Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Conscious perception often fails when an object appears unexpectedly and our attention is focused elsewhere (inattentional blindness). Although various factors have been identified that modulate the likelihood of this failure of awareness, it is not clear whether the monetary reward value associated with an object can affect whether or not this object is detected under conditions of inattention. We hypothesised that unexpectedly appearing objects that contain a feature linked to high value, as established via reward learning in a previous task, would subsequently be detected more frequently than objects containing a feature linked to low value. A total of 537 participants first learned the association between a perceptual feature (colour) and subsequent reward values (high, low, or none reward). Afterwards, participants were randomly assigned to a static (Experiment 1) or dynamic (Experiment 2) inattentional blindness task including an unexpected object associated with high, low, or none reward. However, no significant effect of the previously learned value on the subsequent likelihood of detection was observed. We speculate that artificial monetary value, which is known to affect attentional capture, is not strong enough to determine whether or not an object is consciously perceived.

Facial emotion constitutes an important source of information, and rapid processing of this information may bring adaptive advantages. Previous evidence suggests that emotional faces are sometimes prioritised for cognitive processing. Three experiments used an emotion-induced blindness task to examine whether this prioritisation occurs in a purely stimulus-driven fashion or whether it emerges only when the faces are task-relevant. Angry or neutral faces appeared as distractors in a rapid serial visual presentation sequence, shortly before a target that participants were required to identify. Either the emotion (Experiment 1) or gender (Experiments 2 and 3) of the distractor face indicated whether a correct/incorrect response to the target would produce reward/punishment, or not. The three experiments found that reward-related faces impaired subsequent target identification, replicating previous results. Target identification accuracy was also impaired following angry faces, compared with neutral faces, demonstrating an emotion-induced attentional bias. Importantly, this impairment was observed even when face emotion was entirely irrelevant to the participants’ ongoing task (in Experiments 2 and 3), suggesting that rapid processing of the facial emotion might arise (at least in part) from the operation of relatively automatic cognitive–perceptual processes.

When we experience our environment, we do so by combining sensory inputs with expectations derived from our prior knowledge, which can lead to surprising perceptual effects such as small objects feeling heavier than equally weighted large objects (the size–weight illusion (SWI)). Interestingly, there is evidence that the way in which the volume of an object is experienced can affect the strength of the illusion, with a SWI induced by exclusively haptic volume cues feeling stronger than a SWI induced with only visual volume cues. Furthermore, visual cues appear to add nothing over and above haptic size cues in terms of the strength of the induced weight illusion–findings which are difficult to reconcile with work using cue-conflict paradigms where visual cues usually dominate haptic cues. Here, virtual reality was used to place these senses in conflict with one another. Participants (N = 22) judged the heaviness of identically weighted cylinders across three conditions: (1) objects appeared different sizes but were physically the same size, (2) objects were physically different sizes but appeared to be the same size, or (3) objects which looked and felt different sizes from one another. Consistent with prior work, haptic size cues induced a larger SWI than that induced by visual size differences. In contrast to prior work, however, congruent vision and haptic size cues yielded a larger still SWI. These findings not only add to our understanding of how different modalities combine to influence our hedonic perception but also showcase how virtual reality can develop novel cue-conflict paradigms.

The nature of the facilitation occurring when sentences share a verb and syntactic structure (i.e., lexically-mediated syntactic priming) has not been adequately addressed in comprehension. In four eye-tracking experiments, we investigated the degree to which lexical, syntactic, thematic, and verb form repetition contribute to facilitated target sentence processing. Lexically-mediated syntactic priming was observed when primes and targets shared a verb and abstract syntactic structure, regardless of the ambiguity of the prime. In addition, repeated thematic role assignment resulted in syntactic priming (to a lesser degree), and verb form repetition facilitated lexical rather than structural processing. We conclude that priming in comprehension involves lexically associated abstract syntactic representations, and facilitation of verb and thematic role processes. The results also indicate that syntactic computation errors during prime processing are not necessary for lexically-mediated priming to occur during target processing. This result is inconsistent with an error-driven learning account of lexically-mediated syntactic priming effects.

