There are many ways to assess face perception skills. In this study, we describe a novel task battery FEAST (Facial Expression Action Stimulus Test) developed to test recognition of identity and expressions of human faces as well as stimulus control categories. The FEAST consists of a neutral and emotional face memory task, a face and object identity matching task, a face and house part-to-whole matching task, and a human and animal facial expression matching task. The identity and part-to-whole (...) matching tasks contain both upright and inverted conditions. The results provide reference data of a healthy sample of controls in two age groups for future users of the FEAST. (shrink)

Face perception is crucial in all social animals. Recent studies have shown that pre-stimulus oscillations of brain activity modulate the perceptual performance of face vs. non-face stimuli, specifically under challenging conditions. However, it is unclear if this effect also occurs during simple tasks, and if so in which brain regions. Here we used magnetoencephalography and a 1-back task in which participants decided if the two sequentially presented stimuli were the same or not in each trial. The aim of the (...) study was to explore the effect of pre-stimulus alpha oscillation on the perception of face and non-face stimuli. Our results showed that pre-stimulus activity in the left occipital face area modulated responses in the intra-parietal sulcus at around 170 ms after the presentation of human face stimuli. This effect was also found after participants were shown images of motorcycles. In this case, the IPS was modulated by pre-stimulus activity in the right OFA and the right fusiform face area. We conclude that pre-stimulus modulation of post-stimulus response also occurs during simple tasks and is therefore independent of behavioral responses. (shrink)

W. V. Quine is one of the most eminent philosophers alive today. Now in his mid-eighties he has produced a sharp, sprightly book that encapsulates the whole of his philosophical enterprise, including his thinking on all the key components of his epistemological stance--especially the value of logic and mathematics. New readers of Quine may have to go slowly, fathoming for themselves the richness that past readers already know lies between these elegant lines. For the faithful there is much to ponder. (...) In this short book, based on lectures delivered in Spain in 1990, Quine begins by locating his work historically. He provides a lightning tour of the history of philosophy (particularly the history of epistemology), beginning with Plato and culminating in an appreciative sketch of Carnap's philosophical ambitions and achievements. This leads, in the second chapter, to an introduction to Quine's attempt to naturalize epistemology, which emphasizes his continuities with Carnap rather than the differences between them. The next chapters develop the naturalistic story of the development of science to take account of how our conceptual apparatus is enhanced so that we can view the world as containing re-identifiable objects. Having explained the role of observation sentences in providing a checkpoint for assessing scientific theories, and having despaired of constructing an empirical criterion to determine which sentences are meaningful, Quine in the remaining chapters takes up a variety of important issues about knowledge. He concludes with an extended treatment of his views about reference and meaning and his attitudes toward psychological and modal notions. The presentation is distinctive, and the many small refinements of detail and formulation will fascinate all who know Quine's philosophy. (shrink)

Self-relevance has been demonstrated to impair instrumental learning. Compared to unfamiliar symbols associated with a friend, analogous stimuli linked with the self are learned more slowly. What is not yet understood, however, is whether this effect extends beyond arbitrary stimuli to material with intrinsically meaningful properties. Take, for example, stimulus valence an established moderator of self-bias. Does the desirability of to-be-learned material influence self-learning? Here, in conjunction with computational modelling (i.e. Reinforcement Learning Drift Diffusion Model analysis), a probabilistic selection (...) task was used to establish if and how stimulus valence (i.e. desirable/undesirable posters) impacts the acquisition of knowledge relating to object-ownership (i.e. owned-by-self vs. owned-by-friend). Several interesting results were observed. First, undesirable posters were learned more rapidly for self compared to friend, an effect that was reversed for desirable posters. Second, learning rates were accompanied by associated differences in reward sensitivity toward desirable and undesirable choice selections as a function of ownership. Third, decisional caution was greater for self-relevant (vs. friend relevant) responses. Collectively, these findings inform understanding of self-function and how valence and stimulus relevance mutually influence probabilistic learning. (shrink)

Most studies on verticality’s embodiment showed that up positions were related to positive emotions whereas down positions were related to negative ones. Research on motion perception found that a parabolic motion both induced animation attribution and implied negative feelings. We hypothesized that seeing a parabolic downward motion will increase both the memorization for words and the execution’s speed of a serial subtraction compared to a parabolic upward motion. Results showed that the downward motion had enhancing effects both on the serial (...) subtraction and on the number of recalled words, independently of their valence. These findings are interpreted as marking processes related to an adaptive behavior in response to a negative stimulus. (shrink)

