Understanding spoken language demands integration of linguistic information over time. Previous work has shown that lower-level cues, like acoustic information, and higher-level cues, like semantic information, can be integrated across the course of an utterance in order to categorize words. Questions remain about how these bottom-up and top-down sources are integrated. We propose that a useful approach to this problem is to compare human behavior to normative models of cue integration, such as ideal observer models, which have been successful in other domains. We argue that ideal observer models make three key predictions about how acoustic and semantic information should be integrated during word recognition: (1) additivity: cues have additive effects on categorization; (2) transitivity: cues providing identical information should be treated identically regardless of their temporal order; and (3) reliability weighting: cues should be weighted according to their absolute and relative reliabilities. We conduct two spoken-word recognition experiments in which participants categorize a target word embedded in a sentence. We manipulate acoustic cues on the target word; semantics from the sentence; the cues’ relative timing, and the degree of noise affecting each cue. We find evidence for additivity and transitivity; we also find evidence in favor of absolute reliability driving cue reweighting, but more mixed evidence on the role of relative cue reliability. Overall, our results suggest that listeners are near-optimal in their integration of information across multiple levels of the linguistic hierarchy over time. We also discuss how these results relate to recent error-driven approaches to cue weighting.
This study explored the modulation of perceived time based on subjective visual perception, mainly focusing on object recognition. Unlike physical time, psychological time is subject to various influences, such as attention and stimulus characteristics. We conducted two experiments using images comprising dots to systematically vary stimulus clarity and visual recognizability. Experiment 1 revealed that perceived time was longer when an object was identifiable within the stimulus. Experiment 2 extended this finding by offering three response options related to object recognition and naming. The results showed that named objects further extended the perceived time in participants. These findings suggest that perceived time is influenced by subjective perceptual experiences, such as object recognition and naming, which mediate the effects of objective stimulus attributes on temporal perception.Open practices statementThe datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. The experiments were not preregistered.
Tactile sensitivity is reduced when the limb is in motion, a phenomenon known as somatosensory gating. In a previous study, we demonstrated that discrimination precision but not perceived intensity differed between active and passive movements. Here, we asked whether and how spatial attention modulates tactile precision in active and passive movements. Participants judged the relative intensity of two vibrations while the arm was still, actively moved, or passively transported by a movable platform. Visual attention was directed either to the movement start or goal position. Perceptual bias was reduced during both active and passive movement, independent of attentional allocation. In contrast, precision remained stable during active movement but declined during passive movement when attention was directed to the movement start. However, when attention was focused on the movement goals, precision was also high when doing passive movements. These findings indicate that during active movements, predictions based, likely on an efference copy, ensure tactile precision, whereas passive movements require spatial attention directed to the movement goal.
Recent work has shown that people are sensitive to coarse differences in network topology, including network features like “holes,” “crosses,” and “T-junctions.” Even children as young as 4 years old will readily distinguish between items that differ slightly in their network topology. But how robust is this sensitivity? Here, we evaluate whether people are not only sensitive to differences in the presence or absence of certain topological features, but also to their exact spatial arrangement. In a first experiment, we show that people distinguish figures which possess all the same topological features as other figures in a set if the features differ in spatial arrangement. In a second experiment, we show that people also match figures based on exact spatial arrangement. Finally, we show that memory encodes the correct relational structure of the figures: People are more likely to falsely indicate having seen an item if it shared the precise arrangement of topological features of other items they had seen (compared to a closely matched item which had the same features arranged in a different way). Combined, these results bolster the theory that people intuitively appreciate the precise spatial arrangement of topological features.
We investigated the impact of flanker size and horizontal flanker eccentricity in the reading version of the flankers task. Critical targets and the corresponding flankers were words that could either be the same or different. Target size did not change, and flankers could either be the same size as targets or larger. Flankers could be located close to targets (normal spacing - close flankers) or separated from targets by seven spaces (distant flankers). Results revealed significant effects of flanker relatedness (same word as the target or a different word) that interacted with both flanker size and flanker eccentricity in the analysis of response times. The three-way interaction was not significant. The only significant effect in the analysis of error rates was that of flanker relatedness. We replicated prior findings showing that increasing flanker eccentricity diminishes the effect of flanker relatedness, and we further demonstrated that increasing flanker size increases the magnitude of flanker effects. Crucially, an increase in flanker size was not found to compensate for the negative impact of an increase in flanker eccentricity on effects of flanker relatedness. These results suggest that eccentricity is one key visual factor influencing the spatial integration of orthographic information, and that the impact of eccentricity overrides the impact of flanker size. This provides support for the hypothesized scale-invariant gaze-centered processing of letter identities during the initial phase of orthographic processing.
