"Seeing things in my head": a synesthete's images for music and notes

We explored synesthetic experiences (photisms) elicited by music and notes for GS, a 22-year-old female college student, who is a genuine digit synesthete (Mills et al 1999 Cognitive Neuropsychology 16 181-191). After extensive interviews, we conducted five studies using synthesizer notes in different octaves and in different instrument sounds. GS described, drew, or selected her photisms from alternatives. The results were: (a) her photisms had shape, color, movement, and texture: (b) different instruments had photisms with different shapes and families of instruments had similar shapes; (c) low-pitched notes were darker and larger than high notes; (d) instrument and pitch affected each other; (e) a given note was perceived as darker after a high note than after a low note; and (f) GS's drawings of notes became more consistent with repeated trials. Theoretical observations are discussed on the basis of these results.     

Nonexpert Evaluations on Architectural Design Creativity Across Cultures

This article examines the relationship between cultural differences and the nonexpert evaluations of architectural design creativity. In study I, Caucasian Americans (N = 126) and East Asians (N = 137), who did not major in architecture and urban design, evaluated the novelty and appropriateness of 5 unusual architectural shapes, selected by 5 experts in the field of architecture. In study II, the 2 cultural groups selected preferred alternatives from 3 pairs of silhouettes of architectural shapes that were distinctive and indistinctive from the adjacent environments. The data were collected by an online survey tool. Multiple analysis of variance (MANOVA) and subsequent t-tests revealed that East Asians awarded lower scores as regards the novelty and appropriateness of unusual, novel architectural forms, and that they accepted unusual and distinctive architectural shapes less than the Caucasian Americans did. These results indicated that cultural differences between these 2 groups affected the nonexpert creativity evaluations, as introduced in previous cross-cultural studies. The East Asians’ creativity evaluations and preference tests were possibly influenced by their perceptions of contextual information and emphasis on the holistic and interdependent relationships amongst environmental elements, whereas the Caucasian Americans’ evaluations were related to their analytic tendency to be aware of focal objects and independent identity.     

Implicit memory for novel figure-ground displays includes a history of cross-border competition

When configural cues specify that a figure lies on opposite sides of a repeated border in prime andprobe shapes, probe latencies are longer than when prime and probe borders are unrelated. Do such results reflect negative priming for the shape of the prime ground or cross-border competition from figure memory? The present study tested these alternatives by adding partial closure as a competing cue and reducing the similarity between the prime ground and the shape of the probe. Results supported the cross-border competition interpretation. Additional findings were that partial closure is a configural cue and that response effects can emerge from the potential shape on the ground side of a border. One prior experience was sufficient for these effects.     

Do inexperienced bumblebee foragers use scent marks as social information?

Bumblebees (Bombus spp.) foraging in the field typically reject flowers where they detect the olfactory footprints of previous visitors and hence avoid recently emptied inflorescences. A growing number of studies have begun to illustrate that associative learning shapes the development of this process, in both bumblebees and other bee species. This raises the question of what the default response to such marks is, but little is known about how inexperienced foragers use social information. Here, we offered flower-naive bees a choice between scent-marked flowers and unmarked alternatives and found that individuals neither avoided nor preferred marked flowers. Our findings provide no support for ‘hard-wired’ responses to scent marks in bumblebees and highlight the importance of associative learning in shaping social information use to match local circumstances.     

Parallel visual processing: Constant same-different decision latency with two to fourteen shapes

Fourteen Os were shown 2, 5, 8, 11, or 14 geometric shapes at a 200-msec exposure. The maximum visual extent was the same for all numbers of shapes. The stimulus conditions were: all shapes identical, 1 shape different from the rest, and, for 5 to 14 shapes, 3 shapes different (4 shapes in all). The number of shapes, the condition, and the shapes used varied randomly through the sequence of 160 exposures. Decision latency to correct same or different response was independent of the number of shapes presented. Correct same and three-different decisions were faster than one-different decisions, but with two shapes different decisions were faster than same. The results suggest that same-different decisions are made with information processed in parallel from many stimuli     

Evaluating distributed cognition

Human beings are promiscuously social creatures, and contemporary epistemologists are increasingly becoming aware that this shapes the ways in which humans process information. This awareness has tended to restrict itself, however, to testimony amongst isolated dyads. As scientific practice ably illustrates, information-processing can be spread over a vast social network. In this essay, a credit theory of knowledge is adapted to account for the normative features of strongly distributed cognition. A typical credit theory analyzes knowledge as an instance of obtaining success because of or through the ability of the individual knower. The extended credit theory developed here broadens this framework so as to accommodate team-like epistemic achievements. The extended credit theory is then contrasted with some similar proposals given from within a process reliabilist framework. Once one isolates pairs of cases of distributed cognition in which there is a difference between sheer reliability and reliability grounded in ability, one can see that the extended credit theory maps the normative terrain better than the alternatives.     