In prospective memory (PM) research, a common finding is that PM accuracy is greater using focal, rather than nonfocal, cues. Under the multiprocess framework, the high PM performance for focal cues (cues that facilitate noticing of the target), often in the absence of task interference, reflects people’s ability to rely on spontaneous retrieval processes. By contrast, nonfocal cues (cues that do not facilitate noticing) require monitoring. A competing explanation suggests that a single process underlies focal versus nonfocal PM: People adjust their delay in ongoing responding to allow enough time for PM information to reach awareness (delay theory). Participants’ lower nonfocal performance arises because they fail to delay responding to a sufficient degree; with focal cues, the PM information accumulation rate is fast enough that no delay is necessary (and thus most everyone performs well). We sought to improve nonfocal PM performance by pairing a PM task with fast information accumulation to an ongoing task for which the requisite information accumulated more slowly. Reasoning from delay theory, we expected PM accuracy levels in this nonfocal PM task to approximate that observed in a focal PM task (for which the PM tasks were identical). In contrast to this expectation, the focal condition displayed significantly higher PM accuracy (despite demonstrating a reliably shorter response delay). In light of these findings, we concluded that the multiprocess interpretation is favoured.

We studied the memory representations that control execution of action sequences by training rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) to touch sets of five images in a predetermined arbitrary order (simultaneous chaining). In Experiment 1, we found that this training resulted in mental representations of ordinal position rather than learning associative chains, replicating the work of others. We conducted novel analyses of performance on probe tests consisting of two images “derived” from the full five-image lists (i.e., test B, D from list A→B→C→D→E). We found a “first item effect” such that monkeys responded most quickly to images that occurred early in the list in which they had been learned, indicating that monkeys covertly execute known lists mentally until an image on the screen matches the one stored in memory. Monkeys also made an ordinal comparison of the two images presented at test based on long-term memory of positional information, resulting in a “symbolic distance effect.” Experiment 2 indicated that ordinal representations were based on absolute, rather than on relative, positional information because subjects did not link two lists into one large list after linking training, unlike what occurs in transitive inference. We further examined the contents of working memory during list execution in Experiments 3 and 4 and found evidence for a prospective, rather than a retrospective, coding of position in the lists. These results indicate that serial expertise in simultaneous chaining results in robust absolute ordinal coding in long-term memory, with rapidly updating prospective coding of position in working memory during list execution.

Retaining events containing action-related information in working memory (WM) is vital to daily activities such as action planning and social interaction. During processing of such events, action-related information is bound with other visual elements (e.g., colours) as event files. In this study, we explored whether retaining event files in WM consumes more attention than retaining the constituent elements. Considering that object-based attention underlies the rehearsal of static feature bindings in WM, we hypothesised that object-based attention played a key role in retaining event files in WM. As biological motion (BM) is one of the most frequently observed events in daily life, we employed BM-related event files as the tested stimuli. In separate blocks, we required participants to memorise BM, colours (or locations), or the binding between these elements (i.e., event files). Critically, we added an object-feature report task, which consumed object-based attention, during the WM maintenance phase. We predicted that the added secondary task would lead to larger impairment for BM event files than for the constituent elements. In line with this prediction, Experiments 1 and 2 consistently revealed a selective impairment to BM event files, which could not be attributed to an unbalanced number of elements between memory conditions (Experiment 3), or to the visual processing of a secondary task (Experiment 4). Taken together, these results suggest that object-based attention plays a pivotal role in maintaining event files in WM.

The human voice is a highly flexible instrument for self-expression, yet voice identity perception is largely studied using controlled speech recordings. Using two voice-sorting tasks with naturally varying stimuli, we compared the performance of listeners who were familiar and unfamiliar with the TV show Breaking Bad. Listeners organised audio clips of speech with (1) low-expressiveness and (2) high-expressiveness into perceived identities. We predicted that increased expressiveness (e.g., shouting, strained voice) would significantly impair performance. Overall, while unfamiliar listeners were less able to generalise identity across exemplars, the two groups performed equivalently well when telling voices apart when dealing with low-expressiveness stimuli. However, high vocal expressiveness significantly impaired telling apart in both the groups: this led to increased misidentifications, where sounds from one character were assigned to the other. These misidentifications were highly consistent for familiar listeners but less consistent for unfamiliar listeners. Our data suggest that vocal flexibility has powerful effects on identity perception, where changes in the acoustic properties of vocal signals introduced by expressiveness lead to effects apparent in familiar and unfamiliar listeners alike. At the same time, expressiveness appears to have affected other aspects of voice identity processing selectively in one listener group but not the other, thus revealing complex interactions of stimulus properties and listener characteristics (i.e., familiarity) in identity processing.

