Infant visual habituation

The use of visual habituation in the study of infant cognition and learning is reviewed. This article traces the history of the technique, underlying theory, and procedural variation in its measurement. In addition, we review empirical findings with respect to the cognitive processes that presumably contribute to habituation, studies of developmental course and long-term prediction, as well as recent attempts to address or explain the phenomenon of visual habituation through the use of mathematical or quantitative models. The review ends with an appeal for a return to the study of habituation per se as a valid measure of infant learning, rather than relegating the phenomenon to its use as a technique for familiarizing infants in procedures testing for discrimination or recognition.     

Tonic Activity Level in the Right Prefrontal Cortex Predicts Individuals' Risk Taking

ABSTRACT— Human risk taking is characterized by a large amount of individual heterogeneity. In this study, we applied resting-state electroencephalography, which captures stable individual differences in neural activity, before subjects performed a risk-taking task. Using a source-localization technique, we found that the baseline cortical activity in the right prefrontal cortex predicts individual risk-taking behavior. Individuals with higher baseline cortical activity in this brain area display more risk aversion than do other individuals. This finding demonstrates that neural characteristics that are stable over time can predict a highly complex behavior such as risk-taking behavior and furthermore suggests that hypoactivity in the right prefrontal cortex might serve as a dispositional indicator of lower regulatory abilities, which is expressed in greater risk-taking behavior.     

Identifying the Creative Act in Advertising: A Study on Naïve People's Awareness of Restructuring

This study investigates whether laypersons can distinguish between creative and non-creative artifacts, identify when creativity emerges, and be aware of the merit to be attributed to those who conceive a creative idea. Study 1 analyzed a creative and a non-creative version of two advertisements. In the creative version, there was an ideational process of advertising drafts where the first meaning changed, whereas in the non-creative version the original meaning did not change. Forty undergraduates were asked to judge beauty and originality of each draft and the contribution that graphics managers gave to the outcome. Non-creative changes did not affect beauty and originality ratings, whereas creative modifications increased originality, but not beauty score. Merit was attributed to the graphics manager who transformed the original meaning. In Study 2, one hundred twenty-eight participants evaluated four combinations of textual (creative/noncreative) and iconic (creative/non-creative) elements which were added to the advertisements. Again, the creative, but not the non-creative, contribution to drafts was acknowledged regarding originality by participants. Findings suggest that people can recognize the presence of creativity when it develops and the restructuring mechanism that supports it.     

A comparison of visual and auditory short-term memory in monkeys (Cebus apella)

Using a visual and an acoustic sample set that appeared to favour the auditory modality of the monkey subjects, in Experiment 1 retention gradients generated in closely comparable visual and auditory matching (go/no-go) tasks revealed a more durable short-term memory (STM) for the visual modality. In Experiment 2, potentially interfering visual and acoustic stimuli were introduced during the retention intervals of the auditory matching task. Unlike the case of visual STM, delay-interval visual stimulation did not affect auditory STM. On the other hand, delay-interval music decreased auditory STM, confirming that the monkeys maintained an auditory trace during the retention intervals. Surprisingly, monkey vocalizations injected during the retention intervals caused much less interference than music. This finding, which was confirmed by the results of Experiments 3 and 4, may be due to differential processing of “arbitrary” (the acoustic samples) and species-specific (monkey vocalizations) sounds by the subjects. Although less robust than visual STM, auditory STM was nevertheless substantial, even with retention intervals as long as 32 sec.     

Visual pop-out in infants: Evidence for preattentive search in 3- and 4-month-olds

The present experiment tested for preattentive visual search in 3- and 4-month-old infants using stimulus features described by Treisman and Souther (1985) as producing visual “pop-out” effects in adults. Infants were presented with two visual arrays to the left and right of midline. One array comprised homogeneous elements, while the other had a discrepant element embedded in it. On the basis of previous research, we expected infants to fixate the array containing the embedded discrepant element. The pattern of fixation indicated detection of the embedded discrepant element for both age groups, but only with stimuli shown to elicit visual pop out in adults. This asymmetry in detection is consistent with the presence of preattentive visual search in infants as young as 3 months.     

The Editing Density of Moving Images Influences Viewers’ Time Perception: The Mediating Role of Eye Movements

The present study examined whether cinematographic editing density affects viewers’ perception of time. As a second aim, based on embodied models that conceive time perception as strictly connected to the movement, we tested the hypothesis that the editing density of moving images also affects viewers’ eye movements and that these later mediate the effect of editing density on viewers’ temporal judgments. Seventy participants watched nine video clips edited by manipulating the number of cuts (slow- and fast-paced editing against a master shot, unedited condition). For each editing density, multiple video clips were created, representing three different kinds of routine actions. The participants’ eye movements were recorded while watching the video, and the participants were asked to report duration judgments and subjective passage of time judgments after watching each clip. The results showed that participants subjectively perceived that time flew more while watching fast-paced edited videos than slow-paced or unedited videos; by contrast, concerning duration judgments, participants overestimated the duration of fast-paced videos compared to the master-shot videos. Both the slow- and the fast-paced editing generated shorter fixations than the master shot, and the fast-paced editing led to shorter fixations than the slow-paced editing. Finally, compared to the unedited condition, editing led to an overestimation of durations through increased eye mobility. These findings suggest that the editing density of moving images by increasing the number of cuts effectively altered viewers’ experience of time and add further evidence to prior research showing that performed eye movement is associated with temporal judgments.     

Spectral complexity and infant attention

In two experiments, infants selectively attended to auditory stimuli that presented an increasingly complex spectral structure. Using 2- and 4-month-olds as subjects, the first study demonstrated this selectivity in comparison to the rate of acoustic change. The second study demonstrated the increased attention of 4-month-olds in response to an increasingly complex structure. Results are discussed with respect to the neural activity produced by these stimuli along the auditory pathway, and an analogy to the literature on visual attention is drawn.     

Structure and continuity of intellectual development in early childhood

We evaluated over 200 participants semiannually from 12 to 48 months of age on measures of intellectual (Bayley Scales, Stanford–Binet Scale) and verbal (MacArthur–Bates Inventory, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test) status. Structural equation modeling and hierarchical linear (growth curve) analyses were applied to address the nature of development and individual differences during this time. Structural analyses showed a strong and robust simplex model from infancy to the preschool period, with no evidence of qualitative reorganizations or discontinuities. Growth-curve modeling revealed significant associations between level factors across the early and later measures of cognition, providing further evidence of continuity; the growth trajectory from the Bayley through 24 months predicted growth in a nonverbal factor, but not in a verbal factor. Altogether, the findings reveal continuous and stable development in intellectual function from late infancy through the preschool years. Additionally, the high level of continuity demonstrated across these ages was observed to be largely independent of growth in vocabulary.