Which of the following is not a factor brought to the perceptual process by the perceiver?

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Kim M. Curby
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Interests: perceptual expertise; face perception; object perception; visual working memory; visual learning; attention

Dr. Thomas A. Carlson
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

School of Psychology, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Interests: object perception; attention; decision making; neural decoding; human brain imaging

Dr. Steven B. Most
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

School of Psychology, UNSW Sydney, Kensington, NSW, Australia
Interests: attention; perception; emotion; cognition–emotion interactions

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

How do experience and knowledge shape what we see and how we see it? For decades, the debate has raged over whether visual perception is shaped by experience, knowledge, and other perceiver-based factors such as motivation, learning, preference, and emotion. This Special Issue aims to reframe this “whether or not” debate and instead embrace the complexity and variety of findings related to the influence of perceiver-based factors on visual perception. When assembled together, contributions to this Special Issue will paint a picture of a perceptual landscape, highlighting which aspects of perceptual processing may be open to such influences and which aspects may be immune to them. We invite articles looking at all aspects of visual processing, including, but not limited to, object recognition, perceptual organization, attention, and visual working memory.

Dr. Kim M. Curby
Dr. Thomas A. Carlson
Dr. Steven B. Most
Guest Editors

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Keywords

• perceiver-based factors
• top-down effects
• experience and learning
• categories and concepts
• knowledge
• motivation and emotion
• individual differences
• cognitive penetrability

Published Papers (4 papers)

Research

Open AccessCommunication

Satisfaction of Search Can Be Ameliorated by Perceptual Learning: A Proof-of-Principle Study

Viewed by 353

Abstract

When searching a visual image that contains multiple target objects of interest, human subjects often show a satisfaction of search (SOS) effect, whereby if the subjects find one target, they are less likely to find additional targets in the image. Reducing SOS or, [...] Read more.

When searching a visual image that contains multiple target objects of interest, human subjects often show a satisfaction of search (SOS) effect, whereby if the subjects find one target, they are less likely to find additional targets in the image. Reducing SOS or, equivalently, subsequent search miss (SSM), is of great significance in many real-world situations where it is of paramount importance to find all targets in a given image, not just one. However, studies have shown that even highly trained and experienced subjects, such as expert radiologists, are subject to SOS. Here, using the detection of camouflaged objects (or camouflage-breaking) as an illustrative case, we demonstrate that when naïve subjects are trained to detect camouflaged objects more effectively, it has the side effect of reducing subjects’ SOS. We tested subjects in the SOS task before and after they were trained in camouflage-breaking. During SOS testing, subjects viewed naturalistic scenes that contained zero, one, or two targets, depending on the image. As expected, before camouflage-training, subjects showed a strong SOS effect, whereby if they had found a target with relatively high visual saliency in a given image, they were less likely to have also found a lower-saliency target when one existed in the image. Subjects were then trained in the camouflage-breaking task to criterion using non-SOS images, i.e., camouflage images that contained zero or one target. Surprisingly, the trained subjects no longer showed significant levels of SOS. This reduction was specific to the particular background texture in which the subjects received camouflage training; subjects continued to show significant SOS when tested using a different background texture in which they did not receive camouflage training. A separate experiment showed that the reduction in SOS was not attributable to non-specific exposure or practice effects. Together, our results demonstrate that perceptual expertise can, in principle, reduce SOS, even when the perceptual training does not specifically target SOS reduction. Full article

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Open AccessArticle

Preference at First Sight: Effects of Shape and Font Qualities on Evaluation of Object-Word Pairs

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Abstract

Subjective preferences for visual qualities of shapes and fonts have been separately reported. Such preferences are often similarly attributed to factors such as aesthetic impressions, attributed meaning from the visual properties, or processing fluency. Because shapes and fonts were rarely studied together, we [...] Read more.

Subjective preferences for visual qualities of shapes and fonts have been separately reported. Such preferences are often similarly attributed to factors such as aesthetic impressions, attributed meaning from the visual properties, or processing fluency. Because shapes and fonts were rarely studied together, we investigated whether these qualities had a similar impact on preference judgment of object-word pairs. Each pair consisted of an abstract object with either preferred or disliked shape qualities and a pseudoword with either preferred or disliked font qualities. We found that only shape qualities, but not font qualities, influenced preference ratings of the object-word pairs, with higher preferences for pairs with preferred than disliked shapes. Moreover, eye movement results indicated that while participants fixated the word before the object, their prolonged fixation on the object when first attending to it might have contributed to the preference ratings. Nonetheless, other measures, including response times, total fixation numbers, and total dwell time, showed different patterns for shape and font qualities, revealing that participants attended more to objects with preferred than disliked shapes, and to words with disliked than preferred fonts. Taken together, these results suggest that shape and font qualities have differential influences on preferences and processing of objects and words. Full article

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Open AccessArticle

Semantic Expectation Effects on Object Detection: Using Figure Assignment to Elucidate Mechanisms

Viewed by 1028

Abstract

Recent evidence suggesting that object detection is improved following valid rather than invalid labels implies that semantics influence object detection. It is not clear, however, whether the results index object detection or feature detection. Further, because control conditions were absent and labels and [...] Read more.

Recent evidence suggesting that object detection is improved following valid rather than invalid labels implies that semantics influence object detection. It is not clear, however, whether the results index object detection or feature detection. Further, because control conditions were absent and labels and objects were repeated multiple times, the mechanisms are unknown. We assessed object detection via figure assignment, whereby objects are segmented from backgrounds. Masked bipartite displays depicting a portion of a mono-oriented object (a familiar configuration) on one side of a central border were shown once only for 90 or 100 ms. Familiar configuration is a figural prior. Accurate detection was indexed by reports of an object on the familiar configuration side of the border. Compared to control experiments without labels, valid labels improved accuracy and reduced response times (RTs) more for upright than inverted objects (Studies 1 and 2). Invalid labels denoting different superordinate-level objects (DSC; Study 1) or same superordinate-level objects (SSC; Study 2) reduced accuracy for upright displays only. Orientation dependency indicates that effects are mediated by activated object representations rather than features which are invariant over orientation. Following invalid SSC labels (Study 2), accurate detection RTs were longer than control for both orientations, implicating conflict between semantic representations that had to be resolved before object detection. These results demonstrate that object detection is not just affected by semantics, it entails semantics. Full article

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Other

Open AccessBrief Report

Visual Search Asymmetry Due to the Relative Magnitude Represented by Number Symbols

Viewed by 949

Abstract

In visual search tasks, physically large target stimuli are more easily identified among small distractors than are small targets among large distractors. The present study extends this finding by presenting preliminary evidence of a new search asymmetry: stimuli that symbolically represent larger magnitude [...] Read more.

In visual search tasks, physically large target stimuli are more easily identified among small distractors than are small targets among large distractors. The present study extends this finding by presenting preliminary evidence of a new search asymmetry: stimuli that symbolically represent larger magnitude are identified more easily among featurally equivalent distractors that represent smaller magnitude. Participants performed a visual search task using line-segment digits representing the numbers 2 and 5, and the numbers 6 and 9, as well as comparable non-numeric control stimuli. In three experiments, we found that search times are faster when the target is a digit that represents a larger magnitude than the distractor, although this pattern was not evident in one additional experiment. The results provide suggestive evidence that the magnitude of a number symbol can affect perceptual comparisons between number symbols, and that the semantic meaning of a target stimulus can systematically affect visual search. Full article

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