Recently added articles from Perception and Psychophysics:
Foreshortened tiles in paths converging on an observer viewing a picture: Elevation and visual angle ratio determine perceived size
Feb 01, 2009; ... Observers were shown wide-angle pictures of tiles on a ground plane and were asked about the aspect ratios of the tiles. The observers viewed the pictures from a fixed center of projection. Some of the tiles were in a path coming straight toward the observer. In one picture, the path came from ...
Understanding the underlying dimensions in perfumers' odor perception space as a basis for developing meaningful odor maps
Feb 01, 2009; ... Various low-dimensional perceptual maps of fragrances have been proposed in the literature, as well as sensory maps for the odor descriptors most frequently applied in perfumery. To reach a consensus, however, seems difficult, if at all possible. In the present study, we applied principal ...
Logical recoding of S-R rules can reverse the effects of spatial S-R correspondence
Feb 01, 2009; ... Two experiments investigated competing explanations for the reversal of spatial stimulus-response (S-R) correspondence effects (i.e., Simon effects) with an incompatible S-R mapping on the relevant, nonspatial dimension. Competing explanations were based on generalized S-R rules ...
A feature-weighting account of priming in conjunction search
Feb 01, 2009; ... Previous research on the priming effect in conjunction search has shown that repeating the target and distractor features across displays speeds mean response times but does not improve search efficiency: Repetitions do not reduce the set size effect-that is, the effect of the number of ...
Spatial attention does improve temporal discrimination
Feb 01, 2009; ... It has recently been stated that exogenous attention impairs temporal-resolution tasks (Hein, Rolke, & Ulrich, 2006; Rolke, Dinkelbach, Hein, & Ulrich, 2008; Yeshurun, 2004; Yeshurun & Levy, 2003). In comparisons of performance on spatially cued trials versus neutral cued trials, the ...
A multistream model of visual word recognition
Feb 01, 2009; ... Four experiments are reported that test a multistream model of visual word recognition, which associates letter-level and word-level processing channels with three known visual processing streams isolated in macaque monkeys: the magno-dominated (MD) stream, the interblob-dominated (ID) stream, ...
Additivity of abrupt onset effects supports nonspatial distraction, not the capture of spatial attention
Feb 01, 2009; ... In a recent article, Schreij, Owens, and Theeuwes (2008) reported that abruptly onsetting distractors produce costs in performance even when spatial-cuing effects confirm the presence of a top-down set for color. The authors argued that these results show that abruptly onsetting new objects ...
Anchoring effects in the judgment of confidence: Semantic or numeric priming?
Feb 01, 2009; ... Over the last decade, researchers have debated whether anchoring effects are the result of semantic or numeric priming. The present study tested both hypotheses. In four experiments involving a sensory detection task, participants first made a relative confidence judgment by deciding whether ...
Look away! Eyes and arrows engage oculomotor responses automatically
Feb 01, 2009; ... The present study investigates how people's voluntary saccades are influenced by where another person is looking, even when this is counterpredictive of the intended saccade direction. The color of a fixation point instructed participants to make saccades either to the left or right. These ...
Semisupervised category learning: The impact of feedback in learning the information-integration task
Feb 01, 2009; ... In a standard supervised classification paradigm, stimuli are presented sequentially, participants make a classification, and feedback follows immediately. In this article, we use a semisupervised classification paradigm, in which feedback is given after a prespecified percentage of trials only ....
Implicit learning modulates selective attention at sensory levels of perceptual processing
Feb 01, 2009; ... Electrophysiological evidence suggests that attention can be modulated as early as 100 msec after stimulus presentation. However, it is not clear whether these changes are based primarily on stimulus properties such as perceptual load (i.e., the level of perceptual difficulty), or other ...
Auditory event files: Integrating auditory perception and action planning
Feb 01, 2009; ... The features of perceived objects are processed in distinct neural pathways, which call for mechanisms that integrate the distributed information into coherent representations (the binding problem). Recent studies of sequential effects have demonstrated feature binding not only in perception, ...
Symbolic control of visual attention: Semantic constraints on the spatial distribution of attention
Feb 01, 2009; ... Humans routinely use spatial language to control the spatial distribution of attention. In so doing, spatial information may be communicated from one individual to another across opposing frames of reference, which in turn can lead to inconsistent mappings between symbols and directions (or ...
Computation of mean size is based on perceived size
Feb 01, 2009; ... The present study investigated whether computation of mean object size was based on perceived or physical size. The Ebbinghaus illusion was used to make the perceived size of a circle different from its physical size. Four Ebbinghaus configurations were presented either simultaneously ...
Symbolic control of attention: Tracking its temporal dynamics
Feb 01, 2009; ... Three experiments examined the temporal dynamics of the impact of symbols with task-irrelevant spatial meanings on attentional control. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants were color-cued to report the first letter they saw in the left or right of two parallel letter streams. The cue appeared ...
The impact of multiple irrelevant visual events at the same spatial location on inhibition
Feb 01, 2009; ... If an irrelevant visual event, such as a nonpredictive cue, is presented prior to a target, performance is impaired when the target appears at the cued location relative to when it is presented at an uncued location. This phenomenon, referred to as inhibition of return, can be found at multiple ...
Interocular suppression differentially affects achromatic and chromatic mechanisms
Feb 01, 2009; ... Results from a series of psychophysical experiments show that interocular suppression produced by continuous flash suppression (CFS) differentially affects visual features of a target viewed by the other eye. When CFS stimuli are defined by luminance contrast, target color can be reliably ...
The perception of subjective contours and neon color spreading figures in young infants
Feb 01, 2009; ... The goal of the present habituation-dishabituation study was to explore sensitivity to subjective contours and neon color spreading patterns in infants. The first experiment was a replication of earlier investigations that showed evidence that even young infants are capable of perceiving ...
Salient features in 3-D haptic shape perception
Feb 01, 2009; ... Shape is an important cue for recognizing an object by touch. Several features, such as edges, curvature, surface area, and aspect ratio, are associated with 3-D shape. To investigate the saliency of 3-D shape features, we developed a haptic search task. The target and distractor items consisted ...
Sensitivity to Sarcasm
Feb 01, 2009; ... AUDITORY PERCEPTION Are you in your right mind with sarcastic friends? To investigate sarcasm perception, Voyer et al. used a dichotic listening strategy. They presented the same statement (such as "Nice outfit" or "Isn't she friendly?") simultaneously in one ear with a sarcastic tone ...