Feature saliency affects delayed matching of an attended feature

We examined how top-down attentional modulation and bottom-up stimulus saliency interact with feature memory. Experiment 1 used a delayed-matching-to-sample (DMS) task to examine the relative saliency between features by observing the relative accuracy of recognition at different stimulus durations. Feature salience decreased according to the following order: colour, form, and texture. In a modified DMS task (Experiments 2 and 3), participants were required to attend to one of three features and ignore the others. After a delay, they were required to choose which of the two test stimuli matched the reference stimulus on the attended feature, disregarding other task-irrelevant features. The target was either identical to the reference stimulus or mismatched the reference stimulus on one of the irrelevant features. The results showed that colour matching was affected neither by a form change nor by a texture change. Form matching was affected by a colour change, and texture matching was affected by a colour or form change. These results are consistent with the relative saliency hypothesis. Even when all features of an attended object are maintained, a relatively more salient task-irrelevant feature can interfere with the delayed recognition of a less salient feature.     

The contribution of shape and surface information in the other-race face effect

Faces from another race are generally more difficult to recognize than faces from one's own race. However, faces provide multiple cues for recognition and it remains unknown what are the relative contribution of these cues to this “other-race effect”. In the current study, we used three-dimensional laser-scanned head models which allowed us to independently manipulate two prominent cues for face recognition: the facial shape morphology and the facial surface properties (texture and colour). In Experiment 1, Asian and Caucasian participants implicitly learned a set of Asian and Caucasian faces that had both shape and surface cues to facial identity. Their recognition of these encoded faces was then tested in an old/new recognition task. For these face stimuli, we found a robust other-race effect: Both groups were more accurate at recognizing own-race than other-race faces. Having established the other-race effect, in Experiment 2 we provided only shape cues for recognition and in Experiment 3 we provided only surface cues for recognition. Caucasian participants continued to show the other-race effect when only shape information was available, whereas Asian participants showed no effect. When only surface information was available, there was a weak pattern for the other-race effect in Asians. Performance was poor in this latter experiment, so this pattern needs to be interpreted with caution. Overall, these findings suggest that Asian and Caucasian participants rely differently on shape and surface cues to recognize own-race faces, and that they continue to use the same cues for other-race faces, which may be suboptimal for these faces.     

Haptic perception of texture gradients

To pick up 3-D aspects of pictures is arguably the most difficult problem concerning tactile pictorial perception by the blind. The aim of the experiments reported was to examine the potential utility of texture gradients in this context. Since there is no theoretical basis for predicting absolute values of 3-D properties from 2-D patterns read by the finger pads, the abilities of participants to perceive gradients lying between known maxima and minima were assessed. Experiment 1 involved blindfolded sighted participants making verbal magnitude estimations of texture-gradient magnitudes corresponding to plane surfaces at different slants. In experiment 2 the participants' task was to orient a surface at a slant corresponding to the texture gradients depicted tactually, and experiment 3 required early-blind participants to attempt the same task. The results revealed that participants can scale the magnitudes of texture gradients with high precision and that they can also accurately produce surface slants from depictions, providing the extreme conditions are clearly defined and there are opportunities for learning. Texture gradients appear as informative to the blind as they do to the sighted. To what extent these data can be generalised to other gradients and textures or to other projections of 3-D scenes remains to be investigated.     

The relationships between processing facial identity,emotional expression,facial speech,and gaze direction during development

Four experiments were conducted with 5- to 11-year-olds and adults to investigate whether facial identity, facial speech, emotional expression, and gaze direction are processed independently of or in interaction with one another. In a computer-based, speeded sorting task, participants sorted faces according to facial identity while disregarding facial speech, emotional expression, and gaze direction or, alternatively, according to facial speech, emotional expression, and gaze direction while disregarding facial identity. Reaction times showed that children and adults were able to direct their attention selectively to facial identity despite variations of other kinds of face information, but when sorting according to facial speech and emotional expression, they were unable to ignore facial identity. In contrast, gaze direction could be processed independently of facial identity in all age groups. Apart from shorter reaction times and fewer classification errors, no substantial change in processing facial information was found to be correlated with age. We conclude that adult-like face processing routes are employed from 5 years of age onward.     

