Average orientation is more accessible through object boundaries than surface features

In a glance, the visual system can provide a summary of some kinds of information about objects in a scene. We explore how summary information about orientation is extracted and find that some representations of orientation are privileged over others. Participants judged the average orientation of either a set of 6 bars or 6 circular gratings. For bars, orientation information was carried by object boundary features, while for gratings, orientation was carried by internal surface features. The results showed more accurate averaging performance for bars than for gratings, even when controlling for potential differences in encoding precision for solitary objects. We suggest that, during orientation averaging, the visual system prioritizes object boundaries over surface features. This privilege for boundary features may lead to a better representation of the spatial layout of a scene.     

Visual search for object orientation can be modulated by canonical orientation

The authors studied the influence of canonical orientation on visual search for object orientation. Displays consisted of pictures of animals whose axis of elongation was either vertical or tilted in their canonical orientation. Target orientation could be either congruent or incongruent with the object's canonical orientation. In Experiment 1, vertical canonical targets were detected faster when they were tilted (incongruent) than when they were vertical (congruent). This search asymmetry was reversed for tilted canonical targets. The effect of canonical orientation was partially preserved when objects were high-pass filtered, but it was eliminated when they were low-pass filtered, rendering them as unfamiliar shapes (Experiment 2). The effect of canonical orientation was also eliminated by inverting the objects (Experiment 3) and in a patient with visual agnosia (Experiment 4). These results indicate that orientation search with familiar objects can be modulated by canonical orientation, and they indicate a top-down influence on orientation processing.     

A dissociation between object manipulation spatial ability and spatial orientation ability

We developed psychometric tests of spatial orientation ability, in which people are shown a two-dimensional array of objects, imagine taking a perspective within the array, and indicate the direction to a target object from this perspective. Patterns of errors on these tests were consistent with experimental studies of perspective taking. Characteristic errors and verbal protocols supported the validity of the perspective-taking tests, suggesting that people encoded the objects in the display with respect to a body-centered coordinate system when the imagined perspective was more than 90 degrees different from the orientation of the display. By comparing alternative models in a confirmatory factor analysis, we found that the ability to mentally rotate and manipulate an imagined object (as measured by tests of spatial visualization and spatial relations) and the ability to reorient the imagined self (as measured by the perspective-taking tests) are separable spatial abilities.     

Guiding others for their own good: Action orientation is associated with prosocial enactment of the implicit power motive

Prior research has repeatedly documented how people who are implicitly motivated by power motives may hurt other people’s interests. However, people may also enact the implicit power motive (nPower) in a prosocial manner. Using an Operant Motive Test, the authors differentiated five enactment strategies within nPower and investigated personality antecedents and personal benefits of a prosocial enactment strategy. Two studies found that demand-related action orientation (i.e., ability to self-regulate positive affect) was associated with prosocial enactment of nPower. Furthermore, prosocial enactment of nPower was associated with a higher explicit power motive among future teachers (Study 1) and future psychologists (Study 2). Finally, there was an indirect effect of action orientation through the prosocial enactment of nPower on the explicit power motive (Studies 1 and 2) and, in turn, on well-being (Study 2). Our integration of motivation and self-regulation research (the “what” and “how” of goal striving) helps to better understand the dual nature of power motives.     

Identification reaction time as a function of target and field object orientation

Four experiments were conducted investigating the effects of (a) target versus field object orientation, (b) target upside up versus target upside down and (c) inverting versus noninverting lenses on object identification reaction time. Inverting versus noninverting lenses had no significant effect. Target versus field orientation was significant when objects commonly found on a desk were used. Target upside up versus upside down was not significant. With letters as target and field objects, orientation was not significant. When the target letters were simply inverted (rotated 180 degrees on the horizontal axis), however, forming nonfamiliar patterns, the target upside up versus upside down was significant, with the upside down condition resulting in a longer mean reaction time. The complexity and similarity of target and field objects is offered as an explanation of the results.     

Sexual orientation and spatial position effects on selective forms of object location memory

Prior research has demonstrated robust sex and sexual orientation-related differences in object location memory in humans. Here we show that this sexual variation may depend on the spatial position of target objects and the task-specific nature of the spatial array. We tested the recovery of object locations in three object arrays (object exchanges, object shifts, and novel objects) relative to veridical center (left compared to right side of the arrays) in a sample of 35 heterosexual men, 35 heterosexual women, and 35 homosexual men. Relative to heterosexual men, heterosexual women showed better location recovery in the right side of the array during object exchanges and homosexual men performed better in the right side during novel objects. However, the difference between heterosexual and homosexual men disappeared after controlling for IQ. Heterosexual women and homosexual men did not differ significantly from each other in location change detection with respect to task or side of array. These data suggest that visual space biases in processing categorical spatial positions may enhance aspects of object location memory in heterosexual women.     