Transcranial magnetic stimulation can be used to mask visual stimuli, disrupting visual task performance or preventing visual awareness. While TMS masking studies generally fix stimulation intensity, we hypothesized that varying the intensity of TMS pulses in a masking paradigm might inform several ongoing debates concerning TMS disruption of vision as measured subjectively versus objectively, and pre-stimulus versus post-stimulus TMS masking. We here show that both pre-stimulus TMS pulses and post-stimulus TMS pulses could strongly mask visual stimuli. (...) We found no dissociations between TMS effects on the subjective and objective measures of vision for any masking window or intensity, ruling out the option that TMS intensity levels determine whether dissociations between subjective and objective vision are obtained. For the post-stimulus time window particularly, we suggest that these data provide new constraints for models of vision and visual awareness. Finally, our data are in line with the idea that pre-stimulus masking operates differently from conventional post-stimulus masking. (shrink)

À Harvard durant l’année académique 1940-41, les philosophes-mathématiciens Quine, Tarski et Carnap débattaient de la possibilité d’établir une distinction entre les énoncés analytiques et synthétiques qui soit suffisamment mordante pour dégager un statut spécial à l’épistémologie. Quine et Tarski s’objectaient à la distinction et l’objection de Quine verra notamment le jour sous le titre fameux « Les deux dogmes de l’empirisme ». Carnap, dans son autobiographie intellectuelle, se souvient avoir alors craint : « are we now back to John Stuart (...) Mill? ». Carnap avait compris qu’une épistémologie antipsychologiste comme celle du Cercle de Vienne ne peut subsister sans la présence d’une distinction de principe entre des énoncés analytiques et synthétiques. Il avait compris qu’un rejet de la distinction signifiait, à court ou moyen terme, un retour à l’épistémologie comme « psychologie de la science » telle que la pratiquait Auguste Comte, John Stuart Mill et Ernst Mach. (shrink)

Berlin & Kay hue-related basic color categories are compared with the ISCC-NBS system of object color categorization. Though independently derived, categories of the former form a small subset of the latter. A conjecture is proposed that explains the absence of yellow-green and blue-green basic hue categories and the potential for a violet category as the result of constraints on primitive hue category formation due to considerable variation in stimuli selected by color-normal observers as representing for them unique hues.

A symbol is defined as a species of sign. The concept of a sign coincides with Skinner's (1938) concept of a discriminative stimulus. Symbols differ from other signs in five respects: (1) They are stimuli which the organism can both respond to and produce, either as a self-directed stimulus (as in thinking) or as a stimulus for another individual with a predictably similar response from the recipient in each case. (2) they act as discriminative stimuli for the (...) same kind of object for all members of the verbal community within which they function as a symbols; (3) they acquire their properties by virtue of arbitrary social convention rather than any natural and intrinsic connection between the sign and what it is a sign of; (4) competent members of the verbal community can both produce the appropriate symbol in response to a naturally occurring sign of the presence of the object or a sample of the kind of object which the symbol stands for and select the appropriate object when presented with the symbol; (5) they form stimulus equivalence classes of the kind demonstrated in the matching-to-sample task (Sidman, 1971; Sidman and Tailby, 1982) both with other symbols having the same meaning and, more important, with the naturally-occurring non-symbolic signs of the presence of the object or kind of object which the symbol stands for. (shrink)

Steady-state visual evoked potentials are commonly used for functional objective diagnostics. In general, the main response at the stimulation frequency is used. However, some studies reported the main response at the second harmonic of the stimulation frequency. The aim of our study was to analyze the influence of the stimulus design on the harmonic components of ssVEPs. We studied 22 subjects using a circular layout. At a given eccentricity, the stimulus was presented according to a 7.5 Hz square (...) wave with 50% duty cycle. To analyze the influence of the stimulus eccentricity, a background luminance of 30 cd/m2 was added to suppress foveal stray light effects; to analyze the influence of simultaneous foveal and peripheral stimulations, stimulations are performed without stray light suppression. For statistical analysis, medians M of the amplitude ratios for amplitudes at the second harmonic to the first harmonic and the probability of the occurrence of the main response at the second harmonic P are calculated. For stimulations with foveal stray light suppression, the medians were M0–1.6° = 0.45, M1.6–3.5° = 0.45, M3.5–6.4° = 0.76, M6.4–10.9° = 0.72, and M10.9–18° = 0.48, and the probabilities were P0–1.6° = 0.05, P1.6–3.5° = 0.05, P3.5–6.4° = 0.32, P6.4–10.9° = 0.29, and P10.9–18° = 0.30. For stimulations without foveal stray light suppression, the medians M were M0–1.6° = 0.29, M1.6–3.5° = 0.37, M3.5–6.4° = 0.98, M6.4–10.9° = 1.08, and M10.9–18° = 1.24, and the probabilities were P0–1.6° = 0.09, P1.6–3.5° = 0.05, P3.5–6.4° = 0.50, P6.4–10.9° = 0.55, and P10.9–18° = 0.55. In conclusion, the stimulus design has an influence on the harmonic components of ssVEPs. An increase in stimulation eccentricity during extrafoveal stimulation leads to a transition of the main response to the second harmonic. The effect is enhanced by a simultaneous foveal stimulation. (shrink)

