Studies of Motor Function in Schizophrenia: III. Steadiness

Younger and older adults performed lexical decisions on ambiguous words, unambiguous words, and pseudowords, and simultaneously responded to an auditory probe presented at stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) of 90, 180, or 270 ms. For both age groups, lexical decisions and probe responses were faster for ambiguous words than for unambiguous words, and slowest for pseudowords. For the older adults, but not the younger adults, lexical decisions were slower when the probe was presented (the dual-task condition), compared with a control condition in which the lexical decision was performed alone. The older participants also showed slower tone-detection responses in the dual-task condition than when the tone was presented alone. For all participants, proportional tone-detection times (compared with tones in isolation) decreased with increasing SOA, but this decrease was less pronounced in the older group. Finally, the time between responses in the dual-task condition was longer for older than for younger adults. The results indicate that word meaning influences the allocation of attention similarly for younger and older adults, but that older adults suffer a cost and become disproportionately slower in processes related to response coordination and output.     

The Fusion Frequency in Different Areas of the Visual Field: III. Foveal Fusion Frequency and the Light-Dark Ratio for Constant Retinal Illumination at Fusion

An investigation was performed, with the use of 60 male and female college students, to quantify the Chevreul pendulum illusory effect, the tendency of a small pendulum, when suspended from the hand and imaginatively concentrated upon, to oscillate seemingly of its own accord. By means of a time exposure photographic measurement technique, strong parametric influences of the pendulum's sinusoidal motion were isolated. It was found that the pendulum effect was enhanced when (a) attentional capacity remained undivided, (b) the amount of musculature used to suspend the pendulum was at a maximum, (c) oscillating visual and auditory external stimuli were present, and (d) females were Ss. In addition, the visual stimulus was found to be superior to its auditory counterpart. The relevance of ideomotor and visual capture interpretations of covert muscle processes in the pendulum illusion was discussed.     

A Study of Learning Curves: III. The Relationship Between a Growth Curve and the Arc Cotangent Function

(Watson, Robert I. The Clinical Method in Psychology. New York: Harper, 1951. Pp. 779.) Reviewed by Sidney Kosofsky.     

语言对知觉的影响—— 来自颜色范畴知觉研究的证据

介绍了近年来语言和颜色范畴知觉关系研究的新进展, 特别是颜色范畴知觉效应的偏侧化、婴幼儿颜色范畴知觉的特点等。同时指出了今后需要进一步研究的问题, 如颜色范畴知觉效应偏侧化与语言的关系、右脑语言优势者颜色范畴知觉的特点、颜色加工脑区和语言加工脑区之间的关系以及婴幼儿颜色范畴知觉特点的追踪研究等。     

Perception of curves.

In 4 experiments, in which 66 subjects participated, the perception of 6 types of curved contours in two-dimensional shapes was studied. Random polygons and their curvilinear transformations were presented for detection under low-luminance contrast conditions, oddity-type discrimination problem solving, tachistoscopic identification, and identification involving visual acuity in distance vision. In all experiments curvature affected perception at statistically significant levels, but the extent of this effect was a function of (1) the locus and direction of curvature, (2) the level of compactness-jaggedness of the figure, and (3) the nature of perceptual task. Shapes with acute corners were more easily perceived than shapes with curved corners. Within these two classes of shapes, those with convex sides were perceived as having greater curvedness than those with concave contours. However, the degree to which curvature affected response was determined primarily by the nature of the perceptual task.     

The Ontology of Perception: Bipolarity and Content

The notion of perceptual content is commonly introduced in the analysis of perception. It stems from an analogy between perception and propositional attitudes. Both kinds of mental states, it is thought, have conditions of satisfaction. I try to show that on the most plausible account of perceptual content, it does not determine the conditions under which perceptual experience is veridical. Moreover, perceptual content must be bipolar (capable of being correct and capable of being incorrect), whereas perception as a mental state is not (if it is veridical, it is essentially so). This has profound consequences for the epistemological view that perception is a source of knowledge. I sktech a two-level epistemology which is consistent with this view. I conclude that the analogy between perception and propositional attitudes, from which the notion of perceptual content is born, may be more misleading than it is usually thought. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

时距知觉的扭曲:新异刺激效应

时距知觉会受到刺激新异性的影响,新异刺激的呈现时间往往被认为长于等时距重复出现的标准刺激的呈现时间.已有研究在解释这种主观的时距扩张现象时主要涉及三种假设:注意假设、唤醒假设和神经编码效能假设.研究中的变量混淆问题、跨通道效应和时间因素是今后研究中值得思考的几个问题.对于新异刺激效应产生的心理和神经机制,研究者们还存在着较大分歧.进一步探讨其心理和神经机制对理解时距知觉具有重要意义.     

