The role of perceptual laws in the Rorschach test

The purpose of this study is twofold: to ascertain the perceptual deficits in schizophrenic subjects and to test the assumption that the Rorschach is mainly a perceptual task. Forty-eight subjects participated in the study, distributed in six groups of eight subjects each: normals, affective disorders, and four groups of schizophrenics (chronic paranoid, chronic nonparanoid, acute paranoid, and acute nonparanoid). They were given a perceptual test developed by Fernández-Trespalacios, Bermudez, and Luna (1979). Contrary to previous findings, no differences in the perceptual test were found among the groups. In the second part of the study, a group of schizophrenic subjects was given the Rorschach and the perceptual test in a balanced order. Subsequently, subjects in the experimental group were trained in the perceptual laws they had failed. Comparison of the Rorschach protocols obtained before and after this training failed to show any significant differences in the expected direction, thus questioning the perceptual nature of this test. Interestingly, an increase in negative categories of the Rorschach subsequent to the perceptual training was observed.     

One size does not fit all: face emotion processing impairments in semantic dementia, behavioural-variant frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease are mediated by distinct cognitive deficits

Patients with frontotemporal dementia (both behavioural variant [bvFTD] and semantic dementia [SD]) as well as those with Alzheimer's disease (AD) show deficits on tests of face emotion processing, yet the mechanisms underlying these deficits have rarely been explored. We compared groups of patients with bvFTD (n = 17), SD (n = 12) or AD (n = 20) to an age- and education-matched group of healthy control subjects (n = 36) on three face emotion processing tasks (Ekman 60, Emotion Matching and Emotion Selection) and found that all three patient groups were similarly impaired. Analyses of covariance employed to partial out the influences of language and perceptual impairments, which frequently co-occur in these patients, provided evidence of different underlying cognitive mechanisms. These analyses revealed that language impairments explained the original poor scores obtained by the SD patients on the Ekman 60 and Emotion Selection tasks, which involve verbal labels. Perceptual deficits contributed to Emotion Matching performance in the bvFTD and AD patients. Importantly, all groups remained impaired on one task or more following these analyses, denoting a primary emotion processing disturbance in these dementia syndromes. These findings highlight the multifactorial nature of emotion processing deficits in patients with dementia.     

Visual perceptual abilities of Chinese-speaking and English-speaking children

This paper reports an investigation of Chinese-speaking and English-speaking children's general visual perceptual abilities. The Developmental Test of Visual Perception was administered to 41 native Chinese-speaking children of mean age 5 yr. 4 mo. in Hong Kong and 35 English-speaking children of mean age 5 yr. 2 mo. in Melbourne. Of interest were the two interrelated components of visual perceptual abilities, namely, motor-reduced visual perceptual and visual-motor integration perceptual abilities, which require either verbal or motoric responses in completing visual tasks. Chinese-speaking children significantly outperformed the English-speaking children on general visual perceptual abilities. When comparing the results of each of the two different components, the Chinese-speaking students' performance on visual-motor integration was far better than that of their counterparts (ES = 2.70), while the two groups of students performed similarly on motor-reduced visual perceptual abilities. Cultural factors such as written language format may be contributing to the enhanced performance of Chinese-speaking children's visual-motor integration abilities, but there may be validity questions in the Chinese version.     

Psychometric detection of schizotypy: perceptual aberration and physical anhedonia in relatives of schizophrenics.

We administered scales of Perceptual Aberration (PERAB) and Physical Anhedonia (PHYSAN), traits that may be related to risk for schizophrenia, to 54 schizophrenics, 146 of their first-degree relatives (evaluated for schizophrenia-related disorders), and 178 normal subjects (screened for psychotic disorders in them or their relatives). For both scales, there was a significant effect of group membership. For the PERAB scale, the schizophrenics had higher scores than the normal subjects, who had higher scores than the relatives. For the PHYSAN scale, schizophrenics had higher scores than their relatives, who had higher scores than the normal subjects. Patterns of familial correlations also suggested that physical anhedonia, but not perceptual aberration, may be familial among schizophrenics and their relatives. The PHYSAN scale, but not the PERAB one, may be a useful indicator of liability for schizophrenia among the relatives of affected probands.     

