Self-relevance enhances the benefits of attention on perception

ABSTRACT

Considerable efforts have focused on elucidating the influence that self-relevance exerts on perceptual decision-making. To explore this issue further, the current research explored the extent to which stimulus applicability facilitates the benefits of covert attention on early visual processing. In two experiments, we manipulated the personal-relevance of peripheral cues (i.e., geometric shapes) that preceded the appearance of target stimuli (i.e., Gabors) and asked participants to report the orientation of the stimulus with the highest contrast. The results revealed a significant effect of self-relevance on task performance. First, compared to cues associated with a friend or stranger, self-relevant cues enhanced the apparent contrast of a stimulus. Second, the benefits of self-relevance were most pronounced when cues pertained to identities that were significant (vs. trivial or irrelevant) to observers. Together, these findings demonstrate that self-relevance potentiates the benefits of transient attention on stimulus processing.     

Stereo disparity facilitates view generalization during shape recognition for solid multipart objects

Current theories of object recognition in human vision make different predictions about whether the recognition of complex, multipart objects should be influenced by shape information about surface depth orientation and curvature derived from stereo disparity. We examined this issue in five experiments using a recognition memory paradigm in which observers (N = 134) memorized and then discriminated sets of 3D novel objects at trained and untrained viewpoints under either mono or stereo viewing conditions. In order to explore the conditions under which stereo-defined shape information contributes to object recognition we systematically varied the difficulty of view generalization by increasing the angular disparity between trained and untrained views. In one series of experiments, objects were presented from either previously trained views or untrained views rotated (15°, 30°, or 60°) along the same plane. In separate experiments we examined whether view generalization effects interacted with the vertical or horizontal plane of object rotation across 40° viewpoint changes. The results showed robust viewpoint-dependent performance costs: Observers were more efficient in recognizing learned objects from trained than from untrained views, and recognition was worse for extrapolated than for interpolated untrained views. We also found that performance was enhanced by stereo viewing but only at larger angular disparities between trained and untrained views. These findings show that object recognition is not based solely on 2D image information but that it can be facilitated by shape information derived from stereo disparity.     

影响视觉复合刺激中整体和局部性质加工的几种因素

文章研究了视知觉组织,空间位置不确定性和视野位置等因素对复合刺激中整体和局部性质加工的影响。实验发现,（１）当复合刺激呈现在白背景上时,反应时和干扰作用都表明复复合刺激中大图的加工优于小图,刺激位置的不确定削弱大图对小图的干扰作用;而当复合刺激呈现在由“＋”组成的背影或时,小图的加工优于大图,刺激位置的不确定延长分辩小图的ＲＴ;（２）与周国刺激相比,分辨视野中央的复合刺激的ＲＴ较短,这种影响对分辨     

Competing stimulus assessments: A systematic review

The current review summarizes the literature on competing stimulus assessments (CSAs). CSAs are pretreatment assessments designed to systematically identify stimuli that reduce problem behavior (PB), ostensibly through reinforcer competition or substitution. We report on the participant characteristics, outcomes, and predictive validity of published CSAs that included (a) no-stimulus control trial(s), (b) test trials during which each stimulus was available singly and noncontingently, and (c) measurement of PB and stimulus engagement or contact. Results showed that CSAs have broad utility across a variety of topographies and functions of PB. In the majority of CSA applications for which extended analyses, or validations, were performed, stimuli shown to reduce PB during the CSA produced similar reductions during extended analysis. This was the case regardless of topography or function of PB, or whether the stimuli were assumed to be “matched” to the stimulation thought to be produced by PB. Implications for future research are discussed.     

DO PARAKEETS EXHIBIT DERIVED STIMULUS CONTROL? SOME THOUGHTS ON EXPERIMENTAL CONTROL PROCEDURES

Breaking new ground in the study of emergent stimulus control in nonverbal subjects may require innovation in procedures. A recent study of parakeets is exemplary. This study used intricate procedures for maintaining test-trial performance without differential reinforcement of the target emergent performance. Also, it used successive simple discrimination procedures, which are rare in such studies. Given the importance of these innovations and the outcomes that they produced, we suggest additional control procedures that would rule out the possibility of adventitious reinforcement of the test-trial performances.     