This paper examines the applicability of the object concept to the chemical senses, by evaluating them against a set of criteria for object-hood. Taste and chemesthesis do not generate objects. Their parts, perceptible from birth, never combine. Orthonasal olfaction (sniffing) presents a strong case for generating objects. Odorants have many parts yet they are perceived as wholes, this process is based on learning, and there is figure-ground segregation. While flavors are multimodal representations bound together by learning, there is (...) no functional need for flavor objects in the mouth. Rather, food identification occurs prior to ingestion using the eye and nose, with the latter retrieving multimodal flavor objects via sniffing (e.g., sweet smelling caramel). While there are differences in object perception between vision, audition, and orthonasal olfaction, the commonalities suggest that the brain has adopted the same basic solution when faced with extracting meaning from complex stimulus arrays. (shrink)

Background and ObjectiveThere is a paucity of research that has explored “False Alarm” mechanisms. In order to remedy this deficiency in knowledge, the present study used event-related potential technology to reveal the mechanisms underlying False Alarm in response to fear stimuli.MethodsThis study selected snakes as experimental materials and the “oddball paradigm” was used to simulate the conditions of False Alarm. The mechanism underlying False Alarm was revealed by comparing cognitive processing similarities and differences between real snakes and toy snakes.ResultsEvent-related potential (...) findings demonstrated that there was no significant difference between N1 and P2 components induced by real and toy snakes in the early processing stage. Compared with toy snakes, real snakes induced smaller N2 amplitude, larger P3 amplitude, and a shorter P3 latency at the late processing stage. The results of brain topographic mapping analysis showed that the brain regions activated by a real or toy snake were basically the same within the time windows of 110–150 and 220–270 ms, respectively. In the time window of 300–360 and 400–500 ms, the degree of brain regions activation with a real snake was significantly greater than that induced by a toy snake.ConclusionFalse Alarm is caused by the brain’s inability to distinguish, in the early stage of cognitive processing, stimulus objects with similar appearances. When the brain is able to distinguish the differences between different stimulus objects in the late stage of cognitive processing, False Alarm disappears. (shrink)

The objects of attention can be located anywhere along the causal link from the source of stimuli to the final output of the vision system. As causes, they attract and control attention, and as products, they constitute targets of analysis and explicit comments. Stimulus-driven indexing creates pointers that support fast and frugal cognition.

Psychophysical scaling models of the form R = f, with R the response and I some intensity of an attribute, all assume that people judge the amounts of an attribute. With simple biases excepted, most also assume that judgments are independent of space, time, and features of the situation other than the one being judged. Many data support these ideas: Magnitude estimations of brightness increase with luminance. Nevertheless, I argue that the general model is wrong. The stabilized retinal image literature (...) shows that nothing is seen if light does not change over time. The classification literature shows that dimensions often combine to produce emergent properties that cannot be described by the elements in the stimulus. These and other effects cannot be adjusted for by simply adding variables to the general model because some factors do not combine linearly. The proposed alternative is that people initially judge the entire stimulus – the object in terms of its environment. This agrees with the constancy literature that shows that objects and their attributes are identified through their relations to other aspects of the scene. That the environment determines judgments is masked in scaling studies where the standard procedure is to hold context constant. In a typical brightness study the essential stimulus might be the intensity of the light or a difference between the light and the background. The two are perfectly confounded. This issue is examined in the case of audition. Judgments of the loudness of a tone depend on how much that tone differs from the previous tone in both pitch and loudness. To judge loudness people first seem to process the stimulus object in terms of differences between it and other aspects in the situation; only then do they assess the feature of interest. Psychophysical judgments will therefore be better interpreted by theories of attention that are based in biology or psychology than those that are based in classical physics. (shrink)

This commentary raises the possibility of recent discussion on the issue of basic color terms suffering from the "stimulus error," first described by the English psychologist E. B. Titchener. It refers to confusion of the psychological experience with the physical description of the stimulus. Such confusion is routine in everyday language in situations where private sensory experiences are involved that cannot be objectively described, but is harmful in fundamental discussions about experiences.

