On a changing perspective illusion within Vermeer's The Music Lesson

The effect of line of sight on the perception of spatial configuration has been investigated in a well-known painting (The Music Lesson by Vermeer) and in two control patterns. In experiment 1, subjects indicated the perceived inclination of two major contours which defined the sidewall-floor and backwall-floor joints in (i) a projected image of the painting, (ii) a three-line representation of the major spatial elements of the painting, and (iii) a three-dimensional wire model of these same contours, when standing in each of eighteen positions on a line running parallel to the surface of the screen. Results indicated a significant change in the perception of the sidewall-floor, but not of the backwall-floor contour, as viewing angle changed, in both the painting and the three-line representation. However, the angular setting in the latter case was significantly less than when the painting was used, ie subjects underestimated the depicted inclination. Settings for the wire model did not deviate with viewing angle and reflected geometrically correct adjustments. In experiment 2, the results of experiment 1 were confirmed using enantiomorphs. These findings are discussed in the light of other view-dependent illusions in paintings.     

认知负荷视角下的知识反转效应

知识反转效应研究始于20世纪90年代中期, 在认知负荷的框架下对学习者先备知识与教学方法有效性之间的交互作用进行研究, 其研究范式起源于能力倾向与教学处置交互作用模型。认知负荷理论认为知识反转效应的产生是由于高先备知识者接受冗余教学而产生了额外的认知负荷, 动机理论却认为, 高先备知识者由于冗余的认知加工而产生的负荷可能是一种动机资源负荷。在优化外在认知负荷与相关认知负荷的教学设计中发现了大量知识反转效应的实验证据, 其教学的启示意义在于需要随着学习者领域知识的不断变化适宜性地调整教学方法。未来需要在完善研究方法、拓展研究领域的基础上, 整合研究成果以建立效应发生与发展的理论模型。     

Cross-cultural and educational aspects of the Ponzo perspective illusion

The magnitude of the Ponzo illusion was determined for two groups of Ugandans, university students and villagers. For the university population, increase in the depth cues in which the illusion was embedded produced an increase in illusion magnitude similar to that observed among students in an American university. For the villagers, however, no illusion was observed for any of the stimulus conditions. Since the environmental ecology of the two groups was similar, the lack of illusion among the villagers cannot be attributed to differential past history of exposure to depth cues. Rather it is hypothesized that responses to two-dimensional stimuli are determined by both depth and flatness cues, and that the responses of the uneducated observers were determined primarily by flatness cues.     

The creation and reversal of the Müller-Lyer illusion through attentional manipulation

A configuration is presented in which both the overestimated and the underestimated portions of the Müller-Lyer illusion are embedded. In free viewing no distortion of length occurs; however, overestimation or underestimation illusions can be produced by simple manipulation of the attentional set, thus demonstrating one cognitive component in the formation of the Müller-Lyer distortion.     

Effects of face configuration change on shape perception: a new illusion

We report two experiments indicating that varying the configuration of face features changes perception of an oval aperture windowing the face: as the eyes and mouth of a frontal-view face photograph are moved vertically toward face boundaries, the oval appears increasingly clongated, taller, and narrower; when eyes and mouth are moved toward the nose, the oval appears increasingly rounder, shorter, and wider. This shape illusion is maximised when faces appear upright within the oval and major face features (eyes, nose, and mouth) appear in their correct relative locations. These results establish that processing of a face configuration can affect perception of a geometric shape that shares visual space with a face. Whether the illusion is face-specific or a special case of a more general geometric illusion is discussed.     

Stability and change in children's skill

Summary This paper explores age-related performance variability, both within trials and between sessions, in repetitive hopping. The mean, the standard deviation (SD), and the coefficient of variation (CV) of several timing and ground-reaction-force variables of hopping were analysed by repeated-measures ANOVA for age-related effects across test sessions and foot used. Forty-five subjects in five age groups (3–4 years, 4–5 years, 6–7 years, 8–9 years, or Adult) performed self-paced, one-footed hopping on three occasions within one week. As was expected, the results showed main effects for Age in all force and time variables, with the exception of CV of medio-lateral force. No significant main effects for Feet were revealed. However, significant Feet x Session interactions were found in flight-time measures, with higher flight-time SD and lower CV for the non-preferred foot in Session 1, a reversal in Session 2, and a negligible difference in Session 3. Across sessions, decreased SD and CV for both vertical and medio-lateral force and shorter flight time indicated more efficient hopping. Overall, it was concluded that SD and CV measures were more sensitive measures of children's performance across repeated sessions than were mean scores and that the order of testing the limbs is an important consideration in experimental protocols when lateralized tasks are measured.     

