Dissociating the effects of similarity, salience, and top-down processes in search for linearly separable size targets

In two experiments, we explored the role of foreknowledge on visual search for targets defined along the size continuum. Targets were of large, medium, or small size and of high or low similarity relative to the distractors. In Experiment 1, we compared search for known and unknown singleton feature targets as a function of their size and similarity to the distractors. When distractor similarity was high, target foreknowledge benefited targets at the end of the size continuum (i.e., large and small) relatively more than targets of medium size. In Experiment 2, participants were given foreknowledge of what the target was not The beneficial effect of foreknowledge for endpoint targets was reduced. The data indicate the role of top-down templates in search, which can be "tuned" more effectively for targets at the ends of feature dimensions.     

The time course of figure-ground reversal

We report the results from five experiments employing a modified version of the short-term visual matching (STVM) method introduced by Driver and Baylis (1996). In STVM, participants see a study display with ambiguous figure-ground relations. After the study display, participants have to decide which of two shapes in a match display was seen before in the study display. STVM has been used by Vecera, Vogel, and Woodman (2002) to demonstrate that the lower region is a figure-ground cue. In our modified version of STVM, the study stimulus was preceded by a brief prime. This caused a biasing of the figural interpretation of the ambiguous figure-ground displays that contained the lower region cue. We show that 100-msec priming with an unambiguous display is enough to affect the subsequent interpretation of the ambiguous figure-ground display. It takes maximally 350 msec to complete a transition from the nondominant interpretation to the dominant interpretation of an ambiguous figure-ground display that contains the lower region cue.     

Direct and indirect effects of action on object classification

We report three experiments in which name verification responses to either objects (Experiments 1 and 2) or hand movements (Experiment 3) were compared with action decisions, where participants verified whether an object is typically used in the way described by a verbal label. In Experiments 1 and 2, we report that action decisions show more consistent and larger effects of the congruency of either a handgrip or a type of movement than do name verification responses, although there was some effect of the congruency of the handgrip on name verification. In Experiment 3, we demonstrate that the congruency of the object being moved affects both action and name verification responses to hand movements. We discuss the]data relative to accounts of how actions and names are accessed by visually presented objects and in relation to work on the information called upon in classification tasks.     

Driving attention with the top down: The relative contribution of target templates to the linear separability effect in the size dimension

Bauer, Jolicoeur, and Cowan (1996a, 1996b, 1998) have shown that visual search for a target among distractors is apparently serial if the target is nonlinearly separable from the distractors in a particular feature space (e.g., color or size). In contrast, if the target is linearly separable from the distractors, search is relatively easy and seemingly spatially parallel. We examined the contribution of top-down knowledge of the target to the linear separability effect on search. Two visual search experiments were conducted using small, medium, or large circles as targets. In the first experiment, participants could use knowledge of the target to guide search, whereas, in the second, the target was unknown on each trial. Search for a medium (nonlinearly separable) target among small or large distractors benefited least from knowledge of the target as compared with search for a small or large target. Thus, the linear separability effect can be determined in part by use of top-down knowledge to facilitate the detection of targets at the ends of a continuum defining the stimuli.     

Understanding emotion: lessons from anxiety

We agree that conceptualisation is key in understanding the brain basis of emotion. We argue that by conflating facial emotion recognition with subjective emotion experience, Lindquist et al. understate the importance of biological predisposition in emotion. We use examples from the anxiety disorders to illustrate the distinction between these two phenomena, emphasising the importance of both emotional hardware and contextual learning.     

Immediate small number perception: evidence from a new numerical carry-over procedure

Evidence is presented for the immediate apprehension of exact small quantities. Participants performed a quantification task (are the number of items greater or smaller than?), and carry-over effects were examined between numbers requiring the same response. Carry-over effects between small numbers were strongly affected by repeats of pattern and number identity relative to when displays were from the same response category but contained different numbers. Carry-over effects with large items were less sensitive to both pattern and number identity, even when the numbers in the small and large categories were matched for discriminability. The data suggest that small numbers are immediately apprehended through a direct subitization process distinct from pattern recognition and the apprehension of approximate number.     

Interactions between facial emotion and identity in face processing: Evidence based on redundancy gains

Interactions between the processing of emotion expression and form-based information from faces (facial identity) were investigated using the redundant-target paradigm, in which we specifically tested whether identity and emotional expression are integrated in a superadditive manner (Miller, Cognitive Psychology 14:247?C279, 1982). In Experiments 1 and 2, participants performed emotion and face identity judgments on faces with sad or angry emotional expressions. Responses to redundant targets were faster than responses to either single target when a universal emotion was conveyed, and performance violated the predictions from a model assuming independent processing of emotion and face identity. Experiment 4 showed that these effects were not modulated by varying interstimulus and nontarget contingencies, and Experiment 5 demonstrated that the redundancy gains were eliminated when faces were inverted. Taken together, these results suggest that the identification of emotion and facial identity interact in face processing.     

Cultural effects in emotion and gender recognition

There is evidence for cultural differences in how people respond to basic properties of faces. We examined task switching between two properties of faces, emotion and gender, for individuals drawn from Western (White UK citizens) and Asian (Pakistani) cultures. There were three main results of interest. First, there was a double dissociation between gender and emotion classification across the participant populations – Western participants were faster to make gender than emotion classifications while Asian participants were faster to make emotion than gender classifications. It is argued that the different patterns of results reflect the greater attentional weight given to contrasting face dimensions in the different cultures, and the dependence on using different attributes to make gender discriminations in individuals from varying cultures. Second, Asian participants showed smaller switch costs overall than did White British participants. This result may be attributed to effects of bilingualism in the Asian participants, which results in their having greater executive resources. Third, emotion decisions showed larger switch costs than gender decisions but essentially because emotion decisions benefited from priming on non‐switch trials. It is argued that emotion decisions benefit from the activation of a specific processing module across consecutive trials.     

The size of an attentional window affects working memory guidance

We ask whether attentional guidance from working memory (WM) is influenced by the size of an attentional window. Participants adopted either a focused or a diffuse attentional window when responding to a search display. Prior to the search display an initial cue had to be held in memory (Experiment 1A, visual WM; Experiment 1C, verbal WM) or merely identified (Experiment 1B, identification). In all cases, search performance was affected by the re-presentation of the cue in the search display, with the cuing effects (either cost or benefit) being larger when the cue was held in memory than when it was merely identified. Critically, the magnitude of the cuing benefit increased when participants adopted a diffuse attentional window. This held for effects that are based on items held in WM and for effects that are based only on item priming. The results suggest that variations in the size of an attentional window modulate top-down (both WM conditions) as well as bottom-up guidance of attention (identification condition).     

British-English norms and naming times for a set of 539 pictures: The role of age of acquisition

In the present study, we presented picture-naming latencies along with ratings for a set of important characteristics of pictures and picture names: age of acquisition, frequency, picture-name agreement, name agreement, visual complexity, familiarity, and word length. The validity of these data was established by calculating correlations with previous studies. Regression analyses show that our ratings account for a larger amount of variance in RTs than do previous data. RTs were predicted by all variables except complexity and length. A complete database presenting details about all of these variables is available in the supplemental materials, downloadable from http://brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.