AimsIn this pilot mixed-methods study, we examined the participants experiences of engaging in virtual drawing tasks and the impact of an olfactory stimulus on outcomes of affect, stress, self-efficacy, anxiety, creative agency, and well-being.MethodsThis study used a parallel mixed-methods, simple block randomization design. The study participants included 24 healthy adults aged 18 to 54 years, including 18 women and six men. The participants completed two 1-h immersive virtual art making sessions and were randomly assigned to receive either a fragrance (...) or a non-fragrance condition for the first session. Quantitative and qualitative datasets were collected concurrently and integrated during data analysis.ResultsThe quantitative results indicated that the fragrance condition demonstrated a significant reduction in negative affect, namely, reduced feelings of negativity when compared to the non-fragrance condition. A trend toward improvement in self-efficacy was also seen in the fragrance condition. No significant changes were found for fragrance or non-fragrance conditions for positive affect, anxiety, and creative agency. The qualitative findings included five themes related to art making experiences in virtual reality in both conditions: fun and joy; novelty of virtual media, experimentation, and play; relaxation and calm; learning curve; and physical discomfort and disorientation. Four themes were identified for virtual art content and visual qualities: nature imagery, references to memories and personal symbols, fantasy and play within imagery, and depiction of everyday objects.ConclusionsOverall, the participants reported positive responses to the novel virtual art making experiences which were further heightened by the inclusion of the fragrance stimulus for negative affect. These preliminary findings need to be replicated with larger sample sizes to confirm the outcomes and the trends that were seen in this pilot study. Further research is recommended to examine the differences between experiences of virtual and traditional art media and to examine different olfactory stimuli promoting focus and concentration. (shrink)

Evidence from functional neuroimaging of the human brain indicates that information about salient properties of an object¿such as what it looks like, how it moves, and how it is used¿is stored in sensory and motor systems active when that information was acquired. As a result, object concepts belonging to different categories like animals and tools are represented in partially distinct, sensory- and motor property-based neural networks. This suggests that object concepts are not explicitly represented, but rather emerge from weighted activity (...) within property-based brain regions. However, some property-based regions seem to show a categorical organization, thus providing evidence consistent with category-based, domain-specific formulations as well.Acronyms and DefinitionsBiological motion: motion of animate agents characterized by highly flexible, fully articulated motion vectors, in contrast to the rigid, unarticulated motion vectors associated with most tools.Category-specific disorder: a relatively greater impairment in retrieving information about members of one superordinate object category (e.g., animals) as compared with other categories following brain injury or diseaseIPS: intraparietal sulcusLO: lateral occipital cortexObject concept: memory representations of a class or category of objects. Necessary for numerous cognitive functions including identifying an object as a member of a specific category and drawing inferences about object propertiespMTG: posterior middle temporal gyruspSTS: posterior superior temporal sulcusRepetition suppression: decreased neural response associated with repeated presentation of an identical, or a semantically/conceptually related, stimulusSD: semantic dementiaSemantic memory: a large division of long-term memory containing knowledge about the world including facts, ideas, beliefs, and conceptsSemantic priming: a short-lasting facilitation in processing a stimulus due to the prior presentation of a semantically related stimulusTMS: transcranial magnetic stimulationVPMC: ventral premotor cortex. (shrink)

The question of whether object recognition is orientation-invariant or orientation-dependent was investigated using a repetition blindness (RB) paradigm. In RB, the second occurrence of a repeated stimulus is less likely to be reported, compared to the occurrence of a different stimulus, if it occurs within a short time of the first presentation. This failure is usually interpreted as a difficulty in assigning two separate episodic tokens to the same visual type. Thus, RB can provide useful information about which (...) representations are treated as the same by the visual system. Two experiments tested whether RB occurs for repeated objects that were either in identical orientations, or differed by 30, 60, 90, or 180°. Significant RB was found for all orientation differences, consistent with the existence of orientation-invariant object representations. However, under some circumstances, RB was reduced or even eliminated when the repeated object was rotated by 180°, suggesting easier individuation of the repeated objects in this case. A third experiment confirmed that the upside-down orientation is processed more easily than other rotated orientations. The results indicate that, although object identity can be determined independently of orientation, orientation plays an important role in establishing distinct episodic representations of a repeated object, thus enabling one to report them as separate events. (shrink)

