RESUMEN

Of the four interrelated concepts in the title, only symmetry has an exact mathematical definition. In mathematical development, symmetry is a graded variable-in marked contrast with the popular binary conception of symmetry in and out of the laboratory (i.e. an object is either symmetrical or nonsymmetrical). Because the notion does not have a direct graded perceptual counterpart (experimental participants are not asked about the amount of symmetry of an object), students of symmetry have taken various detours to characterize the perceptual effects of symmetry. Current approaches have been informed by information theory, mathematical group theory, randomness research, and complexity. Apart from reviewing the development of the main approaches, for the first time we calculated associations between figural goodness as measured in the Garner tradition and measures of algorithmic complexity and randomness developed in recent research. We offer novel ideas and analyses by way of integrating the various approaches.

RESUMEN

Face matching consists of the ability to decide whether two face images (or more) belong to the same person or to different identities. Face matching is crucial for efficient face recognition and plays an important role in applied settings such as passport control and eyewitness memory. However, despite extensive research, the mechanisms that govern face-matching performance are still not well understood. Moreover, to date, many researchers hold on to the belief that match and mismatch conditions are governed by two separate systems, an assumption that likely thwarted the development of a unified model of face matching. The present study outlines a unified unequal variance confidence-similarity signal detection-based model of face-matching performance, one that facilitates the use of receiver operating characteristics (ROC) and confidence-accuracy plots to better understand the relations between match and mismatch conditions, and their relations to factors of confidence and similarity. A binomial feature-matching mechanism is developed to support this signal detection model. The model can account for the presence of both within-identities and between-identities sources of variation in face recognition and explains a myriad of face-matching phenomena, including the match-mismatch dissociation. The model is also capable of generating new predictions concerning the role of confidence and similarity and their intricate relations with accuracy. The new model was tested against six alternative competing models (some postulate discrete rather than continuous representations) in three experiments. Data analyses consisted of hierarchically nested model fitting, ROC curve analyses, and confidence-accuracy plots analyses. All of these provided substantial support in the signal detection-based confidence-similarity model. The model suggests that the accuracy of face-matching performance can be predicted by the degree of similarity/dissimilarity of the depicted faces and the level of confidence in the decision. Moreover, according to the model, confidence and similarity ratings are strongly correlated. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

Many children and educated adults experience difficulties in understanding and manipulating fractions. In this study, we argue that a major cause of this challenge is rooted in the need to integrate information from two separate informational sources (i.e., denominator and numerator) according to a normative arithmetic rule (i.e., division). We contend that in some tasks, the correct arithmetic rule is replaced by an inadequate (sub-optimal) operation (e.g., multiplication), which leads to inaccurate representation of fractions. We tested this conjecture by applying two rigorous models of information integration : (a) functional measurement (Experiments 1-3) and (b) conjoint measurement (Experiment 4-5) to data from number-to-line and comparative judgment tasks. These allowed us to compare participants' integration strategies with that of an ideal-observer model. Functional measurement analyses on data from the number-to-line task, revealed that participants could represent the global magnitude of proper and improper fractions quite accurately and combine the fractions' components according to an ideal-observer model. However, conjoint measurement analyses on data from the comparative judgment task, showed that most participants combined these fractions' components according to a sub-optimal (saturated) observer model, that is inconsistent with an ideal-observer (additive) model. These results support the view that educated adults are capable of extracting multiple types of representations of fractions depending on the task at-hand. These representations can be either accurate and conform with normative arithmetic or approximated and inconsistent with normative arithmetic. The latter may lead to the observed difficulties people experience with fractions.

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

Navon letters and composite faces are two fascinating demonstrations of hierarchical organization in perception. Many researchers believe that the two types of stimuli and their associated tasks gauge comparable holistic mechanisms. This belief is so common that the two paradigms are now being applied in tandem to measure impaired holistic processing in prosopagnosic patients. But are Navon letters and composite faces processed in a similar fashion? In the present study we take a closer look at their apparent affinity. We gain novel insights into their underlying mechanisms by fitting parameters of the linear ballistic accumulator (LBA) model to empirical correct and incorrect response times (RTs). The results reveal major differences in processing between the two tasks. We conclude that despite the presence of a compelling surface similarity, Navon compound letters and composite faces tap into separate psychological processes.