Effects of the discriminability of alternatives in three-alternative concurrent-schedule performance

Six pigeons were trained on two- and three-alternative concurrent schedules in which the alternatives were signaled by different wavelengths of light on the main pecking key. The schedules were arranged according to a switching-key procedure in which pecks on a white side key produced a 3-s blackout and, intermittently, a change in the variable-interval schedule of food programmed on the main (center) key after the blackout. In Part 1, a two-alternative concurrent variable-interval schedule was arranged in which the alternatives were signaled by 560 nm and 630 nm. Parts 2 and 3 arranged three-alternative concurrent variable-interval schedules with the alternatives signaled by 560 nm, 600 nm, and 630 nm (Part 2) and 560 nm, 623 nm, and 630 nm (Part 3). Within each part, the relative rate of food reinforcers available on the alternatives was varied across a wide range. In all parts of the experiment, the ratios of responses emitted between pairs of alternatives were more extreme than the ratios of reinforcers obtained on the pairs of alternatives, a result termed overmatching. In Parts 2 and 3, generalized matching sensitivities between pairs of alternatives were found to be higher when the reinforcer rate on the third alternative was low than when it was high—an apparent failure of the constant-ratio rule. The data were well described by an extension of the Davison and Jenkins (1985) model, which assumes differing discriminabilities between concurrent-schedule alternatives in combination with a punishing effect of blackout following changeovers.     

Less may be more when choosing is difficult: Choice complexity and too much choice

Although consumers readily seek choice and abundance, the so-called too-much-choice effect suggests that having many alternatives to choose from eventually leads to negative consequences, such as decreased post-choice satisfaction. The present research extends this research by highlighting the role of choice complexity. It is argued that too-much-choice effects are associated with choice complexity, which is influenced not only by the number of alternatives, but also by other features of the choice set, such as the number of attributes that alternatives are differentiated upon. These other influences of choice complexity may propel or hinder the emergence of too-much-choice effects. Two experiments tested this hypothesis by orthogonally manipulating the number of alternatives and the number of attributes. Results revealed a too-much-choice effect when alternatives were differentiated on many attributes, but not when alternatives were differentiated on few attributes. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Choice among two and three alternatives

Although choice between two alternatives has been widely researched, fewer studies have examined choice across multiple (more than two) alternatives. Past models of choice behavior predict that the number of alternatives should not affect relative response allocation, but more recent research has found violations of this principle. Five pigeons were presented with three concurrently scheduled alternatives. Relative reinforcement rates across these alternatives were assigned 9:3:1. In some conditions three keys were available; in others, only two keys were available. The number of available alternatives did not affect relative response rates for pairs of alternatives; there were no significant differences in behavior between the two and three key conditions. For two birds in the three‐alternative conditions and three birds in the two‐alternative conditions, preference was more extreme for the pair of alternatives with the lower overall pairwise reinforcer rate (3:1) than the pair with higher overall reinforcer rate (9:3). However, when responding during the changeover was removed three birds showed the opposite pattern in the three‐alternative conditions; preference was more extreme for the pair of alternatives with the higher overall reinforcer rate. These findings differ from past research and do not support established theories of choice behavior.     

Haptic curvature comparison of convex and concave shapes

A sculpture and the mould in which it was formed are typical examples of objects with an identical, but opponent, surface shape: each convex (ie outward pointing) surface part of a sculpture has a concave counterpart in the mould. The question arises whether the object features of opponent shapes can be compared by touch. Therefore, we investigated whether human observers were able to discriminate the curvatures of convex and concave shapes, irrespective of whether the shape was convex or concave. Using a 2AFC procedure, subjects had to compare the curvature of a convex shape to the curvature of a concave shape. In addition, results were also obtained for congruent shapes, when the curvature of either only convex shapes or only concave shapes had to be compared. Psychometric curves were fitted to the data to obtain threshold and bias results. When subjects explored the stimuli with a single index finger, significantly higher thresholds were obtained for the opponent shapes than for the congruent shapes. However, when the stimuli were touched by two index fingers, one finger per surface, we found similar thresholds. Systematic biases were found when the curvature of opponent shapes was compared: the curvature of a more curved convex surface was judged equal to the curvature of a less curved concave surface. We conclude that human observers had the ability to compare the curvature of shapes with an opposite direction, but that their performance decreased when they sensed the opponent surfaces with the same finger. Moreover, they systematically underestimated the curvature of convex shapes compared to the curvature of concave shapes.     

