation of object files, and how it compares to the contribution of featural information. Using a modified spatial repetition-blindness paradigm, across four experiments, there was convergent evidence that surface features contribute to the formation of object files, whereas the role of identity information was at best much smaller and less reliable than the clear contribution from surface features, and the most parsimonious explanation is that it was not present at all.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2012
DOI: 10.1016/J.COGNITION.2011.11.010
Abstract: When we look at a scene, we are conscious of only a small fraction of the available visual information at any given point in time. This raises profound questions regarding how information is selected, when awareness occurs, and the nature of the mechanisms underlying these processes. One tool that may be used to probe these issues is object-substitution masking (OSM). In OSM, a sparse, temporally-trailing four dot mask can interfere with target perception, even though the target and mask have different contours and do not spatially overlap (Enns & Di Lollo, 1997). Here, we investigate the mechanisms underlying the recently discovered recovery from OSM observed with prolonged mask exposure (Goodhew, Visser, Lipp, & Dux, 2011). In three experiments, we demonstrate that recovery is unaffected by mask offset, and that prolonged physical exposure of the mask is not necessary for recovery. These findings confirm that recovery is not due to: (a) an offset transient impairing the visibility of other stimuli that are nearby in space and time, or (b) mask adaptation or temporal object-in iduation cues resulting from prolonged mask exposure. Instead, our results confirm recovery as a high-level visual-cognitive phenomenon, which is inherently tied to target-processing time. This reveals the prolonged iterative temporal dynamics of conscious object perception.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 22-07-2021
DOI: 10.1177/0261927X211033930
Abstract: Gender stereotypes have endured despite substantial change in gender roles. Previous work has assessed how gender stereotypes affect language production in particular interactional contexts. Here, we assessed communication biases where context was less specified: written texts to diffuse audiences. We used Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) to computationally quantify the similarity in meaning between gendered names and stereotype-linked terms in these communications. This revealed that female names were more similar in meaning to the proscriptive (undesirable) masculine terms, such as emotional.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2015
DOI: 10.1016/J.CONCOG.2015.02.019
Abstract: Synesthesia is the phenomenon in which in iduals experience unusual involuntary cross-modal pairings. The evidence to date suggests that synesthetes have access to advantageous item-specific memory cues linked to their synesthetic experience, but whether this emphasis on item-specific memory cues comes at the expense of semantic-level processing has not been unambiguously demonstrated. Here we found that synesthetes produce substantially greater semantic priming magnitudes, unrelated to their specific synesthetic experience. This effect, however, was moderated by whether the synesthetes were projectors (their synesthetic experience occurs in their representation of external space), or associators (their synesthetic experience occurs in their 'mind's eye'). That is, the greater a synesthetes's tendency to project their experience, the weaker their semantic priming when the task did not require them to semantically categorize the stimuli, whereas this trade-off was absent when the task did have that requirement.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 29-11-2021
DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2021.2009445
Abstract: Emotionally-salient stimuli can capture attention to their spatial location, even when they are not relevant to a prescribed task. Here we tested whether they can influence the spatial
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 06-01-2020
DOI: 10.3758/S13423-019-01692-9
Abstract: An important mechanism used to selectively process relevant information in the environment is spatial attention. One fundamental way in which spatial attention is deployed is attentional scaling - the process of focusing attentional resources either narrowly or broadly across the visual field. Although early empirical work suggested that narrowing attention improves all aspects of visual processing, recent studies have demonstrated that narrowing attention can also have no effect or even a detrimental impact when it comes to vision that is thought to be mediated via the magnocellular pathway of the visual system. Here, for the first time, we synthesize empirical evidence measuring the behavioral effects of attentional scaling on tasks gauging the contribution of the major neural pathways of the visual system, with the purpose of determining the potential factors driving these contradictory empirical findings. This analysis revealed that attentional scaling could be best understood by considering the unique methodologies used in the research literature to date. The implications of this analysis for theoretical frameworks of attentional scaling are discussed, and methodological improvements for future research are proposed.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 03-09-2019
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 07-2017
DOI: 10.1080/17470218.2016.1183687
Abstract: Here we investigated the types of stimuli that modulate the size of the attentional spotlight. In particular, it has been previously shown that conceptual cues that either directly refer to or are semantically related to particular spatial locations can shift attention to that location (known as “ conceptual cueing”). For ex le, reading the word sun or joy can shift attention upward whereas the word boot or hostile can shift attention downward. Here, therefore, we tested whether words could modulate the size of the attended area. Across five experiments, we found that words that either directly referred to, or were abstractly associated with, particular sizes (small versus large) did not change the size of the attentional spotlight, whereas the presence of differently sized stimuli did, as evidenced by faster responses to targets when the spotlight is small than when it is large. This suggests that physical but not conceptual inducers can modulate the size of the attentional spotlight. This highlights an important difference between the regulation of spotlight size and shifts of attention, supporting the notion that they are subserved by distinct mechanisms.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2015
DOI: 10.1037/XHP0000022