ArgumentIn this essay, I sketch a problem-based framework within which I locate the concept of “organism” in the system theories of Georg Ernst Stahl, Théophile Bordeu, and Paul-Joseph Barthez. Around 1700, Stahl coins the word “organism” for a certain concept of order. For him, the concept explains the form of order of living bodies that is categorically different from the order of other bodies or composites. At the end of the century, the “organism” as a specific form of order becomes (...) a major topos in many discourses. I will not so much focus on experiments and objects as on basic problems that contribute to the general framework of the concept of organism as a key concept of the vitalist movement between 1700 and 1800. For this purpose, I will investigate the combination of three explanatory tools. These tools refer to regulating agents, functional interactions, and stimulus-reactions-schemes within individual organic systems of forces. They are related to various themes – especially to energy, sensibility, and sympathy. I will retrace some aspects of these relations. (shrink)

ABSTRACTInattentional blindness occurs when observers fail to detect unexpected objects or events. Despite the adaptive importance of detecting unexpected threats, relatively little research has examined how stimulus threat influences IB. The current study was designed to explore the effects of stimulus threat on IB. Past research has also demonstrated that individuals with elevated negative affectivity have an attentional bias towards threat-related stimuli; therefore, the current study also examined whether state and trait levels of negative affectivity predicted IB (...) for threat-related stimuli. One hundred and eleven participants completed an IB task that included both threat-related and neutral unexpected stimuli, while their eye movements were tracked. Participants were significantly more likely to detect the threatening stimulus than the neutral stimulus p =.035, odds ratio = 4.0, 95% confidence interval OR [1.13, 14.17]. Neither state nor trait... (shrink)

Does the sense of smell involve the perception of odor objects? General discussion of perceptual objecthood centers on three criteria: stimulus representation; perceptual constancy; and figure-ground segregation. These criteria, derived from theories of vision, have been applied to olfaction in recent philosophical debates about psychology. An inherent problem with such framing of olfactory objecthood is that philosophers explicitly ignore the constitutive factors of the sensory systems that underpin the implementation of these criteria. The biological basis of odor coding (...) is fundamentally different from the coding principles of the visual system. This article analyzes the three measures of perceptual objecthood against the biological background of the olfactory system. It contrasts the coding principles in olfaction with the visual system to show why these criteria of objecthood fail to be instantiated in odor perception. The argument demonstrates that olfaction affords perceptual categorization without the need to form odor objects. (shrink)

The Objective Threshold/Strategic Model proposes that strong, qualitative inferences of unconscious perception can be made if the relationship between perceptual sensitivity and stimulus visibility is nonlinear and nonmonotonic. The model proposes a nadir in priming effects at the objective identification threshold . These predictions were tested with masked semantic priming and repetition priming of a lexical decision task. The visibility of the prime stimuli was systematically varied above and below the objective identification threshold. The obtained relationship between prime visibility (...) and priming facilitation was nonlinear, but the results failed to confirm a nadir in priming effects at the objective identification threshold. We conclude that the objective identification threshold does not necessarily indicate the point where presumably unconscious priming effects might be inhibited by conscious cognitive processes. (shrink)

We routinely need to process the identity of many faces around us, and how the brain achieves this is still the subject of much research in cognitive neuroscience. To date, insights on face identity processing have come from both healthy and clinical populations. However, in order to directly compare results across and within participant groups, and across different studies, it is crucial that a standard task is utilised which includes different exemplars (for example, non-face stimuli along with faces), is memory-neutral, (...) and taps into identity recognition across orientation and across viewpoint change. The goal of this study was to test a previously behaviourally tested, optimised face and object identity matching design in a healthy control sample whilst being scanned using fMRI. Specifically, we investigated categorical, orientation, and category-specific orientation effects while participants were focused on identity processing of simultaneously presented exemplar stimuli. Alongside observing category and orientation specific effects in a distributed set of brain regions, we also saw an interaction between stimulus category and orientation in the bilateral fusiform gyrus and bilateral middle occipital gyrus. Generally these clusters showed the pattern of a heightened response to inverted, as opposed to upright faces; and to upright, as opposed to inverted shoes. These results are discussed in relation to previous studies and to potential future research within prosopagnosic individuals. (shrink)

