scholarly journals Reference Repulsion Is Not a Perceptual Illusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Fritsche ◽  
Floris P. de Langea
Keyword(s):  
Reference Stimulus ◽  
Systematic Bias ◽  
Stimulus Feature ◽  
Perceptual Illusion ◽  
Decision Bias ◽  
Discrimination Judgment ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Subjective Reports ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Perceptual Locus

AbstractPerceptual decisions are often influenced by contextual factors. For instance, when engaged in a visual discrimination task against a reference boundary, subjective reports about the judged stimulus feature are biased away from the boundary – a phenomenon termed reference repulsion. Until recently, this phenomenon has been thought to reflect a perceptual illusion regarding the appearance of the stimulus, but new evidence suggests that it may rather reflect a post-perceptual decision bias. To shed light on this issue, we examined whether and how orientation judgments affect perceptual appearance. In a first experiment, we confirmed that after judging a grating stimulus against a discrimination boundary, the subsequent reproduction response was indeed repelled from the boundary. To investigate the perceptual nature of this bias, in a second experiment we measured the perceived orientation of the grating stimulus more directly, in comparison to a reference stimulus visible at the same time. Although we did observe a small repulsive bias away from the boundary, this bias was explained by random trial-by-trial fluctuations in sensory representations together with classical stimulus adaptation effects and did not reflect a systematic bias due to the discrimination judgment. Overall, the current study indicates that discrimination judgments do not elicit a perceptual illusion and points towards a post-perceptual locus of reference repulsion.

Aleksey Peshkov as an editor of Samarskaya Gazeta

2020 ◽  
pp. 128-138
Author(s):  
A. S. Bik-Bulatov
Keyword(s):  
Local History ◽  
Organizational Skills ◽  
First Time ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Shed Light

The article uses little known letters of M. Gorky, many of which were published for the first time in 1997, as well as findings of Samara-based experts in local history to shed light on the writer’s work as editor-in-chief of the Samarskaya Gazeta newspaper in 1895. The researcher introduces hitherto unstudied reminiscences of the journalist D. Linyov (Dalin) about this period, which reference a letter by Gorky, now lost. The paper details a newly discovered episode of Gorky’s professional biography as a journalist: it concerns his campaign against a Samara ‘she-wolf,’ the madam of a local brothel A. Neucheva. Linyov’s reminiscences turn out to be an important and interesting source, offering an insight into the daily grind of the young editor Gorky, providing new evidence of his excellent organizational skills, and describing his moral and social stance. The author presents his work in the context of a recently initiated broader discussion about the need to map out all Russian periodicals for the period until 1917, as well as all research devoted to individual publications.

scholarly journals Where the action could be: Speakers look at graspable objects and meaningful scene regions when describing potential actions

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gwendolyn L Rehrig ◽  
Candace Elise Peacock ◽  
Taylor Hayes ◽  
Fernanda Ferreira ◽  
John M. Henderson
Keyword(s):  
Visual Attention ◽  
Real World ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Linguistic Processing ◽  
General Meaning ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Better Than

The world is visually complex, yet we can efficiently describe it by extracting the information that is most relevant to convey. How do the properties of real-world scenes help us decide where to look and what to say? Image salience has been the dominant explanation for what drives visual attention and production as we describe displays, but new evidence shows scene meaning predicts attention better than image salience. Here we investigated the relevance of one aspect of meaning, graspability (the grasping interactions objects in the scene afford), given that affordances have been implicated in both visual and linguistic processing. We quantified image salience, meaning, and graspability for real-world scenes. In three eyetracking experiments, native English speakers described possible actions that could be carried out in a scene. We hypothesized that graspability would preferentially guide attention due to its task-relevance. In two experiments using stimuli from a previous study, meaning explained visual attention better than graspability or salience did, and graspability explained attention better than salience. In a third experiment we quantified image salience, meaning, graspability, and reach-weighted graspability for scenes that depicted reachable spaces containing graspable objects. Graspability and meaning explained attention equally well in the third experiment, and both explained attention better than salience. We conclude that speakers use object graspability to allocate attention to plan descriptions when scenes depict graspable objects within reach, and otherwise rely more on general meaning. The results shed light on what aspects of meaning guide attention during scene viewing in language production tasks.

