Selective learning of spatial configuration and object identity in visual search

To conduct an efficient visual search, visual attention must be guided to a target appropriately. Previous studies have suggested that attention can be quickly guided to a target when the spatial configurations of search objects or the object identities have been repeated. This phenomenon is termed contextual cuing. In this study, we investigated the effect of learning spatial configurations, object identities, and a combination of both configurations and identities on visual search. The results indicated that participants could learn the contexts of spatial configurations, but not of object identities, even when both configurations and identities were completely correlated (Experiment 1). On the other hand, when only object identities were repeated, an effect of identity learning could be observed (Experiment 2). Furthermore, an additive effect of configuration learning and identity learning was observed when, in some trials, each context was the relevant cue for predicting the target (Experiment 3). Participants could learn only the context that was associated with target location (Experiment 4). These findings indicate that when multiple contexts are redundant, contextual learning occurs selectively, depending on the predictability of the target location.     

Reliability and validity of a Japanese version of the Eating Disorder Inventory

The rapid increase of patients with eating disorders in Japan has male necessary the reliable and valid measurement of psychological factors in eating disorders. The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability and validity of the Japanese version of the Eating Disorder Inventory. 766 females without eating disorders and 139 female patients with eating disorders responded to the Eating Attitude Test and the Eating Disorder Inventory. Principal factor extraction with promax rotation isolated 9 interpretable factors with satisfactory internal consistency (Cronbach alpha range=.74-.90). Compared with controls, patients scored significantly higher on all factors after minimizing the influence of Body Mass Index. There were strong correlations among factor scores and scores on the Eating Attitudes Test, particularly among patients. These results indicate the Eating Disorder Inventory as showing psychometrically sound internal consistency and concurrent validity.     

Illusory continuity without sufficient sound energy to fill a temporal gap: Examples of crossing glide tones

The gap transfer illusion is an auditory illusion where a temporal gap inserted in a longer glide tone is perceived as if it were in a crossing shorter glide tone. Psychophysical and phenomenological experiments were conducted to examine the effects of sound-pressure-level (SPL) differences between crossing glides on the occurrence of the gap transfer illusion. We found that the subjective continuity-discontinuity of the crossing glides changed as a function of the relative level of the shorter glide to the level of the longer glide. When the relative level was approximately between -9 and +2 dB, listeners perceived the longer glide as continuous and the shorter glide as discontinuous, that is, the gap transfer illusion took place. The glides were perceived veridically below this range, that is, gap transfer did not take place, whereas above this range the longer glide and the shorter glide were both perceived as continuous. The fact that the longer glide could be perceived as continuous even when the crossing shorter glide was 9 dB weaker indicates that the longer glide's subjective continuity cannot be explained within the conventional framework of auditory organization, which assumes reallocation of sound energy from the shorter to the longer glide. The implicated mechanisms are discussed in terms of the temporal configuration of onsets and terminations and the time-frequency distribution of sound energy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Age-related differences in working memory: ERPs reveal age-related delays in selection- and inhibition-related processes

Faulty inhibition is implicated in age-related working memory decline. ERP signs of selection and inhibition of items in working memory (WM) are, respectively, a cue-locked parietal positivity (～350 ms) and a probe-locked frontal negativity (～520 ms). To determine when in the older age range differences in selective and inhibitory processes might occur, ERPs were recorded in a WM task from 20 young (20–28), 20 young–old (60–70), and 20 old–old (71–82) adults. A 4-digit display was followed by a cue indicating which 2 of 4 digits were relevant. Proactive interference (PI), the reaction time difference between a matching and non-matching to-be-ignored digit was larger, relative to the young, in both older groups. Compared to the young, both the cue- and probe-locked activities were prolonged in the older groups. Although there were no topographic differences among the age groups, the prolonged PI and associated ERPs suggest a relative age-related deficit in inhibition.     

Response acquisition by zebrafish (Danio rerio) with delayed reinforcement

Zebrafish (Danio rerio) is a common vertebrate animal model in biomedical research and is a promising species for studying how genes interact with environmental factors in determining behavior. The present study investigated how reinforcement parameters affect zebrafish behavior by assessing response acquisition with delayed reinforcement, which has been studied with other species (e.g., rats, pigeons, humans, etc.) but not with zebrafish. Twenty‐four experimentally naïve subjects were exposed to a tandem fixed‐ratio 1 differential‐reinforcement‐of‐other‐behavior x‐s schedule of reinforcement, where x varied across subjects. There were six different delay‐to‐reinforcement durations and sets of four fish were assigned to each delay duration. All of the fish assigned to a 0‐, 0.5‐, or 1‐s delay acquired responding. Two fish acquired responding with a 3‐s delay and one fish appeared to have acquired it with a 6‐s delay although the latter result was less clear. None acquired responding with a 12‐s delay. These results suggest that zebrafish behavior is sensitive to delays to reinforcement and the time frame over which reinforcement is effective may be limited approximately to 6 s. This time frame is shorter than that found with other species. Practical and theoretical implications of the present finding are discussed.     