Hands are commonly held up as an exemplar of well-known, familiar objects. However, conceptual knowledge of the hand has been found to show highly stereotyped distortions. Specifically, people judge their knuckles as farther forward in the hand than they actually are. The cause of this distal bias remains unclear. In Experiment 1, we tested whether both visual and tactile information contribute to the distortion. Participants judged the location of their knuckles by pointing to the location on their palm directly (...) opposite each knuckle with: 1) a metal baton (using vision and touch) 2) a metal baton while blindfolded (using touch), 3) a laser pointer (using vision). In Experiment 2, we investigated whether judgments are influenced by visual landmarks such as the creases at the base of each finger on the palm. Participants localized their knuckles on either a photograph or a silhouette of their hand. In both experiments, clear distortions were found across conditions, of generally similar magnitude. These results show that distal bias is resistant to changes in the stimulus information and does not rely on any specific stimulus cue or single sensory modality, suggesting that such mislocalisations reflect a conceptual misrepresentation of hand structure. (shrink)

Consumer well-being is a micromarketing concept that emphasizes on contributions of marketing activities in social welfare. The major objective of the current study is to analyze the impact of self-incongruence on brand dissatisfaction, brand hate, and consumer well-being. This study has utilized the Self-incongruity Theory and the Stimulus-Organism-Response model to test the impact of self-incongruity on anti-consumption and consumer voice behaviors, and subsequent effects on consumer well-being. Data were collected from young consumers of technology products from major cities of (...) Pakistan. A total of 592 consumers answered a paper-and-pencil questionnaire using purposive sampling technique. The data were analyzed by partial least square structural equation modeling. The findings of this study reveal that functional and symbolic incongruity predict brand hate and dissatisfaction, which is positively related with brand retaliation. Brand retaliation is negatively related with consumer well-being. This study offers implications for product designers, marketers, advertisers and other stakeholders to improve congruence between what young consumers of technology products expect and what brands are offering to mitigate negative attitudes and behaviors and increase consumer well-being. (shrink)

Although our eyes receive incomplete and ambiguous information, our perceptual system is usually able to successfully construct a stable representation of the world. In the case of ambiguous figures, however, perception is unstable, spontaneously alternating between equally possible outcomes. The present study compared EEG responses to ambiguous figures and their unambiguous variants. We found that slight figural changes, which turn ambiguous figures into unambiguous ones, lead to a dramatic difference in an ERP (“event-related potential”) component at around 400 ms. This (...) result was obtained across two different categories of figures, namely the geometric Necker cube stimulus and the semantic Old/Young Woman face stimulus. Our results fit well into the Bayesian inference concept, which models the evaluation of a perceptual interpretation’s reliability for subsequent action planning. This process seems to be unconscious and the late.. (shrink)

[Comment, pp 759-780] Lockhead (1992) [Target Article] is undoubtedly right to attack so-called intensity scaling or the estimation of subjective magnitudes as an invalid perversion of tasks requiring quantitative judgments of aspects of objects, stuffs, and situations. He goes too far, however, in claiming that feature scales do not exist... ... A perceived physical pattern (sensory feature or channel) and the cognitive process that integrates it with its context are characterized by determining to which particular combination of specified (...) class='Hi'>stimulus patterns the response is most sensitive. This is the principle of causal system analysis that is at the basis of all theory-building science. (shrink)

Glenberg offers two different accounts of embodied conceptualization. The first fails in cases where no direct bodily interaction is possible. The second fails in cases where the object in question cannot serve as a discriminative stimulus; moreover, it yields inappropriate content even in cases where it can be applied. Glenberg 's disregard for the conceptual agenda set by the social world is also disquieting.

The experiments reported by Snodgrass, Shevrin, and Kopka appear to demonstrate that words are perceived even when overall forced-choice discrimination performance does not deviate from chance. We replicated their critical finding in two separate experiments; our results indicated that the subjects′ preferences for one of the two strategy conditions predicted significant deviations from chance performance in the pop condition, even though the overall performance in this condition did not differ from chance. In addition, we found that task preference had no (...) effect when blank cards rather than words were presented and that the words could not be detected when subjects were simply asked to decide on each trial whether a stimulus had been presented. These results suggest that it is possible to demonstrate perception below an objective threshold defined in terms of overall discrimination performance. As such, the results highlight the importance of considering individual differences in studies of perception without awareness. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIt is known that people covertly attend to threatening stimuli even when it is not beneficial for the task. In the current study we examined whether overt selection is affected by the presence of an object that signals threat. We demonstrate that stimuli that signal the possibility of receiving an electric shock capture the eyes more often than stimuli signalling no shock. Capture occurred even though the threat-signalling stimulus was neither physically salient nor task relevant at any point during (...) the experiment. Crucially, even though fixating the threat-related stimulus made it more likely to receive a shock, results indicate that participants could not help but doing it. Our findings indicate that the presence of a stimulus merely signalling the possibility of receiving a shock is prioritised in selection, and exogenously captures the eyes even when this ultimately results in the execution of the threat. Oculomotor capture was particularly pronounced for the fastest saccades which is consistent with the idea that threat influences visual selection at an early stage of processing, when selection is mainly involuntarily. (shrink)