From Capital to Colony: Five New Inscriptions from Roman Crete

2006 ◽  
Vol 101 ◽  
pp. 385-426
Author(s):  
M. W. Baldwin Bowsky
Keyword(s):  
Southern Italy ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Geographical Mobility ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Shed Light

This article present and contextualises five new inscriptions from central Crete: one from the hinterland of Gortyn, two from Knossos, and two more in all likelihood from Knossos. Internal geographical mobility from Gortyn to Knossos is illustrated by a Greek inscription from the hinterland of Gortyn. The Knossian inscriptions add new evidence for the local affairs of the Roman colony. A funerary or honorary inscription and two religious dedications – all three in Latin – give rise to new points concerning the well-attested link between Knossos and Campania. The colony's population included people, many of Campanian origin, who were already established in Crete, as well as families displaced from southern Italy in the great post-Actium settlement. The two religious dedications shed light on the city's religious practice, including a newly revealed cult of Castor, and further evidence for worship of the Egyptian gods. Oddest of all, a Greek inscription on a Doric epistyle names Trajan or Hadrian. These four inscriptions are then set into the context of linguistic choice at the colony. Epigraphic and numismatic evidence for the use of Latin and Greek in the life of the colony is analyzed on the basis of the available inscriptions, listed by category and date in an appendix.

An error in brightness matching associated with the application of dimming

2001 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 223-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve A Fotios
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Design ◽  
Paired Comparison ◽  
Reference Stimulus ◽  
Systematic Bias ◽  
Null Condition

This paper discusses requirements for good experimental design in brightness matching tests. Experimental and null-condition data from paired-comparison brightness matching shows a systematic bias; a tendency for the stimulus to which observers apply dimming to be set to an illuminance below that of the reference stimulus. The error is small but statistically significant.

scholarly journals Institutional Ownership and Corporate Tax Avoidance: New Evidence

2016 ◽  
Vol 92 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mozaffar Khan ◽  
Suraj Srinivasan ◽  
Liang Tan
Keyword(s):  
Tax Avoidance ◽  
Institutional Ownership ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Corporate Tax ◽  
Profit Margins ◽  
Exogenous Shocks ◽  
Analyst Expectations ◽  
Tax Shelters ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Shed Light

ABSTRACT We provide new evidence on the agency theory of corporate tax avoidance (Slemrod 2004; Crocker and Slemrod 2005; Chen and Chu 2005) by showing that increases in institutional ownership are associated with increases in tax avoidance. Using the Russell index reconstitution setting to isolate exogenous shocks to institutional ownership, and a regression discontinuity design that facilitates sharper identification of treatment effects, we find a significant and discontinuous increase in tax avoidance following Russell 2000 inclusion. The tax avoidance involves the use of tax shelters, and immediate benefits include higher profit margins and likelihood of meeting or beating analyst expectations. Collectively, the results shed light on the effect of increased ownership concentration on tax avoidance.

scholarly journals Choice-induced biases in perception

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Long Luu ◽  
Alan A Stocker
Keyword(s):  
Discrimination Task ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Motion Direction ◽  
Great Opportunity ◽  
Perceptual Illusion ◽  
Psychophysical Data ◽  
Observer Model ◽  
Discrimination Judgment ◽  
Perceived Motion ◽  
The Brain

AbstractIllusions provide a great opportunity to study how perception is affected by both the observer's expectations and the way sensory information is represented1,2,3,4,5,6. Recently, Jazayeri and Movshon7 reported a new and interesting perceptual illusion, demonstrating that the perceived motion direction of a dynamic random dot stimulus is systematically biased when preceded by a motion discrimination judgment. The authors hypothesized that these biases emerge because the brain predominantly relies on those neurons that are most informative for solving the discrimination task8, but then is using the same neural weighting profile for generating the percept. In other words, they argue that these biases are “mistakes” of the brain, resulting from using inappropriate neural read-out weights. While we were able to replicate the illusion for a different visual stimulus (orientation), our new psychophysical data suggest that the above interpretation is likely incorrect: Biases are not caused by a read-out profile optimized for solving the discrimination task but rather by the specific choices subjects make in the discrimination task on any given trial. We formulate this idea as a conditioned Bayesian observer model and show that it can explain the new as well as the original psychophysical data. In this framework, the biases are not caused by mistake but rather by the brain's attempt to remain ‘self-consistent’ in its inference process. Our model establishes a direct connection between the current perceptual illusion and the well-known phenomena of cognitive consistency and dissonance9,10.

scholarly journals The Pathological Mechanism and Potential Application of IL-38 in Autoimmune Diseases

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miao-miao Han ◽  
Xin-rong Yuan ◽  
Xiang Shi ◽  
Xing-Yu Zhu ◽  
Yue Su ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autoimmune Diseases ◽  
Immune Cells ◽  
Human Heart ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Regulatory Mechanism ◽  
Interleukin 1 ◽  
Future Prospects ◽  
Pathological Mechanism ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Shed Light

Interleukin-38 (IL-38), a new cytokine of interleukin-1 family (IL-1F), is expressed in the human heart, kidney, skin, etc. Recently, new evidence indicated that IL-38 is involved in the process of different autoimmune diseases. Autoimmune diseases are a cluster of diseases accompanied with tissue damage caused by autoimmune reactions, including rheumatoid arthritis (RA), psoriasis, etc. This review summarized the links between IL-38 and autoimmune diseases, as well as the latest knowledge about the function and regulatory mechanism of IL-38 in autoimmune diseases. Especially, this review focused on the differentiation of immune cells and explore future prospects, such as the application of IL-38 in new technologies. Understanding the function of IL-38 is helpful to shed light on the progress of autoimmune diseases.