Electrophysiological evidence for colour effects on the naming of colour diagnostic and noncolour diagnostic objects

In this study, we investigated the level of visual processing at which surface colour information improves the naming of colour diagnostic and noncolour diagnostic objects. Continuous electroencephalograms were recorded while participants performed a visual object naming task in which coloured and black-and-white versions of both types of objects were presented. The black-and-white and the colour presentations were compared in two groups of event-related potentials (ERPs): (1) The P1 and N1 components, indexing early visual processing; and (2) the N300 and N400 components, which index late visual processing. A colour effect was observed in the P1 and N1 components, for both colour and noncolour diagnostic objects. In addition, for colour diagnostic objects, a colour effect was observed in the N400 component. These results suggest that colour information is important for the naming of colour and noncolour diagnostic objects at different levels of visual processing. It thus appears that the visual system uses colour information, during naming of both object types, at early visual stages; however, for the colour diagnostic objects naming, colour information is also recruited during the late visual processing stages.     

面孔熟悉度对面孔性别与表情相互作用的调节

对于面孔性别与表情的关系, 目前的理论尚不完善。而众多研究证据表明, 面孔熟悉度与面孔性别及表情的加工均有密切关系。本研究基于Garner范式考察了在不同面孔熟悉度下面孔性别与表情的相互关系。共包括4项实验：实验1, 面孔刺激的身份陌生且不重复, 刺激在Garner范式的控制组和正交组中均仅呈现一次, 面孔熟悉度低; 实验2, 除面孔刺激的身份重复外, 其余均同实验1, 面孔熟悉度中等; 实验3, 面孔刺激的身份陌生且不重复, 但分别在控制组和正交组中重复呈现多次, 面孔熟悉度高; 实验4, 通过面孔学习增加面孔的熟悉度, 以直接验证面孔熟悉度的增加对面孔性别与表情相互关系的影响。结果发现：对于陌生面孔, 表情单向影响面孔性别的加工; 随着面孔熟悉度的增加, 面孔性别与表情之间出现双向的影响。因此, 面孔熟悉度对面孔性别与表情的相互影响具有调节作用。     

Tolerance for distorted faces: Challenges to a configural processing account of familiar face recognition

Face recognition is widely held to rely on ‘configural processing’, an analysis of spatial relations between facial features. We present three experiments in which viewers were shown distorted faces, and asked to resize these to their correct shape. Based on configural theories appealing to metric distances between features, we reason that this should be an easier task for familiar than unfamiliar faces (whose subtle arrangements of features are unknown). In fact, participants were inaccurate at this task, making between 8% and 13% errors across experiments. Importantly, we observed no advantage for familiar faces: in one experiment participants were more accurate with unfamiliars, and in two experiments there was no difference. These findings were not due to general task difficulty – participants were able to resize blocks of colour to target shapes (squares) more accurately. We also found an advantage of familiarity for resizing other stimuli (brand logos). If configural processing does underlie face recognition, these results place constraints on the definition of ‘configural’. Alternatively, familiar face recognition might rely on more complex criteria – based on tolerance to within-person variation rather than highly specific measurement.     

Hemispheric processing of global form, local form, and texture.

Hemispheric processing of global form, local form, and texture of hierarchical patterns composed of many, relatively small elements and patterns composed of few, relatively large elements was examined in two experiments, employing a Stroop-type paradigm. In experiment 1 subjects were instructed to attend either to the global or the local level of the pattern and to identify the form at the designated level. In experiment 2 subjects were to identify the global form or the texture. A right visual field (left hemisphere) advantage was obtained for detection of local form, and a left visual field (right hemisphere) advantage was obtained for detection of global form. When many-element patterns were processed in terms of global form and texture, the results failed to show reliable hemispheric differences. The results suggest that the hemispheres differ in their sensitivity to the relatively more global versus the relatively more local aspects of visual patterns which require focused attention (as in global/local form detection). When the task involved distributed attention (as in texture detection) no lateralized effects were observed.     