学习、频率和结构方式对汉字知觉干扰效应的影响

知觉干扰存效应是指之前更模糊的刺激的呈现对之后同一模糊刺激的识别的抑制。实验-考察了学习和频率、实验二考察了学习和结构方式对汉字知觉干扰存效应的影响。结果发现：1．汉字与图片一样,不存在材料有限现象,在学习和不学习条件下,汉字识别中均存在知觉干扰效应;2．学习以及频率和结构方式对汉字知觉干扰效应的影响也不显著;3．频率、学习和结构方式对汉字识别的影响显著。这些结果似乎表明当激活超过一定的水平时,和汉字激活水平有关的因素对知觉干扰效应不再起作用。失匹配假说可更好的解释激活水平的作用以及材料有限现象。     

The Value of Perception

This paper develops a form of transcendental naïve realism. According to naïve realism, veridical perceptual experiences are essentially relational. According to transcendental naïve realism, the naïve realist theory of perception is not just one theory of perception amongst others, to be established as an inference to the best explanation and assessed on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis that weighs performance along a number of different dimensions: for instance, fidelity to appearances, simplicity, systematicity, fit with scientific theories, and so on. Rather, naïve realism enjoys a special status in debates in the philosophy of perception because it represents part of the transcendental project of explaining how it is possible that perceptual experience has the distinctive characteristics it does. One of the potentially most interesting prospects of adopting a transcendental attitude towards naïve realism is that it promises to make the naïve realist theory of perception, in some sense, immune to falsification. This paper develops a modest form of transcendental naïve realism modelled loosely on the account of the reactive attitudes provided by Strawson in ‘Freedom and Resentment’, and suggests one way of understanding the claim that naïve realism is immune to falsification.     

The Inaugural Address: Perception and Metaphysical Scepticism

In this paper I introduce and critically examine a paradox about perceiving that is in some ways analogous to the paradox about meaning which Kripke puts forward in his exegesis of Wittgenstein's views on Rule-following.
When applied to vision, the paradox of perceiving raises a metaphysical scepticism about which object a person is seeing if he looks, for example, at an apple on a tree directly in front of him. Physical objects can be seen when their appearance is distorted in various ways by illusions. The question therefore arises as to how can we answer the sceptic who suggests the following: although the viewer appears to be seeing the green apple in front of him, he is actually suffering a bizarre illusion of a blue car situated somewhere behind him. The sceptic is not concerned with epistemic problems about how we know which object, if any, the subject is seeing; the sceptic is raising the more fundamental question: what fact of the matter underlies a person's perceptual relation to the physical world, in virtue of which that person may be justified in arriving at a perceptual belief about the environment?
Among the various different issues raised by the sceptic, I focus on the question: what determines the perceiving relation? I canvass a number of possible proposals in answer to it, concentrating mainly on two opposed accounts: the Disjunctive View and the Causal Theory of Perception. I argue in particular for the following two claims:
that the paradox highlights the fact that the Disjunctive View fails to provide a coherent positive account of what perceiving is.
that the problem of 'deviant causal chains', often thought to raise particular difficulties for the Causal theorist, can also be raised against other accounts of perception, including versions of the Disjunctive View.
I conclude that unless the Causal Theory of Perception can be upheld, there will be no way of answering the sceptic.     

变化知觉的另一面——变化盲

人们经常会探测不到事物的变化,这种现象被称为变化盲（change blindness）,它和变化觉察是变化知觉的两个面。对变化盲的研究主要集中以下几个方面：对变化盲现象产生的原因辨析以及从刺激属性和注意广度、知识经验、个体差异、文化背景等分析变化盲的影响因素;近几年来内隐变化觉察也引起研究者的争论和重视;此外,对变化盲的多（跨）通道和错误元认知研究也成为一种新的研究动向。同时,变化盲研究在其表征机制、加工方式以及内隐变化觉察等方面尚存在争议,变化盲的错误元认知研究以及变化盲的认知神经心理研究则是此领域的薄弱环节。