RESUMEN

Response times (RT) distributions are routinely used by psychologists and neuroscientists in the assessment and modeling of human behavior and cognition. The statistical properties of RT distributions are valuable in uncovering unobservable psychological mechanisms. A potentially important statistical aspect of RT distributions is their entropy. However, to date, no valid measure of entropy on RT distributions has been developed, mainly because available extensions of discrete entropy measures to continuous distributions were fraught with problems and inconsistencies. The present work takes advantage of the cumulative residual entropy (CRE) function-a well-known differential entropy measure that can circumvent those problems. Applications of the CRE to RT distributions are presented along with concrete examples and simulations. In addition, a novel measure of instantaneous CRE is developed that captures the rate of entropy reduction (or information gain) from a stimulus as a function of processing time. Taken together, the new measures of entropy in RT distributions proposed here allow for stronger statistical inferences, as well as motivated theoretical interpretations of psychological constructs such as mental effort and processing efficiency.

RESUMEN

For nearly half a century now, Garner interference has been serving as the gold standard measure of dimensional interaction and selective attention. But the mechanisms that generate Garner interference are still not well understood. The current study proposes a novel theory that ascribes the interference (and dimensional interaction in general) to episodic feature integration processes at the micro (trial-to-trial) level. The novel account builds on earlier well-established notions of "feature integration" and "object files," and is augmented by formal derivations. The sequential binding account predicts that the magnitude of Garner interference is related to the strength of feature integration along consecutive trials. Three experiments were set to test this novel binding theory. Experiment 1 and Experiment 2 tested performance with integral dimensions (chroma and value, and width and height of rectangles); whereas Experiment 3 examined performance with a pair of separable dimensions (circle's size and angle of a diameter). In addition, the time lag ensuing between consecutive trials was manipulated. The results strongly supported the predictions of the sequential binding account: (a) with integral dimensions, substantial amounts of Garner interference were correlated with large partial repetition costs (e.g., consensual markers of feature integration), but this pattern was not observed with separable dimensions, and (b) the magnitude of both Garner interference and partial repetition costs diminished as a function of the ensuing time lag between consecutive trials, pointing to a common time-dependent memory mechanism. These results adduce strong support in the predictions of the feature binding theory of Garner interference, giving currency to the idea that dimensional interaction is driven by feature integration. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

I applied the methodology known as maximum likelihood conjoint measurement (MLCM) to diagnose how numerical magnitude affects the perception of physical size of numerals in the size congruity effect (SCE). Traditional theories of the SCE argue for automatic activation of numerical magnitude, and therefore the obligatory interaction in perception between number and size. Participants in the current study were presented with pairs of numerals varying on physical size and numerical magnitude. They judged which member of the pair was physically larger, while ignoring numerical magnitude. Three nested observer models (i.e. independent, additive, and saturated) of the contribution of physical size and numerical magnitude to perceived size were fit to the data using maximum likelihood. The independent observer model exhibited the best fit for the majority of observers. These results cast doubts on the view that numerical magnitude is activated automatically in judgments of physical size of numerals.

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

The Stroop effect has been a key to the assay of selective attention since the time of the epoch-making study by J.R. Stroop almost a century ago. However, recent work based on computational modeling and recording of brain activations ignored the primary meaning of the Stroop effect as a measure of selectivity-with the Stroop test losing its raison d'être. Espousing the new framework, numerous studies in the past 20 years conceived performance in the Stroop task in terms of conflict-induced adjustments governed by central control on a trial-to-trial basis. In the face of this tsunami, we try to convince the reader that the Stroop effect cannot serve as a testing ground for conflict-monitoring and control, because these constructs are fundamentally unsuited to serve as a candidate theory of Stroop processes. A range of problems are discussed that singly and collectively pose grave doubts regarding the validity of a control and conflict monitoring account in the Stroop domain. We show how the key notion of conflict is misconstrued in conflict-monitoring models. Due to space limitations and for sake of wider accessibility, our treatment here cannot be technical.

