Weakening the robustness of perspective: Evidence for a modified theory of compensation in picture perception

Viewed from the center of projection, a perspective picture presents the pictorial depth information of a scene. Knowing the center of projection, one can reconstruct the depicted scene. Assuming another viewpoint is the center of projection will cause one to reconstruct a transformed scene. Despite these transformations, we appreciate pictures from other viewpoints. The compensation hypothesis states that the visible picture surface allows observers to compensate for transformations by locating the center of projection and experiencing pictorial space from there. We show that observers neither completely compensate for nor experience transformations of space as geometry would predict. We propose a modified compensation hypothesis according to which different degrees of visibility of the picture surface invoke different degrees of compensation.     

Coping with phonological assimilation in speech perception: evidence for early compensation

The pronunciation of the same word may vary considerably as a consequence of its context. The Dutch word tuin (English, garden) may be pronounced tuim if followed by bank (English, bench), but not if followed by stoel (English, chair). In a series of four experiments, we examined how Dutch listeners cope with this context sensitivity in their native language. A first word identification experiment showed that the perception of a word-final nasal depends on the subsequent context. Viable assimilations, but not unviable assimilations, were often confused perceptually with canonical word forms in a word identification task. Two control experiments ruled out the possibility that this effect was caused by perceptual masking or was influenced by lexical top-down effects. A passive-listening study in which electrophysiological measurements were used showed that only unviable, but not viable, phonological changes elicited a significant mismatch negativity. The results indicate that phonological assimilations are dealt with by an early prelexical mechanism.     

An empirical investigation of the visual rightness theory of picture perception

This research subjected the visual rightness theory of picture perception to experimental scrutiny. It investigated the ability of adults untrained in the visual arts to discriminate between reproductions of original abstract and representational paintings by renowned artists from two experimentally manipulated less well-organized versions of each art stimulus. Perturbed stimuli contained either minor or major disruptions in the originals' principal structural networks. It was found that participants were significantly more successful in discriminating between originals and their highly altered, but not slightly altered, perturbation than expected by chance. Accuracy of detection was found to be a function of style of painting and a viewer's way of thinking about a work as determined from their verbal reactions to it. Specifically, hit rates for originals were highest for abstract works when participants focused on their compositional style and form and highest for representational works when their content and realism were the focus of attention. Findings support the view that visually right (i.e., "good") compositions have efficient structural organizations that are visually salient to viewers who lack formal training in the visual arts.     

Event perception: a mind-brain perspective

People perceive and conceive of activity in terms of discrete events. Here the authors propose a theory according to which the perception of boundaries between events arises from ongoing perceptual processing and regulates attention and memory. Perceptual systems continuously make predictions about what will happen next. When transient errors in predictions arise, an event boundary is perceived. According to the theory, the perception of events depends on both sensory cues and knowledge structures that represent previously learned information about event parts and inferences about actors' goals and plans. Neurological and neurophysiological data suggest that representations of events may be implemented by structures in the lateral prefrontal cortex and that perceptual prediction error is calculated and evaluated by a processing pathway, including the anterior cingulate cortex and subcortical neuromodulatory systems.     

Useful resolution for picture perception as a function of eccentricity

Observers inspected for different lengths of time pictures which contained high-resolution information within an eye-contingent viewing window and low-resolution information outside the area of that window. A recognition test followed in which the pictures inspected were presented together with other, distractor, pictures. The time required to reach 75% picture recognition (the criterion study time) was determined as a function of window size and degree of completeness of video sampling of information outside the window. For each level of information sampling density, criterion study time decreased as window size increased up to a critical size, and then remained approximately constant beyond this size. From these critical-window sizes, a function which describes the resolution actually used by the visual system at each eccentricity (the useful-resolution function) was obtained and this decreased monotonically with eccentricity. The useful resolution at each eccentricity was coarser than the resolution available at that eccentricity as determined by visual acuity, suggesting that useful resolution is not limited by visual acuity. The relationship between useful resolution and saccade length was also analyzed.     

Perceptual vigilance and defense revisited: evidence against Blum's psychoanalytic theory of subliminal perception.

Blum's (1954) interpretation of psychoanalytic theory leads him to predict that Ss will defend against a threatening stimulus which is just below a recognition threshold and be vigilant toward the same stimulus when it is farther below the same threshold. 7 males and 9 females were presented the same four Blacky pictures, at the same speed and illumination, and using the same procedure as Blum. The results offered no support for the theory of perceptual vigilance or defense. The many weaknesses inherent in Blum's theory and supporting methodology were discussed.     

Illusory-figure lightness: evidence for a two-component theory

Physical darkness gradients were introduced into an illusory-figure pattern which were sufficient to eliminate the illusory lightness effect otherwise seen there. Next, such a gradient was left in place along one edge of that figure while the other edges were returned to physical homogeneity with the surround. Rather surprisingly, the physical gradient still present along the unaltered edge was now overwhelmed by illusory lightness. It is argued that this anomaly suggests that illusory-figure lightness may be composed of two additive components, one of which is figure-ground contrast enhancement and the other of which is contingent upon that first component.     

Contrast requirements for picture recognition: converging evidence for a spatial frequency hypothesis

Based upon perceptual studies, the present hypothesis was that different ranges of spatial-frequency information constitute different sources of information for recognition memory. In Experiment 1, 40 subjects were tested with sets of focused and unfocused pictures as inspection and test stimuli. In addition to reporting whether each test picture was believed to be a member of the inspection set or a novel picture, each subject was allowed to adjust the contrast of the stimulus until such a judgment could be made. In Experiment 2, subjects made similar judgments when inspection or test stimuli were flickered (perceptually enhancing low spatial frequencies) or unflickered. Results from both studies were consistent with the experimental hypothesis. Other studies were reviewed, which, together with the present data, lend converging evidence to the spatial-frequency hypothesis.     