视知觉压力在基本心理能力老化中的作用

信息降格说认为, 感觉功能老化使认知系统难以获得良好的信息输入, 并必须牺牲有限的认知资源获得更好的刺激信息, 使能用于认知加工的资源不足, 造成认知老化。为探讨感觉功能对基本心理能力老化的作用, 该研究采用2(年龄组：年轻、老年组)×4(视知觉压力水平：高、中、低、无噪音)的混合设计, 考察年轻、老年组在相同视知觉压力下基本心理能力的年龄差异。结果发现和无噪音条件相比, 相同视知觉压力下基本心理能力(数字能力、归纳推理能力)的年龄差异减小, 甚至消失, 一定程度上支持信息降格说。视觉功能衰退可能是影响基本心理能力老化的重要因素, 但这种作用受认知资源的调节。     

Early stimulus processing in dysthymia and anhedonia.

Previous event-related brain potential (ERP) research has found that dysthymic subjects differ from control subjects during later stages of information processing. An important issue that emerges from this literature is whether differences found in these ERP components, typically associated with cognitive processing, can be attributed to earlier differences in basic perceptual processing. This study was undertaken to determine whether early processing deficits are apparent in dysthymic persons. Responses of dysthymics (n = 23) were compared with those of anhedonic (n = 15) and normal control (n = 17) subjects. ERPs were recorded while subjects heard tones at 55, 65, 75, 85, and 95 dB. Overall, N1-P1 and N1-P2 components of the ERP increased in a strong linear fashion as stimulus intensity increased. Dysthymics did exhibit a smaller N1-P2 response than normal subjects, which suggests the presence of difficulties in initial perceptual processing.     

汉语发展性阅读障碍儿童的视知觉学习*

研究采用知觉学习经典范式中的视觉搜索任务探讨汉语发展性阅读障碍儿童的知觉学习过程。研究考察了阅读障碍儿童与正常儿童在简单搜索任务、复杂搜索任务和限制时间的复杂搜索任务上的知觉学习特点。结果发现,阅读障碍儿童在复杂搜索任务中初始搜索时间显著长于正常控制组;在限制时间的复杂搜索任务中更进一步发现阅读障碍儿童的反应正确率显著低于正常控制组儿童;而且两组儿童视觉搜索任务的正确率与汉语阅读的识字量成绩存在显著相关。上述结果表明,汉语发展性阅读障碍儿童存在复杂搜索的知觉学习缺陷,这种缺陷可能在某种程度上与儿童的阅读技能发展有关。     

Transfer across modality in perceptual implicit memory

We examined whether words studied in one modality (visual or auditory) would prime performance in the opposite modality in five different perceptual implicit memory tests: auditory perceptual identification, auditory stem completion, visual perceptual identification, visual stem completion, and visual fragment completion. Significant transfer across modality was observed in all five tasks. However, a large proportion of the subjects reported using explicit retrieval strategies during the implicit tests. Those subjects who claimed not to have used explicit retrieval processes during the test phase demonstrated transfer across modalities in the stem completion tests and the perceptual identification tests, but not in the fragment completion test. The results indicate that implicit visual word-fragment completion is unique, in the sense that it relies exclusively on perceptual memory processes, whereas the other tasks rely, in part, on nonperceptual memory processes.     

Feature modulation search: a novel memory search model that extends the perceptual interference effect to musical stimuli

Although most research in the perceptual interference literature has used visual stimuli, recent experiments have replicated this effect using musical stimuli. Two experiments investigated whether musical and visual demonstrations of the effect are produced by a common mechanism by examining whether the provision of incorrect cues would impair melodic object identification in the perceptual interference paradigm. Whereas incorrect cues typically do not affect visual object identification, they reduced melody identification both when the subjects generated the cues and when the experimenter provided them. A novel model (feature modulation search) is presented to account for perceptual interference in musical stimuli. The model has potential applications for the larger perceptual interference literature and for related phenomena in which target-related information impairs cognition.     