The effects of stimulus movement and attention on peripheral stimulus localization by 8- to 26-week-old infants

This study examined the effect of stimulus movement on localization probability and latency during attention and inattention. Forty infants, 10 each at 8, 14, 20, and 26 weeks of age were presented with a central stimulus. Then, a peripheral stimulus was presented (static or dynamic checkerboard). Stimulus movement did not affect localization probability. Infants localized the dynamic peripheral stimulus more quickly than the static peripheral stimulus when there was no focal stimulus. Focal stimulus attention attenuated this difference in localization latency between static and dynamic stimuli. Signal detection analysis showed that sensitivity to the peripheral stimulus increased over this age range along with a decrease in the bias against responding. The effects of attention were on response bias rather than stimulus sensitivity. These results imply attention affected the localization response to the peripheral stimulus but did not affect the sensitivity of the sensory and perceptual pathways to peripheral stimuli.     

分散空间注意条件下客体特征一致性对视觉特征错觉性结合的影响

本研究通过设置对空间注意资源的分配实施强行操作的情形下,探讨了主、次作业客体形状一致性和次作业客体间距对乏空间注意区次作业客体颜色、形状特征的检测及对特征错觉性结合的影响。实验结果表明：（１）分散空间注意使次作业区域注意减弱,对客体及其颜色和形状特征的识别均产生明显影响．而且对形状的影响又大于颜色;（２）特征错觉性结合率,主、次作业客体形状一致时比客体形状不一致时明显增大;（３）次作业客体间距对特征错觉性结合率无明显影响,但客体形状一致性和客体间距之间存在明显交互作用．     

EFFECTS OF WITHIN-STIMULUS AND EXTRA-STIMULUS PROMPTING ON DISCRIMINATION LEARNING IN AUTISTIC CHILDREN1

Two different prompting procedures to teach visual and auditory discriminations to autistic children were compared. The first involved presenting an added cue as an extra-stimulus prompt. This required the child to respond to both prompt and training stimulus. The second involved the use of a within-stimulus prompt. This consisted of an exaggeration of the relevant component of the training stimulus and thus did not require that the child respond to multiple cues. The results indicated that (1) children usually failed to learn the discriminations without a prompt, (2) children always failed to learn when the extra-stimulus prompt was employed but usually did learn with the withinstimulus prompt, and (3) these findings were independent of which modality (auditory or visual) was required for the discrimination.     

TEACHING GENERATIVE USE OF SENTENCE ANSWERS TO THREE FORMS OF QUESTIONS1

Three retarded and four economically disadvantaged children were taught, through modelling and reinforcement procedures, to produce complete sentences in response to three types of questions involving changes in verb inflections. To evaluate generalization of training, new but similar questions were periodically asked, answers to which were never modelled or reinforced. Modelling and reinforcement effectively taught correct sentence answers to training questions and produced new sentence answers to questions for which no specific training had been given.     

Inhibitory stimulus control following errorless discrimination learning

Three generalization procedures were used to investigate inhibitory stimulus control following discrimination learning with few errors. Three groups of pigeons acquired a discrimination between a green stimulus (the positive stimulus) and a vertical or horizontal line (the negative stimulus) through differential autoshaping followed by multiple schedule presentation of the two stimuli with gradually increasing stimulus durations. Genereralization testing was along a line-tilt continuum. For one group, the test involved a resistance-to-reinforcement procedure in which responses to all line tilts were reinforced on a variable-interval schedule. For a second group, also tested with the resistance-to-reinforcement procedure, the lines were superimposed on the green field that formerly served as the positive stimulus. A third group was tested in extinction with the combined stimuli. Control groups had no discrimination training but responding to green was nondifferentially reinforced. The control subjects responded more to all line tilts during testing than did the comparable experimental subjects, indicating that the negative stimulus had become an inhibitory stimulus. Both resistance-to-reinforcement groups revealed inhibitory gradients around the negative stimulus, but the gradient for the extinction group was relatively flat. These data are consistent with others that modify Terrace's early conclusion concerning the failure of inhibition to develop during errorless training.