Increasing evidence suggests that individuals are highly sensitive to self-related stimuli. Here, we report two experiments conducted to assess whether two schematic stimuli, arbitrarily associated with either the self or a stranger, can shape attention holding in an oculomotor task. In both experiments, participants first completed a manual matching task in which they were asked to associate the self and a stranger with two shapes (triangle vs. square). Then, in an oculomotor task, they were asked to perform a saccade from the centre of the screen towards a peripheral target while either the triangle or the square were centrally presented. In Experiment 1, saccades had to be performed on each trial—irrespective of the central shape—while in Experiment 2, saccades had to be performed only when the central shape was associated with either the self or the stranger, depending on block instruction. Participants were slower to initiate a saccade away from the central shape when this was associated with the self rather than with the stranger, but this pattern of results emerged only in Experiment 2. Overall, these data suggest that stimuli associated with the self through episodic learning can hold attention when the self/other distinction is a task-relevant dimension.

Spatial–Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) and Spatial–Quantity Association of Response Codes (SQARC) effects are evident when people produce faster left-sided responses to smaller numbers, sizes, and durations and faster right-sided responses to larger numbers, sizes, and durations. SQARC effects have typically been demonstrated in paradigms where the explicit processing of quantity information is required for successful task completion. The current study tested whether the implicit presentation of task-irrelevant magnitude information could trigger a SQARC effect as has been demonstrated previously when task-irrelevant information triggers a SNARC effect. In Experiment 1, participants (n = 20) made orientation judgements for triangles varying in numerosity and physical extent. In Experiment 2, participants (n = 20) made orientation judgements for triangles varying in numerosity and for a triangle preceded by a delay of varying duration. SNARC effects were observed for the numerosity conditions of Experiments 1 and 2 replicating Mitchell et al. SQARC effects were also demonstrated for physical extent and for duration. These findings demonstrate that SQARC effects can be implicitly triggered by the presentation of the task-irrelevant magnitude.

We examined the relationship between endogenous rhythms, auditory and visual cues, and body movement in the temporal coordination of duet singers. Sixteen pairs of experienced vocalists sang a familiar melody in Solo and two Duet conditions. Vocalists sang together in Unison (simultaneously producing identical pitches) and Round Duet conditions (one vocalist, the Follower, producing pitches at an eight-tone delay from their partner, the Leader) while facing Inward (full visual cues) and Outward (reduced visual cues). Larger tempo differences in partners’ spontaneous (temporally unconstrained) Solo performances were associated with larger asynchrony in Duet performances, consistent with coupling predictions for oscillators with similar natural frequencies. Vocalists were slightly but consistently more synchronous in Duets when facing their partner (Inward) than when facing Outward; Unison and Round performances were equally synchronous. The greater difficulty of Rounds production was evidenced in vocalists’ slower performance rates and more variable head movements; Followers directed their head gaze away from their partner and used bobbing head movements to mark the musical beat. The strength of Followers’ head movements corresponded to the amount of tone onset asynchrony with their partners, indicating a strong association between timing and movement under increased attentional and working memory demands in music performance.

Humans tasked with pressing a key on a computer keyboard in response to a pitch can respond more quickly to a high-pitched sound by pressing a key higher on the keyboard and to a low-pitched sound by pressing a lower key, compared with the opposite configuration. This so-called spatial–musical association of response codes (SMARC) has been considered to reflect the spatial coding of sound pitch rather than to be an artefact of the verbal labels denoting spatial positions for localising sounds. In this study, we completely excluded the latter possibility, that is, the directional effects of automatic sound localisation on the SMARC effect. We did this by examining whether the SMARC effect occurs without sound; that is, we investigated whether the effect would be elicited by written pitch names alone. We found that when musically trained participants judged pitch height labelled by visually presented word stimuli, the SMARC effect still occurred. This also happened among musically naïve participants when the height of the pitch was explicitly comparable with that of a referential pitch. We also found that musically trained participants exhibited the SMARC effect in response to pitch names even when the indicated pitch height was irrelevant to the task they were asked to perform. These results suggest that the SMARC effect can occur at the semantic level in the absence of sound, clearly excluding the directional effects of automatic sound localisation.