Eye color and judgments of aesthetic value of shapes.

47 university students provided judgments of the aesthetic value of polygon and histogram shapes that were either symmetric or asymmetric. A sigificant over-all preference to symmetric shapes was evident (p less than .05), and judgments were significantly more positive for brown-eyed subjects. Furthermore, the aesthetic values assigned to shapes showed a systematic interaction with eye color such that brown-eyed subjects produced higher aesthetic ratings for symmetric shapes than blue-eyed subjects, while no such differences appeared for asymmetric shapes.     

The effects of attractiveness, dominance, and attribute differences on information acquisition in multiattribute binary choice

Two process tracing studies investigated how the information acquisition process in a binary choice task is influenced by the overall level of attractiveness of alternatives, by the magnitude of differences in attractiveness of alternatives, and by the dominance of one alternative. All three factors influenced the subjects' information selection process regarding the multiattribute choice alternatives. Subjects selected more information when the attractiveness difference was small and when one of the alternatives was not dominant. Moreover, they considered more information when the choice alternatives were both unattractive. These findings were obtained when information was presented about the alternatives both numerically and nonnumerically. The experimental results were explained within a sequential sampling strategy framework.     

Online processing of native and non-native phonemic contrasts in early bilinguals.

There is considerable debate about whether bilinguals can distinguish L2 phonemic contrasts as efficiently as first language speakers can. To test this issue, a group of highly proficient Spanish-dominant Catalan-Spanish bilinguals (who had been exposed to Catalan between the ages of 3 and 4, but who, previous to this age, had been exposed only to Spanish) and another group of Catalan-dominant bilinguals (who had been exposed to Catalan from birth) were compared in a gating task. We developed a variation of the gating procedure that included a two-alternative forced choice test after each fragment was played. The differences between the two alternatives consisted of phonemic contrasts existing in Catalan but not in Spanish. Four contrasts were tested: two vocalic contrasts [symbols: see text] and two consonantal contrasts [symbols: see text]. The results showed that Spanish-dominant bilinguals, even the subset who were able to make correct identifications at the last gate, systematically performed worse than the group of Catalan-dominant bilinguals, needing longer portions of the signal to be able to correctly identify the stimuli. We argue that these results support the hypothesis that L1 shapes the perceptual system at early stages of development in such a way that it will determine the perception of non-native phonemic contrasts, even if there is extensive and early exposure to L2.     

Mechanisms for precuing superiority in visual recognition

Superior recognition, when similar alternatives are studied prior to brief target pictures of common objects, is usually attributed to selective feature analysis, which is beneficial only when the target is not readily discriminable in the alternatives. The present study found equal precuing superiority, however, for similar and dissimilar alternatives with abstract geometric stimuli, and with pictures of common objects, precuing superiority occurred only when each alternative represented the same semantic category. Precuing effects did not appear when different categories were represented in the alternatives, and performance was similar to other conditions in which only a categorical match between target and alternatives was possible. These results suggest that selective feature analysis and precuing superiority only occur when the target cannot be identified by its semantic category. With dissimilar alternatives activation of the target's category can be used to select a response, and there is no benefit from precuing.     

Probability judgment and subadditivity: The role of working memory capacity and constraining retrieval

In this research, we examined the role that individual differences in working memory (WM) capacity, the strength of alternatives, and time constraints play in probability judgment and subadditivity. With a laboratory-based learning task, Experiment 1 revealed that the degree to which participants’ probability judgments were subadditive was negatively correlated with a measure of WM capacity, even when variance due to short-term memory capacity was removed. In addition, participants were more subadditive when the viable alternatives were all rather weak. Experiment 2 extended the WM-capacity-subadditivity correlation to a population judgment task and revealed that subadditivity increases when the judgment task is performed under time constraints. Results support a model that assumes that people make probability judgments by comparing the focal hypothesis with relevant alternatives retrieved from long-term memory and that people high in WM span include more alternatives in the comparison process. Time constraints are assumed to truncate the alternative generation process, leading to fewer alternatives being recalled from long-term memory.     