Age of acquisition effects in picture naming: evidence for a lexical-semantic competition hypothesis

In many tasks the effects of frequency and age of acquisition (AoA) on reaction latencies are similar in size. However, in picture naming the AoA-effect is often significantly larger than expected on the basis of the frequency-effect. Previous explanations of this frequency-independent AoA-effect have attributed it to the organisation of the semantic system or to the way phonological word forms are stored in the mental lexicon. Using a semantic blocking paradigm, we show that semantic context effects on naming latencies are more pronounced for late-acquired than for early-acquired words. This interaction between AoA and naming context is likely to arise during lexical-semantic encoding, which we put forward as the locus for the frequency-independent AoA-effect.     

The dramaturgic perspective: Implications for the study of person perception

The major theoretical contributions to the study of attribution, those of Heider (1958), Kelley (1967) and Jones and Davis (1965) have worked from the assumption that person perception is analogous to object perception and scientific investigation. Goffman's dramaturgic analysis of the social self provides an alternative framework for addressing the problem of how we perceive and understand the behaviour of others. In this paper, I explore the implications of the dramaturgic perspective for the study of person perception and discuss the ways in which it diverges from the traditional approach to attribution. In addition, I present an alternative account of the Fundamental Attributional Error that arises in light of Goffman's dramaturgic analysis.     

Aging faces as viscal-elastic events: implications for a theory of nonrigid shape perception.

A theory for the perception of events is proposed using the concepts of transformational and structural invariants. This approach involves the application of a method of spatial coordinate transformation to characterize the remodeling of faces by growth. By construing growing faces to the viscal-elastic events, the perception of the relative age level faces in made amenable to the proposed event perception analysis. Shear and strain transformation are compared as alternative formulations of growth-produced changes in the shape of human profiles. Thes studies indicate that profiles transformed by strain elicit more reliable rank-order age judgments than those transformed by shear, although shear had a small significant effect. It is also shown that subjects are highly sensitive to small changes in strain, and that perceived identity of a shape is preserved under the strain transformation. The explanatory adequacy of the event perception theory of age information is compared to that of more traditional feature analytic theories.     

Picture perception: An analysis of visual compensation

Although geometric information is altered when a picture’s viewing point is changed, such changes often do not affect perception. Two experiments assessed pictorial perception relative to the distortions introduced by viewing point dislocation. Results provide a psychophysical demonstration of pictorial compensation and suggest that it is based on the discrepancy between the actual and an assumed-correct viewing position. An explanation of pictorial compensation is offered that could be applied to direct picture perception and to picture-in-a-picture perception.     

On the causes of compensation for coarticulation: evidence for phonological mediation

This study examined whether compensation for coarticulation in fricative-vowel syllables is phonologically mediated or a consequence of auditory processes. Smits (2001a) had shown that compensation occurs for anticipatory lip rounding in a fricative caused by a following rounded vowel in Dutch. In a first experiment, the possibility that compensation is due to general auditory processing was investigated using nonspeech sounds. These did not cause context effects akin to compensation for coarticulation, although nonspeech sounds influenced speech sound identification in an integrative fashion. In a second experiment, a possible phonological basis for compensation for coarticulation was assessed by using audiovisual speech. Visual displays, which induced the perception of a rounded vowel, also influenced compensation for anticipatory lip rounding in the fricative. These results indicate that compensation for anticipatory lip rounding in fricative-vowel syllables is phonologically mediated. This result is discussed in the light of other compensation-for-coarticulation findings and general theories of speech perception.     

Belief in a just world and social perception: evidence for automatic activation

The authors tested the hypothesis that beliefs in a just world are automatically activated and used in social perception. Under the guise of a perceptual vigilance task, the authors exposed 34 undergraduate women preconsciously to words that were either rape-related or neutral. Immediately after the exposure, participants read a date scenario that was ambiguous with respect to the man's aggressiveness and the extent to which the woman was responsible for the man's behavior. Afterwards, all participants evaluated the target man and woman on an impression task. The primary finding was that participants holding stronger beliefs in a just world perceived the target woman more negatively after experiencing the rape-related prime words than after experiencing the neutral words. This pattern is consistent with a research literature that shows that believers in a just world will often "blame the victim" in cases of rape. The present findings are important because they provide evidence that general, orienting beliefs are automatically activated in a manner similar to that shown by stereotype beliefs. The authors discussed implications for social perception.     

Motivation in person perception: role of the other's perspective

In previous studies (G. Steins & R. A. Wicklund, 1993, 1996, 1997; R. A. Wicklund & G. Steins, 1996), perspective-taking depended on the interplay between 2 variables--(a) press (the relationship intensity between perceiver and perceived person) and (b) conflict. In the absence of conflict, perspective-taking was positively related to press; in the presence of conflict, perspective-taking was negatively related to press. In the present 3 studies, involving samples of German students, the author conducted a detailed exploration of the motivational impact of press on perspective-taking: In the 1st study, she measured press via the participant's wish to deal with the other person; in the 2nd study, via the perceiver's preoccupation with the target; and in the 3rd study, she defined press as a general tendency of some participants to become absorbed in other individuals. All 3 studies included elements of conflict. The results further supported the perspective-taking model and improved the understanding of the influence of motivation in person perception.