DIFFUSE TERMITINAE NESTS SHED LIGHT ON THE AFFINITIES OF LAETOLICHNUS KWEKAI (KRAUSICHNIDAE)

Palaios ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 122-127
Author(s):  
LILIANA F. CANTIL ◽  
JORGE F. GENISE ◽  
JUAN L. FARINA ◽  
SEBASTIÁN LUPO ◽  
DARÍO PORRINI ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Buenos Aires ◽  
Complex Structure ◽  
Coastal Dunes ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
Buenos Aires Province ◽  
South American ◽  
First Time ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Semiarid Shrublands ◽  
Shed Light

ABSTRACT The insect trace fossil Laetolichnus kwekai, which is composed of a small chamber extending to slender cylinders at each end, was tentatively included in the ichnofamily Krausichnidae as termite nests. New evidence presented here provides information to validate these inferences. A more complex structure formed by interconnected Laetolichnus was recently found in the same Pliocene deposits (Laetoli, Tanzania) as the isolated specimens reported previously. Our study confirms inclusion of Laetolichnus in Krausichnidae and supports the inference that it represents a nest of a social insect. Neoichnological field studies in the coastal dunes of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, were undertaken to refine further the nature of these affinities. Survey of the dune surface revealed abundant loose fragments of termite nests of a size and shape comparable to that of L. kwekai. The fragile nests constructed by Onkotermes brevicorniger, which are described here in detail for the first time, enable us to interpret the fossil structures. They consist of connected chambers similar to the interconnected Laetolichnus. These were frequently exposed and broken by wind action resulting in loose fragments similar to the isolated Laetolichnus. The Celliforma ichnofacies represented at Laetoli, which contains L. kwekai, indicates arid or semiarid shrublands and woodlands. The distribution of O. brevicorniger also corresponds to arid and semiarid shrublands and dry woodlands of Argentina. Although the African termite producer of L. kwekai and the South American Onkotermes would be phylogenetically unrelated, the analogous structures probably reflect convergent nesting behaviors as an adaptation to similar arid to semiarid environmental conditions.

scholarly journals ‘TAME TORY HACKS’? THE ULSTER PARTY AT WESTMINSTER, 1922–1972

2011 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 453-475 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALVIN JACKSON
Keyword(s):  
Archival Material ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Shed Light

ABSTRACTWhile the historiography on Ulster Unionism after partition has grown considerably in recent years, there has been no extended investigation of Unionism at Westminster (‘the Ulster Party’), its structures and effectiveness. This article uses new archival material to shed light upon the Party's membership, governance, coherence, and wider engagement. The later sections of the article review the nature of the ties binding the Party to Stormont and to Conservatism, unravelling some of their complexity, and placing a particular emphasis upon the relationship between Westminster Unionism and the fall of the devolved government in 1972. Here, new evidence is adduced from several underexploited or fresh sources to shed light upon the workings of the Party in the years immediately before this debacle. It is argued that the Westminster Unionists' (at best) highly ambiguous reaction to direct rule was a fitting culmination to fifty years of often jealous and defensive interaction with Stormont.

Rinman, Diderot, and Lavoisier: New Evidence Regarding Guillaume Franois Rouelle's Private Laboratory and Chemistry Course

Nuncius ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 355-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Beretta
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Denis Diderot ◽  
Chemistry Laboratory ◽  
Private Laboratory ◽  
Set Up ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Shed Light

AbstractThis paper will present two recently discovered documents that shed light on the activities of the French chemist Guillaume Franois Rouelle.In 1746 the Swedish chemist and mineralogist Sven Rinman visited the private chemistry laboratory recently set up by Rouelle in Paris, and he has left us a record of this visit, including some rare sketches. Given the crucial contribution made by Rouelle's laboratory to the development of the science of chemistry in 18th-century Europe, Rinman's description is reproduced here in full.Rouelle also taught an extremely popular chemistry course at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, and conserved in the archives of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier are some notes taken by Denis Diderot in 1757 which demonstrate that for a period the prominent Enlightenment figure attended these lectures regularly.

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