Additivity and interaction between size ratio and response category in the comparison of size-discrepant shapes

In Experiment 1, subjects made same-different judgments to pairs of shapes that could differ (irrelevantly) in size and in which different pairs combined distinct shapes. Size discrepancy had an effect both on same and different responses. However, the effect on different responses was not monotonic across size discrepancies. It is argued that this nonmonotonicity was produced by a form of bias acting to slow different responses for same-sized pairs. Consistent with the proposed bias account, the nonmonotonic size-discrepancy effect on different trials was eliminated in Experiment 2, in which trials were blocked by size ratio. In Experiment 3, subjects performed a task similar to that in Experiments 1 and 2. However, additional visual information was added inside the bounding contour of the shapes, and this information was either the same or different across shapes. The match between within-contour information across shapes (whether same or different) was varied orthogonally with whether the bounding contours of the shapes were the same or different. In this experiment subjects decided whether the bounding contours of the shapes were the same or different, while ignoring the added information within the contours. When the added information matched across the two shapes, same responses were facilitated relative to when the added information mismatched. The converse occurred for different responses. This effect was more pronounced when the shapes were shown at the same size than when the shapes were at different sizes. In general, the results suggest that (a) size discrepancy affects some perceptual operations that are preliminary to shape matching, and (b) bias mechanisms can play an important role in shape-matching experiments in which the shapes can be shown in different sizes. The interaction of two processes--size scaling and bias--can account for these and hitherto contradictory results in the literature.     

Discrimination of “W” and “V” shapes by goldfish

Goldfish were trained to discriminate between “W” and “V” shapes; different groups were trained with the shapes in different orientations. Transfer tests were given after training and the following conclusions were drawn. Animals learned to discriminate between the training shapes by detecting the difference in the number of points present in each; they learned the difference in the relative number of points rather than the absolute number present in each shape; the subjects transferred well to pairs of shapes bearing points facing in different directions from those on the training shapes; knobs were treated as practically equivalent to points; animals relied more heavily on differences at the tops of the shapes than on differences in the bottom halves.     

Visual discrimination of horizontal and vertical rectangles by rats on a new discrimination training apparatus

A new visual shape discrimination apparatus for use with rats is described. Rats were trained on a simultaneous discrimination using stereometric shapes, and the reward was milk which was delivered through the middle of the shapes. Animals were trained to discriminate vertical and horizontal rectangles on the apparatus, and it was found that they took as many trials to learn as on a Lashley jumping stand. Because of the speed at which individual trials may be conducted, less actual time is spent on training in this apparatus than in a Lashley jumping stand. Some transfer tests were conducted and indicated that: (1) although the bottom halves of the shapes were more important for rats than the top halves, animals had learned something about the shapes as a whole; (2) animals transferred to discontinuous shapes; (3) they transferred better to larger shapes than to smaller; (4) they had learned both to approach the positive shape, and to avoid the negative shape.     

Distinctive shapes benefit short-term memory for color associations, but not for color

In four experiments, we examined the effect of pairing colors with either homogeneous or heterogeneous shapes on a short-term memory task. In Experiment 1, we found no differences in color memory for displays in which colors were each associated with different shapes, paired with individual homogeneous shapes, or paired with heterogeneous shapes. In contrast, in Experiment 2, we found that when participants were asked to remember the specific pairings of colors, memory was improved for heterogeneous-shape displays. The benefit for heterogeneous shapes appears to be memorial, rather than one that occurs at the time of encoding (Experiment 3) or retrieval (Experiment 4). The present study suggests that distinctive shapes can be used to help bind color associations in visual short-term memory.     

Effects of alternatives in coalition bargaining

A critical factor in bargaining and coalition formation is the alternative outcomes of the bargainers if an agreement cannot be reached. In some situations bargainers have individual alternatives while in other situations their alternatives must be negotiated with others. The purpose of this study was to contrast the effects of one-person and two-person alternatives on coalition outcomes. The second purpose of the study was to contrast the predictions of four theories of coalition formation: bargaining theory, equal excess model, Shapley value, and a special case of equity theory. The results indicate that one-person alternatives enhance the bargaining strength of the stronger players more than two-person alternatives. The predictions of the equal excess model and the Shapley value were more accurate than the predictions of bargaining theory and equity theory. However, the greater accuracy of the equal excess model and the Shapley value may be restricted to situations in which the bargainers have one-person rather than two-person alternatives.