According to one productive and influential approach to cognition, categorization, object recognition, and higher level cognitive processes operate on a set of fixed features, which are the output of lower level perceptual processes. In many situations, however, it is the higher level cognitive process being executed that influences the lower level features that are created. Rather than viewing the repertoire of features as being fixed by low-level processes, we present a theory in which people create features to subserve the representation (...) and categorization of objects. Two types of category learning should be distinguished. Fixed space category learning occurs when new categorizations are representable with the available feature set. Flexible space category learning occurs when new categorizations cannot be represented with the features available. Whether fixed or flexible, learning depends on the featural contrasts and similarities between the new category to be represented and the individual's existing concepts. Fixed feature approaches face one of two problems with tasks that call for new features: If the fixed features are fairly high level and directly useful for categorization, then they will not be flexible enough to represent all objects that might be relevant for a new task. If the fixed features are small, subsymbolic fragments (such as pixels), then regularities at the level of the functional features required to accomplish categorizations will not be captured by these primitives. We present evidence of flexible perceptual changes arising from category learning and theoretical arguments for the importance of this flexibility. We describe conditions that promote feature creation and argue against interpreting them in terms of fixed features. Finally, we discuss the implications of functional features for object categorization, conceptual development, chunking, constructive induction, and formal models of dimensionality reduction. Key Words: concept learning; conceptual development; features; perceptual learning; stimulus encoding. (shrink)

Qualitative research has tended to evoke rather stereotyped objections from the mainstream of social science. Ten standardized responses to the stimulus "qualitative research interview" are discussed: it is not scientific, not objective, not trustworthy, nor reliable, not intersubjective, not a formalized method, not hypothesis testing, not quantitative, not generalizable, and not valid. With the objections to qualitative interviews highly predictable, they may be taken into account when designing, reporting, and defending an interview study. As a help for new qualitative (...) researchers, some of the issues, concepts, and arguments involved are outlined, and the relevancy of the standard objections is discussed. Alternative conceptions of qualitative research, coming from phenomenological and hermeneutical traditions, are suggested. The qualitative interview based on conversation and interaction here appears as a privileged access to a linguistically constituted social world. (shrink)

An object in continuous motion is perceived ahead of the briefly flashed object, although the two images are physically aligned , the phenomenon called flash-lag effect. Flash-lag effects have been found also with other continuously changing features such as color, pattern entropy, and brightness as well as with streamed pre- and post-target input without any change of the feature values of streaming items in feature space . We interpret all instances of the flash-lag as a consequence of a more fundamental (...) property of conscious perception in general: acceleration of the speed with which samples of perceptual information become represented in explicit format immediately after the stimulation onset. Decreased visual latency of the samples of stimulus information from the streamed input leads to the relative perceptual lag for the separately flashed stimulus because it is not preceded by adjacent sensory input that would have accelerated its perception. Experimental support for the notion of perceptual acceleration is reviewed. (shrink)

In this paper, I present the difficulty in the phenomenology of explaining the constitution of objectivities in consciousness. In the context of phenomenological reduction, constitution has to be understood as unveiling the universal and necessary essences. Recognized by Husserl in Ideas I and named as functional problems, the constitution of objectivities refers at first to individual consciousness, and then to an intersubjective one. In Ideas II, the phenomenologist explains how the constitution of nature, psyche, and spirit occurs. This process begins (...) by assuming three premises: the ontological realism, the regularity of nature, and the transcendental idealism. In this process, the ego, apart from constituting objects (the body, the psyche, and the others), constitutes itself. The objects of material reality are constituted through aesthetic synthesis which unifies singularities and contextualizes the lived experience. The body, as a perceptive organ, perceives the exterior, and the location of the sensory stimulus is the soul. The soul is a real and transcendent object, which is linked to physical things that are constituted in a solipsistic way or intersubjectively. Empathy allows the subject to recognize the consciousness of the alter ego as capable of spontaneous movements and actions, a co-presence sharing the same horizons. Thus, through the theoretical attitude, the physical world is perceived, and through the spiritual attitude the spiritual world is perceived, a living world shared by free intelligent beings. For this, intersubjectivity fulfills a fundamental role, because only in the relationship with the other does the identity of the objects, of the other, and of the self become evident. (shrink)