The effect of context during word perception in schizophrenic patients

Hospitalized chronic and acute schizophrenics were compared with age- and social-status-matched controls on word perception tests to measure the effect of context on recognition thresholds. In Experiment 1 the method of J. Morton (1964, British Journal of Psychology, 55, 165-180) was adopted to see how related and unrelated contexts influenced word recognition thresholds when both context and stimulus word were presented visually. Experiment 2 was an auditory analog of Experiment 1 and in addition the chronic schizophrenics were selected on the basis of a presence or absence of auditory hallucinations. The influence of context on perceptual thresholds was quite normal in all schizophrenics. However, analysis of the incorrect responses elicited showed that some schizophrenic subjects do produce bizarre or irrelevant responses or perseveration to a greater extent than their controls. These results are explained in terms of automatic and strategic modes of information processing. The automatic processes responsible for the adjustment of perceptual thresholds operate normally in schizophrenics but response production which demands strategic selection and editing of responses is prone to malfunction which results in the observed deviations in the normal use of language.     

Sustained attention and the Type A behavior pattern: the effect of daydreaming on performance.

The present study examined the ability of Type A and Type B subjects to sustain attention during a 40-min visual vigilance task. It was predicted that Type A subjects would perform better than Type B subjects and that the performance of both groups would be related to the frequency of daydreams during the vigil. Type A subjects outperformed Type B subjects with regard to perceptual sensitivity (A') and number of signal detections. Although both groups reported an increase in the number of their daydreams as the vigil progressed, Type A subjects reported fewer daydreams during each period of watch than did Type B subjects. In addition, an inverse relationship was found between the number of signal detections and the frequency of daydreams.     

Sustained Attention and the Type a Behavior Pattern: The Effect of Daydreaming on Performance

The present study examined the ability of Type A and Type B subjects to sustain attention during a 40-min visual vigilance task. It was predicted that Type A subjects would perform better than Type B subjects and that the performance of both groups would be related to the frequency of daydreams during the vigil. Type A subjects outperformed Type B subjects with regard to perceptual sensitivity (A') and number of signal detections. Although both groups reported an increase in the number of their daydreams as the vigil progressed, Type A subjects reported fewer daydreams during each period of watch than did Type B subjects. In addition, an inverse relationship was found between the number of signal detections and the frequency of daydreams.     

M-stream deficits and reading-related visual processes in developmental dyslexia

Some visual processing deficits in developmental dyslexia have been attributed to abnormalities in the subcortical M stream and/or the cortical dorsal stream of the visual pathways. The nature of the relationship between these visual deficits and reading is unknown. The purpose of the present article was to characterize reading-related perceptual processes that may link the visual deficits to reading problems. We identified contrast sensitivity, position encoding, oculomotor control, visual attention, parafoveal/foveal interactions, and saccadic suppression as potential reading-related dorsal stream processes. We then evaluated the role of each process in reading and the status of each process in dyslexia. In theory, a number of dorsal stream processes (e.g., oculomotor control and visual attention) might contribute to reading problems in developmental dyslexia. More work is needed to demonstrate the connection empirically.     

Further studies of a measure of adience-abience: reliability.

Previous studies have suggested adequate reliability for a measure of perceptual adience-abience based on the HABGT in view of significant evidence concerning its construct and predictive validity. The present study explored the test-retest reliability of this scale with 40 process schizophrenics over a two-week interval. Reliability was found to be adequate for both males and females (rho equals .84) for the total scale. The four components of the scale were similarly found to be reliable. No subject changed on retest with respect to adient or abient orientation. Interjudge reliability was very high (rho = .912).     

Effects of extraneous stimulation on visual afterimage serials produced by young schizophrenics

Smith, G. J. W. & Ruuth, E. Effects of extraneous stimulation on visual afterimage serials produced by young schizophrenics. Scand. J. Psychol., 1973, 14, 34–38.- Two groups of young schizophrenics, 20 in each, produced afterimages (Als) of a schematic face in 20 consecutive trials. In one group an acoustic signal was administered at the 8th, 12th and 16th trials. The signal effect in a previous experiment implied that the ongoing adaptive trend was disrupted by a return to the trend characterizing the before-signal portion of the sequence. This result was cross-validated, with particular emphasis put on the regressive characteristics shown by schizophrenics. However, the present schizophrenic subjects seemed to be more resistant to the contraction and eventual mechanization of their adaptive processes being the usual consequence of iteration.     

