Disembodied Minds and the Problem of Identification and Individuation

We consider and reject a variety of attempts to provide a ground for identifying and differentiating disembodied minds. Until such a ground is provided, we must withhold inclusion of disembodied minds from our picture of the world.

Quantifying the role of context in visual object recognition

An object's context may serve as a source of information for recognition when the object's image is degraded. The current study aimed to quantify this source of information. Stimuli were photographs of objects divided into quantized blocks. Participants decreased block size (increasing resolution) until identification. Critical resolution was compared across three conditions: (1) when the picture of the target object was shown in isolation, (2) in the object's contextual setting where that context was unfamiliar to the participant, and (3) where that context was familiar to the participant. A second experiment assessed the role of object familiarity without context. Results showed a profound effect of context: Participants identified objects in familiar contexts with minimal resolution. Unfamiliar contexts required higher-resolution images, but much less so than those without context. Experiment 2 found a much smaller effect of familiarity without context, suggesting that recognition in familiar contexts is primarily based on object-location memory.     

Infant individuation and identification of objects

Recent studies of the infant's object concept have focused on the role of property information in individuation. We draw a distinction between individuation and identification. By individuation, we mean the setting up of an object representation (OR). By identification, we mean using the information stored in an OR to decide which, if any, previously individuated object is presently encountered. We investigate this distinction in experiments with 12-month-old infants. We find that for infants of this age, a shape difference between two objects has a large effect on both individuation and identification. However, a color difference between two objects has a large effect on individuation, but little or no effect on identification. This suggests that, somewhat surprisingly, information used to establish an OR may not always be incorporated into that representation.     

Powerful perceivers, powerless objects: Flexibility of powerholders’ social attention

We argue that the effect of power on social attention is a function of flexible, instrumental information processing that allows the high power perceiver to attain situation specific goals using whatever means are available, including attention. Study 1 assigned powerful participants to more “people-centered” or more “product-centered” goals, and found that people-centered powerholders better individuated low-power targets. Study 2 examined responses by both high- and low-power organization members, and found powerful judges more responsive to organizational goals in setting priorities and using information about the organization than powerless judges. Together, these results suggest that powerholders use social attention, like other resources, in order to advance their ability to fulfill organizational goals.     

The spatiotopic representation of visual objects across time

Each eye movement introduces changes in the retinal location of objects. How a stable spatiotopic representation emerges from such variable input is an important question for the study of vision. Researchers have classically probed human observers' performance in a task requiring a location judgment about an object presented at different locations across a saccade. Correct performance on this task requires realigning or remapping retinal locations to compensate for the saccade. A recent study showed that performance improved with longer presaccadic viewing time, suggesting that accurate spatiotopic representations take time to build up. The first goal of the study was to replicate that finding. Two experiments, one an exact replication and the second a modified version, failed to replicate improved performance with longer presaccadic viewing time. The second goal of this study was to examine the role of attention in constructing spatiotopic representations, as theoretical and neurophysiological accounts of remapping have proposed that only attended targets are remapped. A third experiment thus manipulated attention with a spatial cueing paradigm and compared transsaccadic location performance of attended versus unattended targets. No difference in spatiotopic performance was found between attended and unattended targets. Although only negative results are reported, they might nevertheless suggest that spatiotopic representations are relatively stable over time.     

Individuation of pairs of objects in infancy

Looking-time studies examined whether 11-month-old infants can individuate two pairs of objects using only shape information. In order to test individuation, the object pairs were presented sequentially. Infants were familiarized either with the sequential pairs, disk-triangle/disk-triangle (XY/XY), whose shapes differed within but not across pairs, or with the sequential pairs, disk-disk/triangle-triangle (XX/YY), whose shapes differed across but not within pairs. The XY/XY presentation looked to adults like a single pair of objects presented repeatedly, whereas the XX/YY presentation looked like different pairs of objects. Following familiarization to these displays, infants were given a series of test trials in which the screen was removed, revealing two pairs of objects in one of two outcomes, XYXY or XXYY. On the first test trial, infants familiarized with the identical pairs (XY/XY) apparently expected a single pair to be revealed because they looked longer than infants familiarized with the distinct pairs (XX/YY). Infants who had seen the distinct pairs apparently expected a double pair outcome. A second experiment showed outcomes of a single XY pair. This outcome is unexpected for XX/YY-familiarized infants but expected for XY/XY-familiarized infants, the reverse of Experiment 1. This time looking times were longer for XX/YY infants. Eleven-month-olds appear to be able to represent not just individual objects but also pairs of objects. These results suggest that if they can group the objects into sets, infants may be able to track more objects than their numerosity limit or available working memory slots would normally allow. We suggest possible small exact numerosity representations that would allow tracking of such sets.     