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

Conjoint measurement was used to investigate the joint influence of facial gender and facial age on perceived gender (Experiment 1) and perceived age (Experiment 2). A set of 25 faces was created, covarying independently five levels of gender (from feminine to masculine) and five levels of age (from young to old). Two independent groups of observers were presented with all possible pairs of faces from this set and compared which member of the pair appeared as more masculine (Experiment 1) or older (Experiment 2). Three nested models of the contribution of gender and age to judgment (i.e., independent, additive, and saturated) were fit to the data using maximum likelihood. The results showed that both gender and age contributed to the perceived gender and age of the faces according to a saturated observer model. In judgments of gender (Experiment 1), female faces were perceived as more masculine as they became older. In judgments of age (Experiment 2), young faces (age 20 and 30) were perceived as older as they became more masculine. Taken together, the results entail that: (a) observers integrate facial gender and age information when judging either of the dimensions, and that (b) cues for femininity and cues for aging are negatively correlated. This correlation exerts stronger influence on female faces, and can explain the success of cosmetics in concealing signs of aging and exaggerating sexually dimorphic features.

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

People tend to associate anger with male faces and happiness or surprise with female faces. This angry-men-happy-women bias has been ascribed to either top-down (e.g., well-learned stereotypes) or bottom-up (e.g., shared morphological cues) processes. The dissociation between these two theoretical alternatives has proved challenging. The current effort addresses this challenge by harnessing two complementary metatheoretical approaches to dimensional interaction: Garner's logic of inferring informational structure and General Recognition Theory-a multidimensional extension of signal detection theory. Conjoint application of these two rigorous methodologies afforded us to: (a) uncover the internal representations that generate the angry-men-happy-women phenomenon, (b) disentangle varieties of perceptual (bottom-up) and decisional (top-down) sources of interaction, and (c) relate operational and theoretical meanings of dimensional independence. The results show that the dimensional interaction between emotion and gender is generated by varieties of perceptual and decisional biases. These outcomes document the involvement of both bottom-up (e.g., shared morphological structures) and top-down (stereotypes) factors in social perception.

RESUMEN

The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced new challenges for governments and individuals. Unprecedented efforts at reducing virus transmission launched a novel arena for human face recognition in which faces are partially occluded with masks. Previous studies have shown that masks decrease accuracy of face identity and emotion recognition. The current study focuses on the impact of masks on the speed of processing of these and other important social dimensions. Here we provide a systematic assessment of the impact of COVID-19 masks on facial identity, emotion, gender, and age. Four experiments (N = 116) were conducted in which participants categorized faces on a predefined dimension (e.g., emotion). Both speed and accuracy were measured. The results revealed that masks hindered the perception of virtually all tested facial dimensions (i.e., emotion, gender, age, and identity), interfering with normal speed and accuracy of categorization. We also found that the unwarranted effects of masks were not due to holistic processes, because the Face Inversion Effect (FIE) was generally not larger with unmasked compared with masked faces. Moreover, we found that the impact of masks is not automatic and that under some contexts observers can control at least part of their detrimental effects.

RESUMEN

Many researchers believe that faces-whether presented alone or as part of an ensemble-are processed automatically. According to this idea, (a) the detection of single or multiple faces is resource free and does not require allocation of attention, and (b) visual search for faces is held in parallel. The current study put these hypotheses under direct scrutiny. Participants performed in a redundant target-detection task, responding according to the presence or absence of a face (or faces) on the display. I used a rigorous methodology known as the system factorial technology (SFT). The SFT methodology afforded simultaneous assessment of (a) architecture (serial vs. parallel), (b) stopping rule (exhaustive vs. self-terminating), and (c) capacity (limited, unlimited, or supercapacity). SFT analyses were held at the level of the mean RTs and at the level of the RT distributions. The analyses pointed conclusively to a serial self-terminating architecture with limited capacity. These findings cast serious doubts on the alleged automaticity of face perception.