Attentional effects on orientation judgements are dependent on memory consolidation processes

Are the effects of memory and attention on perception synergistic, antagonistic, or independent? Tested separately, memory and attention have been shown to affect the accuracy of orientation judgements. When multiple stimuli are presented sequentially versus simultaneously, error variance is reduced. When a target is validly cued, precision is increased. What if they are manipulated together? We combined memory and attention manipulations in an orientation judgement task to answer this question. Two circular gratings were presented sequentially or simultaneously. On some trials a brief luminance cue preceded the stimuli. Participants were cued to report the orientation of one of the two gratings by rotating a response grating. We replicated the finding that error variance is reduced on sequential trials. Critically, we found interacting effects of memory and attention. Valid cueing reduced the median, absolute error only when two stimuli appeared together and improved it to the level of performance on uncued sequential trials, whereas invalid cueing always increased error. This effect was not mediated by cue predictiveness; however, predictive cues reduced the standard deviation of the error distribution, whereas nonpredictive cues reduced “guessing”. Our results suggest that, when the demand on memory is greater than a single stimulus, attention is a bottom-up process that prioritizes stimuli for consolidation. Thus attention and memory are synergistic.     

Why there are no good arguments for any interesting version of determinism

This paper considers the empirical evidence that we currently have for various kinds of determinism that might be relevant to the thesis that human beings possess libertarian free will. Libertarianism requires a very strong version of indeterminism, so it can be refuted not just by universal determinism, but by some much weaker theses as well. However, it is argued that at present, we have no good reason to believe even these weak deterministic views and, hence, no good reason—at least from this quarter—to doubt that we are libertarian free. In particular, the paper responds to various arguments for neural and psychological determinism, arguments based on the work of people like Honderich, Tegmark, Libet, Velmans, Wegner, and Festinger.     

重视“养生”是件好事

继前些时候五百学者在南昌研讨"道教思想与中国社会发展进步"之后,近日学者们又云集广州,研讨"道教与养生". "道"的治身、养生说,以黄老"天人合一,气化宇宙"之说为基础,认为在天地为阴阳二气,周流运行不止;在人身为元神精气,生命存活之本.天地间道气长存,生生不息,人身中元神精气亦可锻炼保养.这其中有对人与自然关系和谐的讲究,也有对人自身调适和谐的学问.     

The open-object illusion: size perception is greatly influenced by object boundaries

This study presents a new powerful visual illusion, in which simple “open” objects—ones with missing boundaries—are perceived as bigger than the same size, fully “closed” objects. In a series of experiments that employed a continuous-response adjustment procedure, it was found that the lack of vertical boundaries inflated the perceived width of an object, whereas the lack of horizontal boundaries inflated its perceived length. The effect was highly robust and it was replicated across different stimulus types and experimental parameters, with almost all observers exhibiting a strong effect. In contrast to the overestimation of the size of an object due to missing boundaries, the inclusion of inner boundaries within an object caused observers to underestimate its size, suggesting that filled space sometimes shrinks, rather than inflates, the perceived size of an object. The open-object illusion bears practical implications for graphics and design as well as important theoretical implications. Specifically, it indicates that the perception of an object’s area is not veridical but rather critically depends on contour closure. It is suggested that the visual system extends the missing boundaries of open contour objects, which results in an overestimation of the object’s size.     

Further evidence that object-based correspondence effects are primarily modulated by object location not by grasping affordance

Tipper, Paul and Hayes found object-based correspondence effects for door-handle stimuli for shape judgments but not colour. They reasoned that a grasping affordance is activated when judging dimensions related to a grasping action (shape), but not for other dimensions (colour). Cho and Proctor, however, found the effect with respect to handle position when the bases of the door handles were centred (so handles were positioned left or right; the base-centred condition) but not when the handles were centred (the object-centred condition), suggesting that the effect is driven by object location, not grasping affordance. We conducted an independent replication of Cho and Proctor's design, but with behavioural and event-related potential measures. Participants made shape judgments in Experiment 1 and colour judgments in Experiment 2 on the same door-handle objects. Correspondence effects on response time and errors were obtained in both experiments for the base-centred condition but not the object-centred condition. Effects were absent in the P1 and N1 data, which are consistent with the hypothesis of little binding between visual processing of grasping component and action. These findings question the grasping-affordance view but support a spatial-coding view, suggesting that correspondence effects are modulated primarily by object location.     

