Individual differences in the tendency to see the expected

Prior knowledge has been shown to facilitate the incorporation of visual stimuli into awareness. We adopted an individual differences approach to explore whether a tendency to ‘see the expected’ is general or method-specific. We administered a binocular rivalry task and manipulated selective attention, as well as induced expectations via predictive context, self-generated imagery, expectancy cues, and perceptual priming. Most prior manipulations led to a facilitated awareness of the biased percept in binocular rivalry, whereas strong signal primes led to a suppressed awareness, i.e., adaptation. Correlations and factor analysis revealed that the facilitatory effect of priors on visual awareness is closely related to attentional control. We also investigated whether expectation-based biases predict perceptual abilities. Adaptation to strong primes predicted improved naturalistic change detection and the facilitatory effect of weak primes predicted the experience of perceptual anomalies. Taken together, our results indicate that the facilitatory effect of priors may be underpinned by an attentional mechanism but the tendency to ‘see the expected’ is method-specific.     

The conscious experience of color constancy and neural responses to subliminal deviations – A behavioral and EEG/ERP oddball study

IntroductionColor constancy, a property of conscious color experience, maintains object color appearance across illuminant changes. We investigated the neural correlates of subliminal vs. conscious stimulus deviations of color constancy manipulations.MethodsBehavioral and Oddball EEG/ERP experiments were conducted (n = 20). Psychophysical illuminant variation discrimination thresholds were first estimated, to establish individual perceptual awareness ranges, allowing for simulation of natural daylight spectral and spatial variations on colored surfaces, at different ambiguity levels.ResultsBehavioral results validated illuminant choice. ERPs showed a significant modulation of posterior P1 component specifically for the subliminal global uniform deviation condition, respecting color constancy. Neural correlates of conscious percepts were identified at posterior N2-P3 latencies, parietal (P3b) and frontal regions.ConclusionsWe identified an early subliminal correlate of low-level illuminant change, which reflects automatic unconscious detection of global color constancy deviations. Its suppression under conscious perception is probably due to top-down suppression according to prediction error models.     

The relationships between quantity‐number competencies,working memory,and phonological awareness in 5‐ and 6‐year‐olds

In this study, the interdependencies among phonological awareness, verbal working memory components, and early numerical skills in children 1 year before school entry are addressed. Early numerical skills were conceptualized as quantity‐number competencies (QNC) at both basic (QNC Level 1) and advanced (QNC Level 2) levels. In a sample of 1,343 children aged 5 and 6, structural equation modelling provided support for the isolated number words hypothesis (Krajewski & Schneider, 2009, J. Exp. Child Psychol., 103, 516–531). This hypothesis claims that phonological awareness contributes to the acquisition of QNC Level 1, such as learning the number word sequence, but not of QNC Level 2, which requires the linkage of number words to quantities. In addition, phonological awareness relied on verbal working memory, especially with regard to the phonological loop, central executive, and episodic buffer. The results were congruent with the idea that phonological awareness mediates the impact of verbal working memory on QNCs. The relationships between verbal working memory, phonological awareness, and QNCs were comparable in monolingual and bilingual children.     

When All Is Revealed: A Dissociation between Evaluative Learning and Contingency Awareness

Three experiments are reported that address the issue of awareness in evaluative learning in two different sensory modalities: visual and haptic. Attempts were made to manipulate the degree of awareness through a reduction technique (by use of a distractor task in Experiments 1 and 2 and by subliminally presenting affective stimuli in Experiment 3) and an induction technique (by unveiling the evaluative learning effect and requiring participants to try to discount the influence of the affective stimuli). The results indicate overall that evaluative learning was successful in the awareness-reduction groups but not in the awareness-induction groups. Moreover, an effect in the opposite direction to that normally observed in evaluative learning emerged in participants aware of the stimulus contingencies. In addition, individual differences in psychological reactance were found to be implicated in the strength and direction of the effect. It is argued that these results pose serious problems for the contention that awareness is necessary for evaluative learning.