Attentional modulation of a figural aftereffect.

Evidence is reported that indicates that adaptation of the Schroder staircase is affected by attention. In previous work it has been shown that if subjects adapt to an unambiguous staircase, responses to an ambiguous test figure are biased towards the opposing perspective. In the current work, subjects adapted to superimposed upright and inverted Schroder staircases. Both staircases were centered on a common fixation point and were of different sizes and colors. Attention to each staircase was controlled by asking subjects to detect color changes in the line segments that defined one or the other staircase. Responses to an ambiguous test figure depended on which of the adapting staircases was attended.     

Increasing Deception Detection Accuracy with Strategic Questioning

One explanation for the finding of slightly above‐chance accuracy in detecting deception experiments is limited variance in sender transparency. The current study sought to increase accuracy by increasing variance in sender transparency with strategic interrogative questioning. Participants (total N = 128) observed cheaters and noncheaters who were questioned with either indirect background questions or strategic questioning. Accuracy was significantly below chance (44%) in the background questions condition and substantially above chance (68%) in the strategic interrogative questioning condition. The results suggest that transparency can be increased by strategic question asking and that accuracy rates well above chance are possible even for untrained judges exposed to only brief communications.     

Directionally selective channels mediate the discrimination of moving aperiodic stimuli

Adaptation procedures were used to demonstrate that directionally selective channels mediate the discrimination of aperiodic stimuli moving at a common speed. Subjects were adapted to a grating that drifted to either the left or the right. They then determined the orientation of the gap in a 'C' that was also moving to either the left or the right. Performance in identifying the gap orientation was most impaired when the C moved in the same direction as the adapting grating.