Statistical approaches to language acquisition and the self-organizing consciousness: a reversal of perspective

Recent years have seen the upsurge of a new approach to language that moves away from the rule-based conventional framework. In this approach, mostly supported by the success of connectionist models, children learn language by exploiting the distributional properties of the input. It is argued in this paper that, in the same way as conforming to rules does not imply the existence of mental rules, conforming to statistical regularities does not imply that statistical computations are performed mentally. Sensitivity to statistical regularities can alternatively be conceived of as a by-product of the recurrent interplay between the properties of the current conscious content and the properties of the linguistic and extralinguistic environment. The validity of including the content of conscious experiences in an otherwise standard dynamical approach rooted in the notion of self-organization is discussed.     

Perceptions of organizational change: a stress and coping perspective

Few organizational change studies identify the aspects of change that are salient to individuals and that influence well-being. The authors identified three distinct change characteristics: the frequency, impact and planning of change. R. S. Lazarus and S. Folkman's (1984) cognitive phenomenological model of stress and coping was used to propose ways that these change characteristics influence individuals' appraisal of the uncertainty associated with change, and, ultimately, job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Results of a repeated cross-sectional study that collected individuals' perceptions of change one month prior to employee attitudes in consecutive years indicated that while the three change perceptions were moderately to strongly intercorrelated, the change perceptions displayed differential relationships with outcomes. Discussion focuses on the importance of systematically considering individuals' subjective experience of change.     

The peripheral drift illusion: a motion illusion in the visual periphery

Circularly repeating patches containing sawtooth luminance gradients produce a sensation of motion when viewed in the periphery. Illusory motion is perceived in a dark-to-light direction, but only when one's gaze is directed to different locations around the stimulus, a point outside the display is fixated and the observer blinks, or when the stimulus is sequentially displayed at different locations whilst the observer fixates one point. We propose that the illusion is produced by the interaction of three factors: (i) introducing transients as a result of eye movements or blinks; (ii) differing latencies in the processing of luminance; and (iii) spatiotemporal integration of the differing luminance signals in the periphery.     

Stability and change in children's division strategies

Age-related changes in children's performance on simple division problems (e.g., 6/2, 72/9) were investigated by asking children in Grades 4 through 7 to solve 32 simple division problems. Differences in performance were found across grade, with younger children performing more slowly and less accurately than older children. Problem size effects were also found in that children were faster and more accurate on small problems than on large problems. Two strategies changed across age, with children in Grade 4 relying heavily on the strategy of "addition" (adding the divisor until the dividend was reached) to solve the problems and children in Grades 5 through 7 relying primarily on the strategy of "multiplication" (recasting the division problem as a multiplication problem) to solve the problems. Surprisingly, the frequency of direct retrieval (retrieving the answer directly from memory) did not increase across grade and never became the dominant strategy of choice. Reasons for why retrieval use remains infrequent and age invariant are discussed. Overall, the results suggest that division is a unique operation and that the continued study of division may have implications for further understanding of how procedural and conceptual knowledge of arithmetic develops.     

Stability and change in temperament during adolescence

This study assessed genetic and environmental contributions to temperament during adolescence within the Nonshared Environment and Adolescent Development project (NEAD; D. Reiss, J. M. Neiderhiser, E. M. Hetherington, & R. Plomin, 2000). NEAD is a national study that includes twins and other sibling types who vary in regard to genetic relatedness. Seven hundred twenty sibling pairs (aged 12.1-13.5 years) participated at Time 1, and 395 sibling pairs (aged 14.7-16.2 years) participated again at Time 2. At both Times, mothers and fathers rated their children's temperament (emotionality, activity, sociability, and shyness). At Times 1 and 2, genetic and nonshared environmental factors accounted for variance in temperament, whereas shared environmental contributions were negligible. However, at Time 1, genetic contributions were inflated, and shared environmental contributions were masked if sibling contrast effects were not taken into account. At Time 2, sibling interaction effects had little impact on estimates of genetic and environmental contributions to temperament. Last, temperament stability was primarily explained by genetic factors, whereas both genetic and nonshared environmental factors accounted for change.