Attention sharing during timing: modulation by processing demands of an expected stimulus

Varying the location of a nontemporal task during a time estimation task affects temporal estimates. Previous studies have also shown that manipulating the location of a stimulus to ignore may disturb timing similarly, suggesting that the effect might be independent of the processing requirements in the nontemporal task. In Experiment 1, the location of a tone varied during a 2-sec interval production; participants were asked either to ignore the tone or to discriminate its frequency. Productions were longer when the tone was presented later, but only when it was processed. In Experiment 2, short and long tones corresponding to more or less difficult discrimination tasks were used. The location effect was stronger and remained stronger throughout the experiment when participants were tested with the short tone in the first experimental session than when they were tested with the long tone first. These results suggest that timing is influenced by relatively stable attention-sharing strategies.     

Scene articulation: dependence of illuminant estimates on number of surfaces

The ability of observers to detect changes in illuminant over two scenes containing different random samples of reflecting surfaces was determined in an experiment with Mondrian-like patterns containing different numbers of coloured patches. Performance was found to improve as the number of patches increased from 9 to 49. In principle, observers could have used space-average scene colour as the cue ('grey-world' hypothesis) or the colour of the brightest surface in the scene ('bright-is-white' hypothesis), as the two cues generally covary. In a second experiment, observers matched illuminants across different patterns in which the space-average cue and the brightest-patch cue were independently manipulated. The articulation of the patterns was varied: the number of patches increased from 49 (patch width 1 deg visual angle) to over 50000 (patch width 0.03 deg), while the gamut of colours was held constant. Space-average colour was found to be the dominant cue with all patterns except for those with the largest patches.     

The processing of interlexical homographs in translation recognition and lexical decision: Support for non-selective access to bilingual memory

In three experiments we looked at the processing of interlexical homographs by Dutch-English bilinguals. In Experiment 1 we employed the translation recognition task, a task that forces the participants to activate both language systems simultaneously. In this task the processing of interlexical homographs was inhibited substantially compared to the processing of matched control words, especially when the homograph reading to be selected was the less frequent of the homograph's two readings. In Experiments 2 and 3 we used the lexical decision task: In one condition we asked the participants to categorize letter strings as words or nonwords in Dutch; in a second condition we asked them to do so in English. The makeup of the stimulus set in Experiment 2 permitted the participants to ignore the instructions and to instantiate the task in a language-neutral form-that is, to categorize the letter strings as words in either Dutch or English. Under these circumstances a small, frequency-dependent inhibitory effect for homographs was obtained, but only in condition Dutch. In Experiment 3 the participants were forced in a language-specific processing mode by the inclusion of "nonwords" that were in fact words in the non-target language. Large frequency-dependent inhibitory effects for homographs were now obtained in both language conditions. The combined results are interpreted as support for the view that bilingual lexical access is non-selective.     

Encoding the world around us: Motor-related processing influences verbal memory

It is known that properties of words such as their imageability can influence our ability to remember those words. However, it is not known if other object-related properties can also influence our memory. In this study we asked whether a word representing a concrete object that can be functionally interacted with (i.e., high-manipulability word) would enhance the memory representations for that item compared to a word representing a less manipulable object (i.e., low-manipulability word). Here participants incidentally encoded high-manipulability (e.g., CAMERA) and low-manipulability words (e.g., TABLE) while making word judgments. Using a between-subjects design, we varied the depth-of-processing involved in the word judgment task: participants judged the words based on personal experience (deep/elaborative processing), word length (shallow), or functionality (intermediate). Participants were able to remember high-manipulability words better than low-manipulability words in both the personal experience and word length groups; thus presenting the first evidence that manipulability can influence memory. However, we observed better memory for low- than high-manipulability words in the functionality group. We explain this surprising interaction between manipulability and memory as being mediated by automatic vs. controlled motor-related cognition.     