Apes know that hidden objects can affect the orientation of other objects

Four bonobos, seven gorillas, and six orangutans were presented with two small rectangular boards on a platform. One of the boards had a piece of food under it so that it acquired an inclined orientation whereas the other remained flat on the platform. Subjects preferentially selected the inclined board. In another experiment, subjects were initially presented with two inclined boards and a transformation took place in which one of the boards fell flat to the platform while the other remained inclined. Subjects also preferred the board that remained inclined. Two additional experiments highlighted some of the possible limitations of their reasoning in this task. Presented with two inclined boards, one of which was visibly supported by a piece of wood, they failed to systematically select the unsupported one whose only reason for being inclined was the presence of the reward. Another experiment presented two rewards in each trial (instead of the customary one) in one of the following two combinations: large banana vs. small carrot or small banana vs. large carrot. Prior to the test, E presented both rewards to the subject and then hid each of them under one of the boards so that both boards were differentially inclined due to the different sizes of the rewards involved. Although subjects selected the board that showed a greater inclination (thus securing the larger reward), they disregarded the type of food that was involved. This often meant that they chose the large carrot over the small banana even though they reversed such a choice when the rewards were not occluded by the boards. Providing subjects with a 'reminder' of the type of reward hidden under the boards did not alter the original results. There was no evidence of learning throughout the various experiments and control tests ruled out the possibility of inadvertent cuing by the experimenter, poor performance due to a lack of motivation, or good performance due to a predisposition to select objects with sloped surfaces. It is concluded that subjects made some inferences about the reason for the inclined orientation of the boards, and not simply associated an inclined orientation with the presence of the reward.     

Establishing visual category boundaries between objects: a PET study

Individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) often have problems in recognizing common objects. This visual agnosia may stem from difficulties in establishing appropriate visual boundaries between visually similar objects. In support of this hypothesis, showed that AD subjects have difficulties in establishing visual category boundaries between continuously graded shapes. In an attempt to investigate the neural basis of these impairments, the current study required a group of neurologically healthy elderly participants to categorically classify a series of ellipses varying in width while regional blood flow changes were measured using positron emission tomography (PET). Two categorization conditions were compared in order to isolate changes in cortical activity that dissociated the categorization of shapes situated either near or far from a category boundary that divided the width continuum. The participants produced a discontinuity in the probability and speed of categorizing the shapes at some point along the continuum, suggesting that the objects were classified into distinct categories. Moreover, a comparison of the PET scans obtained while the subjects were categorizing the shapes situated near vs. far form the category boundary revealed significant differences in cortical activity in the parietal and frontal brain areas. These findings suggest that both visuo-spatial and decision making mechanisms may be involved in establishing categorical distinctions between continuously graded stimuli. It is proposed that the functional role of the parietal and frontal cortical regions in establishing visual boundaries between categories of objects may be relevant for understanding object recognition impairments in AD.     

Object manipulation facilitates kind-based object individuation of shape-similar objects

Five experiments investigated the importance of shape and object manipulation when 12-month-olds were given the task of individuating objects representing exemplars of kinds in an event-mapping design. In Experiments 1 and 2, results of the study from Xu, Carey, and Quint (2004, Experiment 4) were partially replicated, showing that infants were able to individuate two natural-looking exemplars from different categories, but not two exemplars from the same category. In Experiment 3, infants failed to individuate two shape-similar exemplars (from Pauen, 2002a) from different categories. However, Experiment 4 revealed that allowing infants to manipulate objects shortly before the individuation task enabled them to individuate shape-similar objects from different categories. In Experiment 5, allowing object manipulation did not induce infants to individuate natural-looking objects from the same category. These findings suggest that object manipulation facilitates kind-based individuation of shape-similar objects by 12-month-olds.     