This study presents subjective ratings for 3,022 Croatian words, which were evaluated on two affective dimensions (valence and arousal) and one lexico-semantic variable (concreteness). A sample of 933 Croatian native speakers rated the words online. Ratings showed high reliabilities for all three variables, as well as significant correlations with ratings from databases available in Spanish and English. A quadratic relation between valence and arousal was observed, with a tendency for arousal to increase for negative and positive words, and neutral words having the lowest arousal ratings. In addition, significant correlations were found between affective dimensions and word concreteness, suggesting that abstract words have a tendency to be more arousing and emotional than concrete words. The present database will allow experimental research in Croatian, a language with a considerable lack of psycholinguistic norms, by providing researchers with a useful tool in the investigation of the relationship between language and emotion for the South-Slavic group of languages.

How do faces with social-cultural identity affect bilingual language control? We approach this question by looking at the switch cost patterns and reversed language dominance effect, which are suggested to reflect bilingual language control mechanisms, in the absence (i.e., baseline context) or presence of faces with socio-cultural identity (Asian or Caucasian). In separate blocks, the face matched (i.e., congruent context) or mismatched (i.e., incongruent context) the language to be spoken. In addition, cue preparation time was manipulated to be long (Experiment 1) or short (Experiment 2). In both experiments, a unique asymmetric switch cost with larger costs for L2 was observed in the congruent context as compared with the baseline and incongruent contexts. Furthermore, the reversed language dominance effect was not modulated across contexts. These results suggest a critical role of contextual faces in modulating local but not global language control. Thus, bilingual language control changes flexibly within an environment that includes faces with socio-cultural identity.

Recognition memory is often viewed as the end-product of discrete cognitive events, involving the combination of latent operations such as the assessment of memory strength, the decision time, and the memory judgement. Recently, researchers have begun using the physical dynamics of memory retrieval to provide insight into the dynamic, possibly non-discrete, processes that underlie memory decisions. In this study, the underlying distributional properties of targets and lures were manipulated by populating lists with items drawn from either homogeneous or heterogeneous word frequency and context variability ranges. In all conditions, participants’ x-, y-mouse coordinates were recorded as they processed test items, allowing estimates of response dynamics (e.g., initial deviation and area under the curve [AUC]), and eventual old/new responses. The stimulus manipulations affected the distribution shapes and, to a greater degree, the placements of subjective confidence thresholds. We observed tight correspondences between confidence and AUC for both hits and correct rejections. We interpret these results within dynamic models of recognition memory.

On Earth, we are continually exposed to gravity: sensory signals are constantly integrated to form an internal model of gravity. However, it is unclear whether this internal model is fixed to Earth’s gravity or whether it can be applied to a new gravitational environment. Under terrestrial gravity, observers show a “gravitational bias” while judging the speed of falling versus rising objects, as they comply with the physical laws of gravity. We investigated whether this gravitational bias may be present when judging the speed of objects moving upwards or downwards in both virtual reality (VR)-simulated Earth gravity (9.81 m/s²) and Mars gravity (3.71 m/s²). Our results highlighted a gravitational bias in both Earth and Mars VR-simulated gravity: the speed of downwards movement was more precisely detected than the speed of upwards movement. Although the internal model of gravity has been built up under terrestrial gravity, it can quickly expand to novel non-terrestrial gravitational environments.

Simple displays of moving shapes can give rise to percepts of animacy. These films elicit impoverished narratives in some individuals, such as those with an autism spectrum disorder. However, the verbal demand of producing a narrative limits the utility of this task. Non-verbal tasks have so far focused on detecting animate objects. Lacking from previous research is a task that relies less on verbal description but more than animacy perception. Here, we presented data using a new social interaction judgement task. Healthy young adults viewed the Heider and Simmel movie and pressed one button whenever they perceived social interaction and another button when no social interaction was perceived. We measured the time points at which social judgement began, the fluctuation of the judgement in relation to stimulus kinematic properties, and the overall mean of social judgement. Participants with higher autism traits reported lower levels of social interaction. Reversing the film in time produced lower social interaction judgements, though the temporal profile was preserved. Our study suggests that both low-level motion characteristics and high-level understanding contribute to social interaction judgement. The finding may facilitate future research on other populations and stimulate computational vision work on factors that drive social judgements.