Integration of perceptual information in word access

According to experiential theories of language comprehension, perceptual information plays an essential role when word meanings are accessed. We conducted four experiments to investigate how different types of perceptual information such as colour and shape are combined during word access. One possibility is that the colour and shape of a word's referent are activated independently from one another and are combined in an additive manner. Alternatively, words might activate perceptual representations via a multiplicative integration of colour and shape. Experiment 1 established that participants follow a multiplicative similarity rule when they judge the similarity of schematic pictures to actual fruits and vegetables. In Experiments 2 to 4, participants performed a classification task, a lexical decision task, or a word-naming task on names of fruits and vegetables that were superimposed on a background picture. Responses were facilitated only when both colour and shape of the picture matched the word's referents. Response times were associated negatively with mean similarity ratings and the consistency of these ratings obtained in the first experiment. These results suggest a multiplicative integration of different types of perceptual information during word access.     

选择损耗自我控制资源:取舍效应还是信息加工难度效应?

研究以自我控制的资源模型为理论框架,从选择难度特征的视角出发,通过两项实验考察选择损耗自我控制资源的成因。结果发现,高取舍冲突组被试的stroop任务成绩显著低于低取舍冲突组被试,高、低阅读难度组被试的stroop任务成绩差异不显著;为自己做选择组被试的stroop任务成绩显著低于为他人做选择组被试,完成3选项和4选项任务组被试的stroop任务成绩差异不显著。研究表明,选择损耗效应是由选择的取舍难度而非信息加工难度造成。。     

A balancing act: Physical balance, through arousal, influences size perception

Previous research has demonstrated that manipulating vision influences balance. Here, we question whether manipulating balance can influence vision and how it may influence vision--specifically, the perception of width. In Experiment 1, participants estimated the width of beams while balanced and unbalanced. When unbalanced, participants judged the widths to be smaller. One possible explanation is that unbalanced participants did not view the stimulus as long as when balanced because they were focused on remaining balanced. In Experiment 2, we tested this notion by limiting viewing time. Experiment 2 replicated the findings of Experiment 1, but viewing time had no effect on width judgments. In Experiment 3, participants' level of arousal was manipulated, because the balancing task likely produced arousal. While jogging, participants judged the beams to be smaller. In Experiment 4, participants completed another arousing task (counting backward by sevens) that did not involve movement. Again, participants judged the beams to be smaller when aroused. Experiment 5A raised participants' level of arousal before estimating the board widths (to control for potential dual-task effects) and showed that heightened arousal still influenced perceived width of the boards. Collectively, heightened levels of arousal, caused by multiple manipulations (including balance), influenced perceived width.     

Exploring the forgetting mechanisms in working memory: Evidence from a reasoning span test

In working memory (WM) span tests participants have to maintain to-be-remembered information while processing other, potentially distracting, information. Previous studies have shown that WM span scores are greater when span lists start with a long processing task and end with a short processing task than when these processing tasks are presented in the reverse order (e.g., Towse, Hitch, & Hutton, 2000). In Experiment 1, we obtained a similar stimulus order effect in a reasoning span test, using reasoning sentences that were equated for length in terms of the number of constituent words, but which differed in processing complexity; span scores were greater when lists began with a complex sentence and ended with a simple sentence than when this stimulus order was reversed. In Experiment 2, the stimulus order effect was not found when processing duration was held constant while sentence complexity was varied using a computer-paced moving window presentation paradigm. These results suggest that duration-based constraints can affect degree of forgetting independently of the load generated during processing phases in WM span performance and therefore imply that time-related forgetting can occur in WM span tests, particularly when the difficulty of the processing component blocks active maintenance of to-be-remembered material.     

The effect of colour congruency on shape discriminations of novel objects

Although visual object recognition is primarily shape driven, colour assists the recognition of some objects. It is unclear, however, just how colour information is coded with respect to shape in long-term memory and how the availability of colour in the visual image facilitates object recognition. We examined the role of colour in the recognition of novel, 3-D objects by manipulating the congruency of object colour across the study and test phases, using an old/new shape-identification task. In experiment 1, we found that participants were faster at correctly identifying old objects on the basis of shape information when these objects were presented in their original colour, rather than in a different colour. In experiments 2 and 3, we found that participants were faster at correctly identifying old objects on the basis of shape information when these objects were presented with their original part-colour conjunctions, rather than in different or in reversed part-colour conjunctions. In experiment 4, we found that participants were quite poor at the verbal recall of part-colour conjunctions for correctly identified old objects, presented as grey-scale images at test. In experiment 5, we found that participants were significantly slower at correctly identifying old objects when object colour was incongruent across study and test, than when background colour was incongruent across study and test. The results of these experiments suggest that both shape and colour information are stored as part of the long-term representation of these novel objects. Results are discussed in terms of how colour might be coded with respect to shape in stored object representations.     