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

Extracting the dimensions of age, sex, race from faces is fundamental for many aspects of social cognition such as person construal, impression formation, and social interaction. While cognitive researchers consider these dimensions to be independent in processing, social psychology researchers have recently demonstrated the emergence of strong interactive patterns between these categories, especially, when social biases are involved. The current study harnessed the classic Garner's speeded classification task (Garner, 1974) and Stroop task (1935) to evaluate the level of independence between age, sex, and race in a systematic and exhaustive fashion, with an eye on the potential influence of social biases. The degree of separability was evaluated in a pairwise fashion, with each experiment testing one pair. In Experiment 1a and 1b, sex and race were tested with strong (Experiment 1b) or weak (Experiment 1a) social bias. Experiment 2 was set to assess the separability of sex and race. And Experiment 3 was aimed at evaluating the separability of age and sex. The results revealed that neither of the pairs of dimensions produced Garner interferences (and are therefore separable dimensions). However, when strong social bias was present, the dimensions did produce redundancy gains and Stroop-like effects, which reflected the presence of abiding social biases. A holistic-to-analytic model is presented to account for these results, according to which, the dimensions are initially processed as integral dimensions, but then become gradually separable.

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

Composite faces fuse the top and bottom halves from two different faces to create a powerful illusion of a novel face. It has been argued that composite faces are processed holistically, namely that the constituent face parts are perceived as a template, rather than independent features. This study sought to uncover the locus of the composite face effect by relating its empirical reaction time distributions to theoretical ex-Gaussian parameters. The results showed that the composite face effect for unfamiliar (Experiment 1) and familiar (Experiment 2) faces is generated by pure changes in the exponential component of the ex-Gaussian distribution. This held true for both partial and complete design measures. The exponential component has been attributed to working memory and attentional processes. The results suggest the involvement of attentional and working memory processes in the composite face effect and in the perception of faces in general. They cast doubts on the holistic nature of face processing. The results also provide important constraints on future computational theories of the effect.

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

As a vital part of our daily lives, number processing has received much attention in current cognitive research. Most adults perceive with ease the numerical magnitude of a two-digit number and also the individual magnitudes of the component digits, yet the relation between the 2 is poorly understood. Application to two-digit numbers of Garner's speeded classification paradigm (Experiment 1) and of system factorial technology (Experiment 2) jointly reveals phases of independent and of coactive processing within a well-defined time-course. A new model, the interactive race coactive model, explains various facets of two-digit number processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

It is widely believed that faces are processed holistically such that their facial features or parts are represented as global wholes rather than independent entities. But how does their holistic representation evolve in time? According to the global-to-local hypothesis, the initial representation of faces is holistic and coarse at the outset but is becoming progressively detailed and analytic. The current study set to test this global-to-local hypothesis by applying fine-grained methods of response time analyses to the composite face illusion - a traditional marker of holistic face processing. The analyses included the delta plots and conditional accuracy functions. These tools move beyond the mean RT and accuracy to provide detailed analysis of the temporal dynamics of the composite face effect. The methodologies converged on the conclusion that the composite effect is minimal for fast RTs but becomes progressively larger as RT gets slower. This pattern is inconsistent with a global-to-local dynamics. The implications of these results to the study of face perception are discussed.