Object imagery and object identification: object imagers are better at identifying spatially-filtered visual objects

Object imagery refers to the ability to construct pictorial images of objects. Individuals with high object imagery (high-OI) produce more vivid mental images than individuals with low object imagery (low-OI), and they encode and process both mental images and visual stimuli in a more global and holistic way. In the present study, we investigated whether and how level of object imagery may affect the way in which individuals identify visual objects. High-OI and low-OI participants were asked to perform a visual identification task with spatially-filtered pictures of real objects. Each picture was presented at nine levels of filtering, starting from the most blurred (level 1: only low spatial frequencies—global configuration) and gradually adding high spatial frequencies up to the complete version (level 9: global configuration plus local and internal details). Our data showed that high-OI participants identified stimuli at a lower level of filtering than participants with low-OI, indicating that they were better able than low-OI participants to identify visual objects at lower spatial frequencies. Implications of the results and future developments are discussed.     

Tracking visual search over space and time

Visual perception consists of early preattentive processing and subsequent attention-demanding processing. Most researchers implicitly treat preattentive processing as a domain-dependent, indivisible stage. We show, however, by interrupting preattentive visual processing of color before its completion, that it can be dissected both temporally and spatially. The experiment depends on changing easy (preattentive) selection into difficult (attention-demanding) selection. We show that although the mechanism subserving preattentive selection completes processing as early as 200 msec after stimulus onset, partial selection information is available well before completion. Furthermore, partial selection occurs first at locations near fixation, spreading radially outward as processing proceeds.     

Individuation in relation to parents as a predictor of career goals and career optimism in emerging adults

The aim of this study was to examine the associations of Slovenian emerging adults’ individuation characteristics (in relation to mother and father) with career goals and career optimism. We were interested in contributions of age, gender, certainty of study choice, and individuation dimensions when predicting intrinsic/extrinsic career goals and career optimism. The participants provided self‐reports on the Individuation Test for Emerging Adults, the Career Goals Scale and the Career Futures Inventory. The results showed that age did not relate to emerging adults’ career goals; however, older students reported lower career optimism than their younger counterparts. Furthermore, certainty of study choice was the most important predictor of career optimism, and, along with gender, of intrinsic career goals. Emerging adults who reported higher connectedness with both parents and self‐reliance in relation to mother had higher intrinsic career goals, while self‐reliance in relation to mother was positively associated with stronger optimism about an individual's future career. Fear of disappointing both parents significantly contributed to the prediction of extrinsic career goals and optimism, while parental intrusiveness did not add significantly to the prediction of the two measured career outcomes. The study confirmed the correlational effects of positive and negative aspects of individuation on career outcomes in emerging adulthood.     

Familiarity effects on categorization levels of faces and objects

It is well established that faces, in contrast to objects, are categorized as fast or faster at the individual level (e.g., Bill Clinton) than at the basic-level (e.g., human face). This subordinate-shift from basic-level categorization has been considered an outcome of visual expertise with processing faces. However, in the present study we found that, similar to familiar faces, categorization of individually-known familiar towers is also faster at the individual level than at the basic-level in naïve participants. In addition, category-verification of familiar stimuli, at basic and superordinate levels, was slower and less accurate compared to unfamiliar stimuli. Thus, the existence of detailed semantic information, regardless of expertise, can induce a shift in the default level of object categorization from basic to individual level. Moreover, the individually-specific knowledge is not only more easily-retrieved from memory but it might also interfere with accessing more general category information.     

The use of stories as autistic objects

This paper reviews Frances Tustin's concept of the 'autistic object' and its development over the course of her writings. Clinical material from work with a 4-year-old boy is brought to suggest that the concept can usefully be extended to include such cultural artefacts as stories as well as the physical objects emphasized by Tustin. It is also emphasized that the awareness of reality which autistic objects are used to defend against refers both to internal as well as external reality. The paper argues that it is the function to which the object is put that is critical in determining whether or not it should be viewed as an autistic object.     