The processing of task-irrelevant emotion and colour in the Approach-Avoidance Task

When processing information about human faces, we have to integrate different sources of information like skin colour and emotional expression. In 3 experiments, we investigated how these features are processed in a top-down manner when task instructions determine the relevance of features, and in a bottom-up manner when the stimulus features themselves determine process priority. In Experiment 1, participants learned to respond with approach-avoidance movements to faces that presented both emotion and colour features (e.g. happy faces printed in greyscale). For each participant, only one of these two features was task-relevant while the other one could be ignored. In contrast to our predictions, we found better learning of task-irrelevant colour when emotion was task-relevant than vice versa. Experiment 2 showed that the learning of task-irrelevant emotional information was improved in general when participants’ awareness was increased by adding NoGo-trials. Experiment 3 replicated these results for faces and emotional words. We conclude that during the processing of faces, both bottom-up and top-down processes are involved, such that task instructions and feature characteristics play a role. Ecologically significant features like emotions are not necessarily processed with high priority. The findings are discussed in the light of theories of attention and cognitive biases.     

Visual discrimination of spectral distributions

Human observers seem to be able to use different features that classify materials with a large degree of accuracy. In this paper, we look at human perception of statistical properties of the spectral distribution in a scene. We investigated whether human observers can discriminate just as accurately between coloured textures that have a spectral distribution due either to shading only or to both shading and specular reflectance as between uniform colours. Thresholds for the discrimination of coloured textures are about 15 times as high as thresholds for the discrimination of uniform colours, provided there is a sharp transition between the two colours. However, the coloured texture thresholds are only 1.5 times higher when we introduce a gradual transition between the two colours. There are also distinct qualitative differences in discrimination thresholds for different base colours. These differences cannot be predicted from discrimination thresholds for uniform colours. Human observers are surprisingly good at discriminating between a material edge and a shadow edge in complex scenes. Statistical differences in the orientation of the colour distributions in colour space might be used to accomplish this. In a second experiment we investigated how well observers can discriminate between two linear distributions in colour space that have the same base colour but different orientations. When we vary the line-length in R, G, B space, thresholds cannot be predicted completely by the conservation of the average distance between the two distributions. This means that observers use not only the maximum colour difference in the stimulus to do the task, but other cues are also involved.     

Cross-modal selective attention: on the difficulty of ignoring sounds at the locus of visual attention

In three experiments, we investigated whether the ease with which distracting sounds can be ignored depends on their distance from fixation and from attended visual events. In the first experiment, participants shadowed an auditory stream of words presented behind their heads, while simultaneously fixating visual lip-read information consistent with the relevant auditory stream, or meaningless "chewing" lip movements. An irrelevant auditory stream of words, which participants had to ignore, was presented either from the same side as the fixated visual stream or from the opposite side. Selective shadowing was less accurate in the former condition, implying that distracting sounds are harder to ignore when fixated. Furthermore, the impairment when fixating toward distractor sounds was greater when speaking lips were fixated than when chewing lips were fixated, suggesting that people find it particularly difficult to ignore sounds at locations that are actively attended for visual lipreading rather than merely passively fixated. Experiments 2 and 3 tested whether these results are specific to cross-modal links in speech perception by replacing the visual lip movements with a rapidly changing stream of meaningless visual shapes. The auditory task was again shadowing, but the active visual task was now monitoring for a specific visual shape at one location. A decrement in shadowing was again observed when participants passively fixated toward the irrelevant auditory stream. This decrement was larger when participants performed a difficult active visual task there versus fixating, but not for a less demanding visual task versus fixation. The implications for cross-modal links in spatial attention are discussed.