RESUMEN

Can observers access two spatially separated color targets (e.g., red and green) at the same time (i.e., in parallel)? According to the Boolean map theory of visual attention (Huang & Pashler, Psychological Review, 114(3), 599-631, 2007), access to two different features that belong to the same dimension (e.g., red and green targets) is limited and therefore can be held only in a serial fashion. The current study proposes a strong test of the Boolean map theory of attention through the application of two of the most rigorous stochastic approaches to response times modeling-the system factorial technology (Townsend & Nozawa, 1995) and the logical rule models (Fific, Little, & Nosofsky, Psychological Review, 117, 309-348, 2010). These approaches allowed identification of serial, parallel, and coactive architectures in the processing of multicolor targets. The results showed that multiple-color targets are processed serially when observers are required to process all the targets in the display (i.e., an exhaustive stopping rule), and in parallel or coactively when observers can terminate the search when one of the targets is found (i.e., self-terminating stopping rule). These results are generally inconsistent with predictions of the Boolean map theory. They highlight the role of stopping rules in multicolor visual search, as well as the flexibility of the attentional system in shifting between processing architectures.

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

Theoretical analyses suggest that the regularities indicative of holistic processing can be obtained by combinations of perceptual and decisional factors. Kuefner and colleagues used electrophysiological results to suggest that the composite face effect is driven solely by perceptual factors. Two limitations of their approach are (a) it did not involve behavioral measures of perceptual sensitivity or bias, and (b) it is unclear how the measures used in that study are consistent with other measures of perceptual and decisional processing. Eight observers completed three tasks involving the stimuli used by Kuefner et al.. The first was a direct replication. The second was a complete identification task, associated with the perceptual and decisional distinctions formalized in general recognition theory. The third was an implementation of the Eriksen fianker task, which allows for a pattern of results that have been interpreted in terms of perceptual and decisional influences. While the empirical distinctions used by Kuefner et al. were not consistent with either the EEG data from the other tasks or the established behavioral measures of perceptual sensitivity and decisional bias, the inferences drawn from the EEG and behavioral data from those tasks were consistent with one another, underscoring the importance of converging operations.

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

Creating and maintaining accurate bindings of elementary features (e.g., color and shape) in visual short-term memory (VSTM) is fundamental for veridical perception. How are low-level features bound in memory? The present work harnessed a multivariate model of perception - the General Recognition Theory (GRT) - to unravel the internal representations underlying feature binding in VSTM. On each trial, preview and target colored shapes were presented in succession, appearing in either repeated or altered spatial locations. Participants gave two same/different responses: one with respect to color and one with respect to shape. Converging GRT analyses on the accuracy confusion matrices provided substantial evidence for binding in the form of violations of perceptual independence at the level of the individual stimulus, such that positive correlations were obtained when both features repeated or alternated together, while negative correlations were obtained when one feature repeated and the other alternated. This "cloverleaf" GRT pattern of binding was similar whether the spatial location of the preview and target repeated or altered. The current results are consistent with: (a) the discrete memory "slots" model of VSTM, and (b) the notion that spatial location is not necessary for the formation of "object files." The GRT approach presented here offers a viable quantitative model for testing various questions regarding feature binding in VSTM.

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

A series of four experiments investigated the binding of facial (i.e., facial identity, emotion, and gaze direction) and non-facial (i.e., spatial location and response location) attributes. Evidence for the creation and retrieval of temporary memory face structures across perception and action has been adduced. These episodic structures-dubbed herein "face files"-consisted of both visuo-visuo and visuo-motor bindings. Feature binding was indicated by partial-repetition costs. That is repeating a combination of facial features or altering them altogether, led to faster responses than repeating or alternating only one of the features. Taken together, the results indicate that: (a) "face files" affect both action and perception mechanisms, (b) binding can take place with facial dimensions and is not restricted to low-level features (Hommel, Visual Cognition 5:183-216, 1998), and (c) the binding of facial and non-facial attributes is facilitated if the dimensions share common spatial or motor codes. The theoretical contributions of these results to "person construal" theories (Freeman, & Ambady, Psychological Science, 20(10), 1183-1188, 2011), as well as to face recognition models (Haxby, Hoffman, & Gobbini, Biological Psychiatry, 51(1), 59-67, 2000) are discussed.

Asunto(s)