Cognitive disorders in endogenous psychoses

Cognitive disorders of schizophrenics as well as subjects with affective psychosis were studied with the aid of 10 tests. Differences between schizophrenics and patients with affective psychosis could hardly be detected. Subgroup differences within the two broad diagnostic categories are pointing to the importance of the severity of illness. However, some differences between two small samples (N = 9) carefully matched with regard to several relevant aspects - especially concerning the severity of disorder - show that the diagnostic category is not wholly unimportant. Judged on the basis of these differences, there are probably no deficits of a fundamentally different nature; the assumption of divergent cognitive styles or defence mechanisms considering comparable basic deficits seems more plausible.     

Mueller-Lyer illusion and size estimation performance in schizophrenics compared to normal controls

A size estimation (SE) paradigm and the Mueller-Lyer (ML) illusion were used to examine perceptual disturbances in schizophrenics. 35 reliably diagnosed (DSM III-R) schizophrenics were compared to 20 subjects with no history of psychiatric illness. Perceptual distortions found in previous studies of schizophrenics were only to a certain extent confirmed in the present results. More overestimators were found among the schizophrenics than among the normals on the SE task. The schizophrenics, first of all the chronic patients, also proved to be more prone to the Mueller-Lyer illusion. A reason why the very clear differences between schizophrenics and normals found in previous examinations were not confirmed in the present study, might be that a reliable diagnostic instrument was for the first time used in this kind of study.     

Similarity comparisons with remembered and perceived magnitudes: Memory psychophysics and fundamental measurement

At the outset, subjects learned to associate a label with each element in a set of perceptual magnitudes (visual extents), using traditional paired-associate learning methods. Subsequently, on some trials, subjects indicated which pair of two pairs of labels corresponded to the more similar perceptual referents, and, on other trials, they selected the more dissimilar pair. It is shown that these similarity comparisons satisfy the axioms (transitivity and intradimensional subtractivity) necessary to conclude that they are based on computation of the difference of the differences of analogue-based interval scale representations.The findings also permitted refutation of the idea that memory for elementary percepts arises from their reperception. Notably, the memory exponent was 0.697, but the perception exponent was 0.546, and the reperception idea requires that the memory exponent be the square of the perception exponent (0.546²=0.298). Symbolic distance effects and enhanced response time-based semantic congruity effects, typically found with binary comparisons, extend the range of commonalties found between perceptual and memory psychophysics.     

Ideomotor perception modulates visuospatial cueing

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.     

Multisensory Stimulation to Improve Low- and Higher-Level Sensory Deficits after Stroke: A Systematic Review

The aim of this systematic review was to integrate and assess evidence for the effectiveness of multisensory stimulation (i.e., stimulating at least two of the following sensory systems: visual, auditory, and somatosensory) as a possible rehabilitation method after stroke. Evidence was considered with a focus on low-level, perceptual (visual, auditory and somatosensory deficits), as well as higher-level, cognitive, sensory deficits. We referred to the electronic databases Scopus and PubMed to search for articles that were published before May 2015. Studies were included which evaluated the effects of multisensory stimulation on patients with low- or higher-level sensory deficits caused by stroke. Twenty-one studies were included in this review and the quality of these studies was assessed (based on eight elements: randomization, inclusion of control patient group, blinding of participants, blinding of researchers, follow-up, group size, reporting effect sizes, and reporting time post-stroke). Twenty of the twenty-one included studies demonstrate beneficial effects on low- and/or higher-level sensory deficits after stroke. Notwithstanding these beneficial effects, the quality of the studies is insufficient for valid conclusion that multisensory stimulation can be successfully applied as an effective intervention. A valuable and necessary next step would be to set up well-designed randomized controlled trials to examine the effectiveness of multisensory stimulation as an intervention for low- and/or higher-level sensory deficits after stroke. Finally, we consider the potential mechanisms of multisensory stimulation for rehabilitation to guide this future research.