Reducing the Negative Effect of the Retention Interval on the Composite Face Recognition

Our memories are quite fragile. We sometimes recognize something unseen as something seen before. This error often causes serious problems, such as the misidentification of composite faces in a criminal investigation. In such a scene, people occasionally claim to have seen a face that is actually a composite face consisting of facial parts separately seen before; this error is called the memory conjunction error. Although the likelihood of the memory conjunction error increases over time, previous studies suggest that it could be suppressed by the number of response options, which are expected to affect the criterion for the “Old” response. Our results show that the presence of three response options reduced the memory conjunction error. Additionally, providing information about the existence of composite faces affected the sensitivity for detecting old faces, whereas three response options affected the criterion. This study might contribute to the improvement of procedures for eyewitness testimony.     

Infants’ perception of curved illusory contour with motion

Recently, Masuda et al. (submitted for publication) showed that adults perceive moving rigid or nonrigid motion from illusory contour with neon color spreading in which the inducer has pendular motion with or without phase difference. In Experiment 1, we used the preferential looking method to investigate whether 3–8-month-old infants can discriminate illusory and non-illusory contour figures, and found that the 7–8-month-old, but not the 3–6-month-old, infants showed significant preference for illusory contour with phase difference. In Experiment 2, we tested the validity of the visual stimuli in the present study, and whether infants could detect illusory contour from the current neon color spreading figures. The results showed that all infants might detect illusory contour figure with neon color spreading figures. The results of Experiments 1 and 2 suggest that 7–8-month-old infants potentially perceive illusory contour from the visual stimulus with phase-different movement of inducers, which elicits the perception of nonrigid dynamic subjective contour in adults.     

Probing attentional modulation of contextual cueing

The repetition of spatial layout implicitly facilitates visual search (contextual cueing effect; Chun & Jiang, 1998). Although a substantial number of studies have explored the mechanism underlying the contextual cueing effect, the manner in which contextual information guides spatial attention to a target location during a visual search remains unclear. We investigated the nature of attentional modulation by contextual cueing, using a hybrid paradigm of a visual search task and a probe dot detection task. In the case of a repeated spatial layout, detection of a probe dot was facilitated at a search target location and was inhibited at distractor locations relative to nonrepeated spatial layouts. Furthermore, these facilitatory and inhibitory effects possessed different learning properties across epochs (Experiment 1) and different time courses within a trial (Experiment 2). These results suggest that contextual cueing modulates attentional processing via both facilitation to the location of “to-be-attended” stimuli and inhibition to the locations of “to-be-ignored” stimuli.     

The properties of object representations constructed during visual search in natural scenes

To investigate properties of object representations constructed during a visual search task, we manipulated the proportion of trials/task within a block: In a search-frequent block, 80% of trials were search tasks; remaining trials presented a memory task; in a memory-frequent block, this proportion was reversed. In the search task, participants searched for a toy car (Experiments 1 and 2) or a T-shape object (Experiment 3). In the memory task, participants had to memorize objects in a scene. Memory performance was worse in the search-frequent block than in the memory-frequent block in Experiments 1 and 3, but not in Experiment 2 (token change in Experiment 1; type change in Experiments 2 and 3). Experiment 4 demonstrated that lower performance in the search-frequent block was not due to eye-movement behaviour. Results suggest that object representations constructed during visual search are different from those constructed during memorization and they are modulated by type of target.     

No time-stretching illusion when a tone is followed by a noise

A sine tone is perceived as longer when it is preceded by a more intense noise than when presented in isolation. This is the time-stretching illusion. We conducted an experiment where the method of constant stimuli was used to examine whether a tone would also be stretched when it was followed by a noise. The duration of a tone was overestimated when it was preceded by a noise, but not when followed by a noise or when located between two consecutive noises. Moreover, the increasing of the noise intensity (from ?6 to +6 dB) relative to the tone intensity resulted in larger overestimations, but only in the condition where a tone was preceded by a noise. In brief, the duration of a tone is stretched when this tone is preceded by a noise and if this tone is not followed by a noise.