Search

The effect known as the spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC) documents fast reaction to small numbers with a response at the left and to large numbers with a response at the right. The common explanation appeals to a hypothetical mental number line of a left-to-right orientation with the numerical magnitudes on the line activated in an automatic fashion. To explore the possibility of emotional involvement in processing, we employed prototypical affective behaviors for responses in lieu of the usual spatial-numerical ones (i.e., of pressing lateralized keys). In the present series of experiments, the participants walked toward a number or walked away from a number (in a physical approach-avoidance setup) or said "good" or "bad" in response to a number. We recorded strong SNARC effects with affective responding. For example, it took participants longer to say "good" than "bad" to small numbers, but it took them longer to say "bad" than "good" to larger numbers. Although each particular outcome can still be accounted for by a spatial interpretation, the cumulative results are suggestive of the possibly of affective involvement in generating the effect., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Segal, Tzelgov and Algom.)

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., Competing Interests: The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article., (© The Author(s) 2024.)

Older adults process emotions in speech differently than do young adults. However, it is unclear whether these age-related changes impact all speech channels to the same extent, and whether they originate from a sensory or a cognitive source. The current study adopted a psychophysical approach to directly compare young and older adults' sensory thresholds for emotion recognition in two channels of spoken-emotions: prosody (tone) and semantics (words). A total of 29 young adults and 26 older adults listened to 50 spoken sentences presenting different combinations of emotions across prosody and semantics. They were asked to recognize the prosodic or semantic emotion, in separate tasks. Sentences were presented on the background of speech-spectrum noise ranging from SNR of -15 dB (difficult) to +5 dB (easy). Individual recognition thresholds were calculated (by fitting psychometric functions) separately for prosodic and semantic recognition. Results indicated that: (1). recognition thresholds were better for young over older adults, suggesting an age-related general decrease across channels; (2). recognition thresholds were better for prosody over semantics, suggesting a prosodic advantage; (3). importantly, the prosodic advantage in thresholds did not differ between age groups (thus a sensory source for age-related differences in spoken-emotions processing was not supported); and (4). larger failures of selective attention were found for older adults than for young adults, indicating that older adults experienced larger difficulties in inhibiting irrelevant information. Taken together, results do not support a sole sensory source, but rather an interplay of cognitive and sensory sources for age-related differences in spoken-emotions processing., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Dor, Algom, Shakuf and Ben-David.)

According to a growing consensus, the Stroop effect is understood as a phenomenon of conflict and cognitive control. A tidal wave of recent research alleges that incongruent Stroop stimuli generate conflict, which is then managed and resolved by top-down cognitive control. We argue otherwise: control studies fail to account for major Stroop results obtained over a century-long history of research. We list some of the most compelling developments and show that no control account can serve as a viable explanation for major Stroop phenomena and that there exist more parsimonious explanations for other Stroop related phenomena. Against a wealth of studies and emerging consensus, we posit that data-driven selective attention best accounts for the gamut of existing Stroop results. The case for data-driven attention is not new: a mere twenty-five years ago, the Stroop effect was considered "the gold standard" of attention (MacLeod, 1992). We identify four pitfalls plaguing conflict monitoring and control studies of the Stroop effect and show that the notion of top-down control is gratuitous. Looking at the Stroop effect from a historical perspective, we argue that the recent paradigm change from stimulus-driven selective attention to control is unwarranted. Applying Occam's razor, the effects marshaled in support of the control view are better explained by a selectivity of attention account. Moreover, many Stroop results, ignored in the control literature, are inconsistent with any control account of the effect.

Judgments of the physical size in which a numeral is presented are often affected by the task-irrelevant attribute of its numerical magnitude, the Size Congruity Effect (SCE). The SCE is typically interpreted as a marker of the automatic activation of numerical magnitude. However, a growing literature shows that the SCE is not robust, a possible indication that numerical information is not always activated in an automatic fashion. In the present study, we tested the SCE via grasping by way of resolving the automaticity debate. We found results that challenge the robustness of the SCE and, consequently, the validity of the automaticity assumption. The SCE was absent when participants grasped the physically larger object of a pair of 3D wooden numerals. An SCE was still recorded when the participants perceptually indicated the general location of the larger object, but not when they grasped that object. These results highlight the importance of the sensory domain when considering the generality of a perceptual effect.

The production effect is the difference in memory favoring words read aloud relative to words read silently during study. According to a currently popular explanation, the distinctiveness of aloud words relative to silent words at the time of encoding underlies the better memory for the former. This distinctiveness is attributable to the additional dimension(s) of encoding for the aloud items that can be subsequently used during retrieval. In this study we argue that encoding distinctiveness is not the sole source of distinctiveness and that, in fact, there is an independent source of distinctiveness, statistical distinctiveness, which may or may not work in harmony with encoding distinctiveness in influencing memory. Statistical distinctiveness refers to the relative size of a subset of items marked by a(ny) unique property. Silently read words can carry statistical distinctiveness if they form a salient minority on the background of a majority of vocalized words. We show that, when the two sources are placed in opposition, statistical distinctiveness modifies the PE in a profound way.

Background: Human resolution for object size is typically determined by psychophysical methods that are based on conscious perception. In contrast, grasping of the same objects might be less conscious. It is suggested that grasping is mediated by mechanisms other than those mediating conscious perception. In this study, we compared the visual resolution for object size of the visuomotor and the perceptual system., Methodology/principal Findings: In Experiment 1, participants discriminated the size of pairs of objects once through perceptual judgments and once by grasping movements toward the objects. Notably, the actual size differences were set below the Just Noticeable Difference (JND). We found that grasping trajectories reflected the actual size differences between the objects regardless of the JND. This pattern was observed even in trials in which the perceptual judgments were erroneous. The results of an additional control experiment showed that these findings were not confounded by task demands. Participants were not aware, therefore, that their size discrimination via grasp was veridical., Conclusions/significance: We conclude that human resolution is not fully tapped by perceptually determined thresholds. Grasping likely exhibits greater resolving power than people usually realize.

The immunocompetence of the circulating lymphocytes of a patient with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma was evaluated before, during and after treatment. The immunologic features investigated were (a) the degree of blastogenic transformation induced by phytomitogens (phytohemagglutinin-M, concanavalin A and pokeweed mitogen); (b) the formation of E, EA and EAC rosettes; and (c) antibody-dependent, cell-mediated cytotoxicity. Prior to treatment the subnormal in vitro responsiveness of the cells and the very low concentrations of circulating immunoglobulins suggested immunoincompetence. A gradual shift towards normal in vitro values was observed during treatment, which corresponded to the clinical improvement in the patient's condition.

Subjects judged the loudness and the lateral position of dichotic transient signals, which were presented at equal and unequal levels, synchronously and asynchronously, to the two ears. Binaural loudness summation of clicks does not obey a law of linear addition: It is partial at low level and superadditive at high level. Supersummation is greater for interaurally delayed clicks than for coincidental ones. The relation between click loudness and sound pressure (over moderate SLs) can be described as a power function with a greater exponent for the binaural function. Lateral positions spread over a greater range for interaural level differences than for interaural time differences. The time-intensity trading ratio was greater than is typically reported for tones. When sound lateralization was induced by interaural time difference, but not by intensity difference, a virtually perfect negative correlation between loudness and extent of off-center displacement existed.