Visual perception of orientation is categorical near vertical and continuous near horizontal

Four experiments were conducted to examine whether visual-orientation information is perceived categorically. In experiments 1 and 3, adult participants sorted oriented line stimuli into broad oblique and narrow vertical or horizontal categories. Experiments 2 and 4 showed that categorical discrimination of orientation occurred only near the vertical-oblique boundary. The data indicate that there is categorical perception near vertical and more continuous perception near horizontal. The results are relevant to the debate over whether categorical perception is derived from perceptual structure, verbal coding, or within-task learning. In addition, the asymmetrical perception of orientation around vertical and horizontal is consistent with the possibility that there may be differences in the functional significance of orientation near the two main axes.     

Confidence in masked orientation judgments is informed by both evidence and visibility

How do human observers determine their degree of belief that they are correct in a decision about a visual stimulus—that is, their confidence? According to prominent theories of confidence, the quality of stimulation should be positively related to confidence in correct decisions, and negatively to confidence in incorrect decisions. However, in a backward-masked orientation task with a varying stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA), we observed that confidence in incorrect decisions also increased with stimulus quality. Model fitting to our decision and confidence data revealed that the best explanation for the present data was the new weighted evidence-and-visibility model, according to which confidence is determined by evidence about the orientation as well as by the general visibility of the stimulus. Signal detection models, postdecisional accumulation models, two-channel models, and decision-time-based models were all unable to explain the pattern of confidence as a function of SOA and decision correctness. We suggest that the metacognitive system combines several cues related to the correctness of a decision about a visual stimulus in order to calculate decision confidence.     

Preference for human body odors is influenced by gender and sexual orientation

Human body odor may contribute to selection of partners. If so, sexual orientation may influence preference for and perhaps production of human body odors. In a test of these hypotheses, heterosexual and homosexual males and females made two-alternative forced-choice preference judgments for body odors obtained from other heterosexual and homosexual males and females. Subjects chose between odors from (a) heterosexual males and gay males, (b) heterosexual males and heterosexual females, (c) heterosexual females and lesbians, and (d) gay males and lesbians. Results indicate that differences in body odor are detected and responded to on the basis of, in part, an individual's gender and sexual orientation. Possible mechanisms underlying these findings are discussed.     

Recognizing a plane-misoriented view of a familiar object is not influenced by the ease of specifying the main axis of elongation of that object

Participants saw three versions of pictures of familiar objects: the original unaltered (axis-normal) pictures, axis-extended pictures in which the main axes of the axis-normal pictures were elongated, and axis-switched pictures in which objects that were originally horizontally elongated were depicted as vertically elongated and vice versa. Relative to axis-normal pictures, axis extension aided decisions about whether the picture of the object was wide or tall, and axis switching hindered these decisions for both upright and plane-misoriented views. Nevertheless, although these axis manipulations clearly influenced decisions about the location of the object's main axis of elongation, axis-switched pictures were no harder to name than axis-extended pictures. Changing the depicted main axis of elongation by axis switching and axis extension did not influence object recognition in itself, whether for upright or for plane-misoriented views. This suggests that specifying the main axis of elongation of an object does not play an important role in the orientation-sensitive processes involved in identifying plane-misoriented views of that object.     

The effects of distractors in multiple object tracking are modulated by the similarity of distractor and target features

Is the effect of distractors in multiple object tracking dependent on the distractors sharing the features of the targets? In experiment 1, observers tracked five targets among five distractors that were identical to the targets and a number of additional distractors that were either identical to or featurally distinct from the targets. Results showed that distractors that are distinct from the targets in shape or color, or are stationary, impair tracking less than distractors that are identical to the targets. However, tracking performance declined as the number of distractors increased, even for featurally distinct distractors. Experiment 2 showed that distractors that differ from the targets on two features impair tracking less than distractors that differ from the targets on only one feature, but only when target tracking load is low. These results indicate that shape, color, and motion information about distractors can be used to distinguish them from targets during tracking, although even distractors with a different feature from the targets produce some interference with tracking. These findings suggest that the effect of distractors on tracking is dependent on top-down settings for target features.     

‘We are the good guys but they are not bad’. In‐group positivity and cognitive performance in preschoolers

The general purpose of this study was to analyse the developmental relations between the early forms of ethnic attitudes, and the classification abilities of the young child. We designed new cognitive tasks within a detection paradigm adapted to preschoolers and attitudinal tasks that were presented as games in a computer screen. Participants were 75 majority‐group children of 3, 4, and 5 years of age. Children's preferences and positive/negative attitudes towards the in‐group (Spaniards) and three out‐groups (Latin‐Americans, Africans, and Asians) were measured. The results showed a remarkable preference and positivity for the in‐group, but not out‐group derogation. Children's cognitive performance, to a greater extent than their age, was positively associated with in‐group favouritism and positivity. On the other hand, we found some interesting differences and developmental changes in children's positive orientation to the out‐groups that are discussed in the last section.