Perception

In this study, we used a novel application of the previous paradigm provided by Pomplun to examine the eye movement strategies of using minimal working memory in visual comparison. This paradigm includes two tasks: one is a free comparison and the other is a single sequential comparison. In the free comparison, participants can freely view two horizontally presented stimuli until they judge whether the two stimuli are the same or not. In the single sequential comparison, participants can only view the left-side stimuli one time, and when their eyes cross the invisible boundary at the center of the screen, the left-side stimuli disappear and the right-side stimuli appear. Participants need to judge whether the right-side stimuli are the same as the disappeared left-side stimuli. Eye movement data showed significant differences between the single sequential comparison and free comparison tasks that suggests the use of minimal working memory in free comparison. Moreover, when the number of items was more than three, an average of 2.87 items would be processed in each view sequence. Participants also used the alternating left-right reference strategy that made the shortest scan path with the use of minimal working memory. The typical eye movement strategy in visual comparison and its theoretical significance were discussed.

Several features of tactile stimuli modulate the perceived distance between touches. In particular, distances are perceived as farther apart when the time interval between them is longer, than when it is shorter. Such effects have been interpreted as a form of ‘psychological relativity’, analogous to Einstein's conception of a four-dimensional space–time. We investigated whether similar effects occur for stimulus features other than time, specifically stimulus intensity. We hypothesised that perceived distance would be increased when the two stimuli differed in intensity, since they would then be farther apart in a multi-dimensional feature space. Participants made verbal estimates of the perceived distance between two touches on their left hand. Intensity was manipulated such that both stimuli could be intense, both could be light, or one could be intense and the other light. We found no evidence for change in perceived tactile distance when stimuli intensity mis-matched. In contrast, there were clear effects of average stimulus intensity on perceived distance. Intense stimuli were judged as farther apart than light stimuli, and mixed stimuli were intermediate. These results are consistent with theories of general magnitude representation, which argue that multiple dimensions of magnitude are dependent on a shared underlying representation of domain-general magnitude.

The negative side effects of mask-wearing on reading facial emotional cues have been investigated in several studies with adults post-2020. However, little is known about children. This study aimed to determine the negative influence of mask-wearing on reading emotions of adult faces by Japanese school-aged children, compared to Japanese adults. We also examined whether this negative influence could be alleviated by using a transparent face mask instead of an opaque one (surgical mask). The performance on reading emotions was measured using emotion categorization and emotion intensity rating tasks for adult faces. As per the findings, the accuracy of emotion recognition in children was impaired for various facial expressions (disgust, fear, happy, neutral, sad, and surprise faces), except for angry faces. Conversely, in adults, it was impaired for a few facial expressions. The perceived intensity for happy faces with a surgical mask was weaker in both children and adults than in those without the mask. A negative influence of wearing surgical masks was generally not observed for faces wearing a transparent mask in both children and adults. Thus, negative side effects of mask-wearing on reading emotions are observed for more facial expressions in children than in adults; transparent masks can help remedy these.

Everyday experiences suggest that a container, such as a box of chocolate sprinkles, can convey pertinent information about the nature of its content. Despite the familiarity of the experience, we do not know whether people can perceive the number of objects in the container from touch alone and how accurately they can do so. In three experiments, participants handled containers holding between one and five objects and verbally estimated their number. Containers were small cardboard jewelry boxes, and objects were round beads of varying diameter and weight. Any useful visual and auditory cues were precluded. Experiment 1 demonstrated very accurate performance, provided the objects were of sufficient weight. Experiment 2 demonstrated that withholding information about the possible number of objects inside the container does not affect accuracy at a group level but does produce occasional overestimations at an individual level. Experiment 3 demonstrated that removing the weight cue leads to systematic underestimations but does not eliminate people's ability to distinguish between different numbers of objects in the container. This study contributes to a growing picture that container haptics is surprisingly capable.

The aim of the current research was to explore whether we can improve the recognition of cross-cultural freely-expressed emotional faces in British participants. We tested several methods for improving the recognition of freely-expressed emotional faces, such as different methods for presenting other-culture expressions of emotion from individuals from Chile, New Zealand and Singapore in two experimental stages. In the first experimental stage, in phase one, participants were asked to identify the emotion of cross-cultural freely-expressed faces. In the second phase, different cohorts were presented with interactive side-by-side, back-to-back and dynamic morphing of cross-cultural freely-expressed emotional faces, and control conditions. In the final phase, we repeated phase one using novel stimuli. We found that all non-control conditions led to recognition improvements. Morphing was the most effective condition for improving the recognition of cross-cultural emotional faces. In the second experimental stage, we presented morphing to different cohorts including own-to-other and other-to-own freely-expressed cross-cultural emotional faces and neutral-to-emotional and emotional-to-neutral other-culture freely-expressed emotional faces. All conditions led to recognition improvements and the presentation of freely-expressed own-to-other cultural-emotional faces provided the most effective learning. These findings suggest that training can improve the recognition of cross-cultural freely-expressed emotional expressions.

Research has demonstrated that attractiveness evaluations of adult faces were less accurate when faces were inverted than upright. It remains unknown, however, whether a similar effect applies to perceived cuteness of infants, which is assumed to be based on elemental facial features called the “baby schema.” In this research, we studied the face inversion effect on perceived cuteness of infant faces in a rating task and a two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) task. We also examined beauty as a control dimension. Although the rating task revealed no inversion effect, the 2AFC task showed poorer discrimination performance with inverted faces than with upright faces in both evaluations. These results indicate that infant cuteness and beauty dimensions are correlated well with each other, and their perception not only relies on elemental features that are not strongly affected by inversion but is also affected by holistic facial configurations when a detailed comparison is required.

An illusion of distinctiveness for faces is described that manifests as a positive association between perceived familiarity and perceived distinctiveness. This association seems partly rooted in intrinsic facial characteristics but is boosted by actual exposure to faces. Such illusion could impede research on familiar faces where distinctiveness is manipulated or controlled and researchers will need to find ways around it.