Attentional resources in visual tracking through occlusion: the high-beams effect

A considerable amount of research has uncovered heuristics that the visual system employs to keep track of objects through periods of occlusion. Relatively little work, by comparison, has investigated the online resources that support this processing. We explored how attention is distributed when featurally identical objects become occluded during multiple object tracking. During tracking, observers had to detect small probes that appeared sporadically on targets, distracters, occluders, or empty space. Probe detection rates for these categories were taken as indexes of the distribution of attention throughout the display and revealed two novel effects. First, probe detection on an occluder’s surface was better when either a target or distractor was currently occluded in that location, compared to when no object was behind that occluder. Thus even occluded (and therefore invisible) objects recruit object-based attention. Second, and more surprising, probe detection for both targets and distractors was always better when they were occluded, compared to when they were visible. This new attentional high-beams effect indicates that the ability to track through occlusion, though seemingly effortless, in fact requires the active allocation of special attentional resources.     

Detecting objects is easier than categorizing them

Two experiments compared performance in an object detection task, in which participants categorized photographs as objects and nonobject textures, and an object categorization task, in which photographs were categorized into basic-level categories. The basic-level categorization task was either easy (e.g., dogs vs. buses) or difficult (e.g., dogs vs. cats). Participants performed similarly in the detection and the easy-categorization tasks, but response times to the difficult-categorization task were slower. This latter finding is difficult to reconcile with the conclusions of Grill-Spector and Kanwisher (2005) who reported equivalent performance on detection and basic-level categorization tasks and took this as evidence that figure-ground segregation and basic-level categorization are mediated by the same mechanism.     

Infants' representations of three-dimensional occluded objects

Infants' ability to represent objects has received significant attention from the developmental research community. With the advent of eye-tracking technology, detailed analysis of infants' looking patterns during object occlusion have revealed much about the nature of infants' representations. The current study continues this research by analyzing infants' looking patterns in a novel manner and by comparing infants' looking at a simple display in which a single three-dimensional (3D) object moves along a continuous trajectory to a more complex display in which two 3D objects undergo trajectories that are interrupted behind an occluder. Six-month-old infants saw an occlusion sequence in which a ball moved along a linear path, disappeared behind a rectangular screen, and then a ball (ball-ball event) or a box (ball-box event) emerged at the other edge. An eye-tracking system recorded infants' eye-movements during the event sequence. Results from examination of infants' attention to the occluder indicate that during the occlusion interval infants looked longer to the side of the occluder behind which the moving occluded object was located, shifting gaze from one side of the occluder to the other as the object(s) moved behind the screen. Furthermore, when events included two objects, infants attended to the spatiotemporal coordinates of the objects longer than when a single object was involved. These results provide clear evidence that infants' visual tracking is different in response to a one-object display than to a two-object display. Furthermore, this finding suggests that infants may require more focused attention to the hidden position of objects in more complex multiple-object displays and provides additional evidence that infants represent the spatial location of moving occluded objects.     

The neural regions sustaining episodic encoding and recognition of objects

In this functional MRI experiment, encoding of objects was associated with activation in left ventrolateral prefrontal/insular and right dorsolateral prefrontal and fusiform regions as well as in the left putamen. By contrast, correct recognition of previously learned objects (R judgments) produced activation in left superior frontal, bilateral inferior frontal, and right cerebellar regions, whereas correct rejection of distractor objects (N judgments) was associated with activation in bilateral prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices, in right parietal and cerebellar regions, in the left putamen, and in the right caudate nucleus. The R minus N comparison showed activation in the left lateral prefrontal cortex and in bilateral cingulate cortices and precunei, while the N minus R comparison did not reveal any positive signal change. These results support the view that similar regions of the frontal lobe are involved in episodic encoding and retrieval processes, and that the successful episodic retrieval of newly learned objects is mainly based on a frontoparietal network.     

Detecting objects is easier than categorizing them

Two experiments compared performance in an object detection task, in which participants categorized photographs as objects and nonobject textures, and an object categorization task, in which photographs were categorized into basic-level categories. The basic-level categorization task was either easy (e.g., dogs vs. buses) or difficult (e.g., dogs vs. cats). Participants performed similarly in the detection and the easy-categorization tasks, but response times to the difficult-categorization task were slower. This latter finding is difficult to reconcile with the conclusions of Grill-Spector and Kanwisher (2005) Grill-Spector, G. and Kanwisher, N. 2005. Visual recognition: As soon as you know it is there, you know what it is. Psychological Science, 16: 152–160. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] who reported equivalent performance on detection and basic-level categorization tasks and took this as evidence that figure–ground segregation and basic-level categorization are mediated by the same mechanism.