In this paper, I present the difficulty in the phenomenology of explaining the constitution of objectivities in consciousness. In the context of phenomenological reduction, constitution has to be understood as unveiling the universal and necessary essences. Recognized by Husserl in Ideas I and named as functional problems, the constitution of objectivities refers at first to individual consciousness, and then to an intersubjective one. In Ideas II, the phenomenologist explains how the constitution of nature, psyche, and spirit occurs. This process begins (...) by assuming three premises: the ontological realism, the regularity of nature, and the transcendental idealism. In this process, the ego, apart from constituting objects (the body, the psyche, and the others), constitutes itself. The objects of material reality are constituted through aesthetic synthesis which unifies singularities and contextualizes the lived experience. The body, as a perceptive organ, perceives the exterior, and the location of the sensory stimulus is the soul. The soul is a real and transcendent object, which is linked to physical things that are constituted in a solipsistic way or intersubjectively. Empathy allows the subject to recognize the consciousness of the alter ego as capable of spontaneous movements and actions, a co-presence sharing the same horizons. Thus, through the theoretical attitude, the physical world is perceived, and through the spiritual attitude the spiritual world is perceived, a living world shared by free intelligent beings. For this, intersubjectivity fulfills a fundamental role, because only in the relationship with the other does the identity of the objects, of the other, and of the self become evident. (shrink)

In the worlds of philosophy, linguistics, and communications theory, a view has developed which understands conscious experience as experience which is 'reflected' back upon itself through language. This indicates that the consciousness we experience is possible only because we have culturally invented language and subsequently evolved to accommodate it. This accords with the conclusions of Daniel Dennett (1991), but the 'hermeneutic objection' would go further and deny that the objective sciences themselves have escaped the hermeneutic circle. -/- The consciousness we (...) humans experience is developed only within the context of crossing the 'symbolic threshold' (Percy 1975; Deacon 1997) and one of the earliest and most important symbols we acquire is that of the self, or 'the subject of experience'. It is only when we achieve self-awareness that the world, as such, comes to exist for us as an object (which contains categories and sub-categories of objects). Any consciousness imputed to prelinguistic stages of development is based on projection and guesswork, since we can know nothing directly of it. It can be said that any experience which does not separate an inner subject from an outer world is probably a continuum of sensation in which environmental stimulus and instinctive response are experienced as a unity; it may be 'lived experience' but it is experience 'lived' non-consciously. -/- Speech requires assertion and by learning to speak we find ourselves asserting, in essence, our selves into the world. The narrative form of language allows us to develop life stories, self-knowledge, and, most important, narrative memory coincident with narrative time. All this is made possible with the intersubjective 'net' of language which allows us to know ourselves by first identifying with the viewpoint of others; and, later, such allows us to identify with other minds as we anticipate their reception our communication. These three, assertion, narrative, and intersubjectivity are the essence of what language is and are the keystones that make culture possible outside of nature. (shrink)

This article is the promised sequel to a recently published article in this journal , in which I sought to make more available to psychologists Edmund Husserl’s attempted explanation of how perceptual mental acts succeed in presenting to consciousness their external, environmental objects themselves, as opposed to some kind of representation of them. Here, I continue my exposition of Husserl’s effort and, as well, I begin a project of seeking to bridge the gap between his phenomenological account of perceptual (...) presence to consciousness and James J. Gibson’s ecological conception of direct perception. I am concerned, with what happens at the juncture of the perceptual system’s resonance to the stimulus energy flux and the perceiver’s awareness of those environmental objects, events, properties, and relations which are specified by the informational variables that the picked-up stimulus flux instantiates. I believe that simultaneously considering the environment’s phenomenological perceptual presence from both sides of the great epistemic divide – from the ecological outside and from the phenomenological inside – is worth a serious try. In the case of both these perspectives, we fortunately can draw upon a lifetime of intensive work by a major theorist operating at the highest level, work directly relevant to the general phenomenon of special interest here. (shrink)