Category: Research

Repeatedly presenting a target within a stable search array facilitates visual search, an effect termed contextual cueing. Previous solo-performance studies have shown that successful acquisition of contextual memories requires explicit allocation of attentional resources to the task-relevant repeated contexts. By contrast, repeated but task-irrelevant contexts could not be learned when presented together with repeated task-relevant contexts due to a blocking effect. Here we investigated if such blocking of context learning could be diminished in a social context, when the task-irrelevant context is task-relevant for a co-actor in a joint action search mode. We adopted the contextual cueing paradigm and extended this to the co-active search mode. Participants learned a context-cued subset of the search displays (color-defined) in the training phase, and their search performance was tested in the transfer phase, where…

Abstract Visual search is speeded when a target item is positioned consistently within an invariant (repeatedly encountered) configuration of distractor items (“contextual cueing”). Contextual cueing is also observed in cross-modal search, when the location of the—visual—target is predicted by distractors from another—tactile—sensory modality. Previous studies examining lateralized waveforms of the event-related potential (ERP) with millisecond precision have shown that learned visual contexts improve a whole cascade of search-processing stages. Drawing on ERPs, the present study tested alternative accounts of contextual cueing in tasks in which distractor-target contextual associations are established across, as compared to, within sensory modalities. To this end, we devised a novel, cross-modal search task: search for a visual feature singleton, with repeated (and nonrepeated) distractor configurations presented either within the same (visual) or a different (tactile) modality. We found reaction times (RTs)…

Fredrik Allenmark ,Ahu Gokce,Thomas Geyer,Artyom Zinchenko,Hermann J. Müller,Zhuanghua Shi Abstract In visual search tasks, repeating features or the position of the target results in faster response times. Such inter-trial ‘priming’ effects occur not just for repetitions from the immediately preceding trial but also from trials further back. A paradigm known to produce particularly long-lasting inter-trial effects–of the target-defining feature, target position, and response (feature)–is the ‘priming of pop-out’ (PoP) paradigm, which typically uses sparse search displays and random swapping across trials of target- and distractor-defining features. However, the mechanisms underlying these inter-trial effects are still not well understood. To address this, we applied a modeling framework combining an evidence accumulation (EA) model with different computational updating rules of the model parameters (i.e., the drift rate and starting point of EA) for…

Chen, X., Qiu, N., Chen, C., & Zhai, L. (2021). Personality Traits, Loneliness, and Affect Among Boxers. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 609153. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.609153 Abstract This study aimed to test the association between personality traits and affect among boxers and to figure out whether loneliness mediated this relationship. This study used The Big Five Personality Traits Scale, The UCLA Loneliness Scale, and The Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS) which were administered to N = 231 boxers (age: M = 20.28; SD = 2.60), of which 62% were male (n = 144) and 38% were female (n = 87). The results showed that (1) conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness were negatively related with negative affect, neuroticism was positively associated with negative affect, and openness showed no relationship with negative affect; (2) conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness were all positively correlated with…

Glasauer, S., & Shi, Z. (2021). The origin of Vierordt’s law: The experimental protocol matters. PsyCh Journal, pchj.464. https://doi.org/10.1002/pchj.464 Abstract In 1868, Karl Vierordt discovered one type of errors in time perception—an overestimation of short duration and underestimation of long durations, known as Vierordt's law. Here we reviewed the original study in its historical context and asked whether Vierordt's law is a result of an unnatural experimental randomization protocol. Using iterative Bayesian updating, we simulated the original results with high accuracy. Importantly, the model also predicted that a slowly changing random-walk sequence produces less central tendency than a random sequence with the same durations. This was validated by a duration reproduction experiment from two sequences (random and random walk) with the same sampled distribution. The results showed that trial-wise variation influenced the…

Wang, X., Wöllner, C., & Shi, Z. (2021). Perceiving Tempo in Incongruent Audiovisual Presentations of Human Motion: Evidence for a Visual Driving Effect. Timing & Time Perception, -1(aop), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1163/22134468-bja10036 Abstract Compared to vision, audition has been considered to be the dominant sensory modality for temporal processing. Nevertheless, recent research suggests the opposite, such that the apparent inferiority of visual information in tempo judgements might be due to the lack of ecological validity of experimental stimuli, and reliable visual movements may have the potential to alter the temporal location of perceived auditory inputs. To explore the role of audition and vision in overall time perception, audiovisual stimuli with various degrees of temporal congruence were developed in the current study. We investigated which sensory modality weighs more in holistic tempo judgements with conflicting…

Ren, Y., Allenmark, F., Müller, H. J., & Shi, Z. (2021). Variation in the “coefficient of variation”: Rethinking the violation of the scalar property in time-duration judgments. Acta Psychologica, 214, 103263. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2021.103263 Abstract The coefficient of variation (CV), also known as relative standard deviation, has been used to measure the constancy of the Weber fraction, a key signature of efficient neural coding in time perception. It has long been debated whether or not duration judgments follow Weber’s law, with arguments based on examinations of the CV. However, what has been largely ignored in this debate is that the observed CVs may be modulated by temporal context and decision uncertainty, thus questioning conclusions based on this measure. Here, we used a temporal reproduction paradigm to examine the variation of the CV with two…

Ren, Y., Allenmark, F., Müller, H. J., & Shi, Z. (2020). Logarithmic encoding of ensemble time intervals. Scientific Reports, 10(1), 18174. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-75191-6 Abstract Although time perception is based on the internal representation of time, whether the subjective timeline is scaled linearly or logarithmically remains an open issue. Evidence from previous research is mixed: while the classical internal-clock model assumes a linear scale with scalar variability, there is evidence that logarithmic timing provides a better fit to behavioral data. A major challenge for investigating the nature of the internal scale is that the retrieval process required for time judgments may involve a remapping of the subjective time back to the objective scale, complicating any direct interpretation of behavioral findings. Here, we used a novel approach, requiring rapid intuitive ‘ensemble’ averaging of a whole…