Abstract: The human brain is continuously confronted with dynamic visual input, and from this it must infer whether input belongs to a single versus multiple object identities across time. Object substitution masking (OSM), in which perception of a target stimulus is impaired by a temporally trailing 4-dot mask, reflects a failure to segment the target and mask as discrete objects. According to Bouvier and Treisman (2010), OSM only occurs for targets that require binding multiple separate features (e.g., color and orientation) to be identified. In contrast, a target that represents a unique feature is thought to be impervious to masking. Here, however, we show that a single orientation target (a Gabor) is susceptible to masking with an orientation-discrimination task, but only when the mask is similar in orientation to the target. That is, target-mask similarity, rather than target complexity determines masking. A reexamination of Bouvier and Treisman's (2010) results show that they can be explained within this target-mask similarity perspective. This means that the similarity of 2 objects determines whether they will be integrated or segmented across time, rather than the complexity of 1 of the objects in isolation.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 08-09-2018
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2020
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 08-2023
DOI: 10.1037/EMO0001165
Abstract: Recent work has cast doubt on whether the strength of motivation (strength of avoidance or approach tendencies) experienced while viewing emotion-eliciting pictures is dissociable from felt valence (negative versus positive). The present study extended this work by testing specific discrete emotions (amusement, anger, awe, desire, sadness). Previous work has proposed separate motivational direction (avoid versus approach) from valence. In Study 1, participants (
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 13-08-2019
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 16-02-2013
DOI: 10.3758/S13423-013-0400-9
Abstract: Object substitution masking (OSM) occurs when a sparse (e.g., four-dot), temporally trailing mask obscures the visibility of a briefly presented target. Here, we review theories of OSM: those that propose that OSM reflects the interplay between feedforward and feedback/reentrant neural processes, those that predict that feedforward processing alone gives rise to the phenomenon, and theories that focus on cognitive explanations, such as object updating. We discuss how each of these theories accommodates key findings from the OSM literature. In addition, we examine the relationship between OSM and other visual-cognitive phenomena, including object correspondence through occlusion, change blindness, metacontrast masking, backward masking, and visual short-term memory. Finally, we examine the level of processing at which OSM impairs target perception. Collectively, OSM appears to reflect the conditions under which the brain confuses two visual events for one when they are encoded with low spatiotemporal resolution, due to processing resources being otherwise occupied.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 19-03-2021
DOI: 10.3758/S13423-020-01874-W
Abstract: The visual system uses parallel pathways to process information. However, an ongoing debate centers on the extent to which the pathways from the retina, via the Lateral Geniculate nucleus to the visual cortex, process distinct aspects of the visual scene and, if they do, can stimuli in the laboratory be used to selectively drive them. These questions are important for a number of reasons, including that some pathologies are thought to be associated with impaired functioning of one of these pathways and certain cognitive functions have been preferentially linked to specific pathways. Here we examine the two main pathways that have been the focus of this debate: the magnocellular and parvocellular pathways. Specifically, we review the results of electrophysiological and lesion studies that have investigated their properties and conclude that while there is substantial overlap in the type of information that they process, it is possible to identify aspects of visual information that are predominantly processed by either the magnocellular or parvocellular pathway. We then discuss the types of visual stimuli that can be used to preferentially drive these pathways.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 2018
DOI: 10.1080/17470218.2016.1264000
Abstract: Previous psychophysical studies at durations greater than 1000 ms have confirmed the anecdotal reports of an increase in the perceived duration of both positively and negatively valenced emotive stimuli however, the results of studies at durations less than 1000 ms have been inconsistent. This study further investigated the effect of valence on the perception of durations less than 1000 ms. We used both positively and negatively valenced stimuli in order to compare their effects on the distortion of duration, and we tested multiple data points within the sub-one-second range. We found an increase in the perceived duration of both positively and negatively valenced emotional stimuli at all data points. This is consistent with studies at durations longer than 1000 ms and also with models of temporal processing. We also confirmed that Weber fractions, within the range tested, followed the generalized form of Weber’s law.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2015
DOI: 10.1016/J.NEUBIOREV.2015.05.006
Abstract: Visual perception changes as a function of hand proximity. While various theoretical accounts have been offered for this alteration (attentional prioritisation, bimodal cell involvement, detailed evaluation, and magnocellular neuron input enhancement), the current literature lacks consensus on these mechanisms. The purpose of this review, therefore, is to critically review the existing body of literature in light of these distinct theoretical accounts. We find that a growing number of results support the magnocellular (M-cell) enhancement account, and are difficult to reconcile with general attention-based explanations. Despite this key theoretical development in the field, there has been some ambiguity with interpretations offered in recent papers, for ex le, equating the existing attentional and M-cell based explanations, when in fact they make contrasting predictions. We therefore highlight the differential predictions arising from the distinct theoretical accounts. Importantly, however, we also offer novel perspectives that synthesises the role of attention and neurophysiological mechanisms in understanding altered visual perception near the hands. We envisage that this theoretical development will ensure that the field can progress from documenting behavioural differences, to a consensus on the underlying visual and neurophysiological mechanisms.
Start Date: 2014
End Date: 03-2017
Amount: $371,220.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 11-2017
End Date: 12-2022
Amount: $756,576.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded Activity