Relationship Between Auditory Context and Visual Distance Perception: Effect of Musical Expertise in the Ability to Translate Reverberation Cues Into Room-Size Perception

Perception ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (8) ◽  
pp. 873-880
Author(s):  
Pablo E. Etchemendy ◽  
Ignacio Spiousas ◽  
Ramiro Vergara

In a recently published work by our group [ Scientific Reports, 7, 7189 (2017)], we performed experiments of visual distance perception in two dark rooms with extremely different reverberation times: one anechoic ( T ∼ 0.12 s) and the other reverberant ( T ∼ 4 s). The perceived distance of the targets was systematically greater in the reverberant room when contrasted to the anechoic chamber. Participants also provided auditorily perceived room-size ratings which were greater for the reverberant room. Our hypothesis was that distance estimates are affected by room size, resulting in farther responses for the room perceived larger. Of much importance to the task was the subjects’ ability to infer room size from reverberation. In this article, we report a postanalysis showing that participants having musical expertise were better able to extract and translate reverberation cues into room-size information than nonmusicians. However, the degree to which musical expertise affects visual distance estimates remains unclear.

Psichologija ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 78-91
Author(s):  
A. Dzekevičiūtė ◽  
A. Daugirdienė ◽  
A. Švegžda ◽  
R. Stanikūnas ◽  
H. Vaitkevičius

Tyrimo tikslas yra patikrinti, kaip keičiasi objekto dydžio suvokimas, kintant jo projekcijos padėčiai akies tinklainėje, ir kaip objekto dydžio suvokimas priklauso nuo akies tinklainės receptorių (kūgelių ir lazdelių) tankio. Tiriamieji, žiūrėdami viena akimi ir fiksuodami žvilgsnį, dalijo skirtingų ilgių atkarpas – nustatydavo suvokiamą vidurį. Atkarpos dalių santykio nuo atkarpos ilgio funkcija turėjo lūžio tašką (66,7 proc. tiriamiesiems, kai atkarpos ilgis 7 laipsniai, 23,33 proc. – 13 laipsnių, kiti neturėjo). Rezultatai aiškinami skirtingu kūgelių ir lazdelių tankiu akies tinklainėje ir skirtinga kūgelių ir lazdelių įtaka.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: dydžio suvokimas, žievinis didinimo veiksnys, fotoreceptorių tankis.Perceived Size of a Line Depending on Its Projection Place on the RetinaDzekevičiūtė A., Daugirdienė A., Švegžda A., Stanikūnas R., Vaitkevičius H. SummaryIt is known that objects located in the centre of the visual field are perceived as larger than the objects located in the periphery (Пиаже, 1978). The image of an object differs from its perception object. The perceived size of an object depends on the size of its image in the visual cortex. This stems from the so-called cortical magnification factor. It is assumed that the same quantity of receptors sends information to the same area of the cortex. But photoreceptors are different – rods and the cones. It is not clear whether the different type of receptors make a different influence on the above-mentioned distortion of mapping. Also, the image of the object on the retina is perceived differently, depending on its location on the retina. Our goal was to explore how this subjective expansion changes while moving away from the centre of the retina, because there are no data on this, phenomenon.Method. Thirty normal or corrected to normal vision adults participated in the study. Five different length lines (5, 7, 10, 13, 15 degrees) were represented on the computer’s monitor one line at a time. Participants had monoculary bisected lines into two subjectively equal parts fixating sight on a cross located at the given end of the line.Results. The ratio ρ (length of the line near the cross / length of the other part) was calculated. This ratio as a function of the length of the whole line was not monotonic: when the line was short, ρ decreased, but then it began to increase. Three groups of results were formed considering the ratio of the line length (where the function had the extremum point). The largest group (66.67%) had the extremum point when the line length was 7 deg. The second group (23.33%) had the extremum point when the line length was 13 deg. The last group (10%) had not clear extremum point and was excluded from the calculation. Changes of the ρ value cannot be explained by the perceptual instability of the length of the line (Brown, 1953). There could be a correlation between the value of ρ and the density of all receptors in the retina where the line was projected.Conclusions. Humans make a bias while monocular by bisecting a line: the part near the point of fixation is perceived as bigger than the other part. The function of the line size ratio changes not monotonically – it has an extremum point. Most often, the extremum point is observed when the line size is 7 deg. This point is near the point where the density of rods exceeds that of cones. Other subjects show the extremum point when line size is 13 deg., but the reasons for such a point shift remain unclear. Some subjects have no extremum point.Key words: size perception, cortical magnification factor, density of photoreceptors.


2022 ◽  
Vol 194 ◽  
pp. 107992
Author(s):  
Jessica M. Dukes ◽  
J. Farley Norman ◽  
Challee D. Shartzer

Space ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 184-222
Author(s):  
Gary Hatfield

This chapter examines the development of a geometrical framework for understanding and explaining spatial aspects of visual perception, including perception of the sizes, shapes, and positions of things in the field of view. The structure of this framework is built on the fact that vision typically occurs in straight lines (rectilinearly). Within this framework, the chapter selectively focuses on size perception. This focus allows for a comparative examination of how a single problem was treated geometrically by various theorists, ancient, medieval, and modern. The theorists examined are Euclid and Ptolemy, who were extramissionists, and Ibn al-Haytham, Kepler, Descartes, and Berkeley, each of whom adopted, in one way or another, an intromissionist scheme. In comparing Descartes and Berkeley, notice is taken of Berkeley’s interpretive bent in treating Descartes’s account of distance perception in a way that requires mental calculation, where Descartes sometimes offered psychophysiological mechanisms (avoiding mental calculation).


2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (0) ◽  
pp. 116
Author(s):  
Charles M. Mander ◽  
Laurence R. Harris

Does perceived distance depend on gravity? The moon illusion, in which the moon looks smaller when viewed overhead, suggests that it might, although so many factors are involved in this complex illusion. Prior research assessing perceived distance had blindfolded observers walk to a remembered location. However, this precludes altering an observer’s orientation relative to gravity. Here, a crossmodal comparison of a visual line and a standard-length tactile rod provided a novel means for assessing the perception of distance by exploiting size constancy — a shorter perceptual visual length (measured in rod lengths) corresponds to a shorter perceived distance from the observer. Experiments were conducted in a fully decorated room that was oriented at 90° with respect to gravity (the York University tumbled room) and in an identical normally oriented control room. Observers maintained an upright orientation with respect to the rooms. Observers judged the length of a variable visual line, projected with a laser and a pair of galvanometers, and varied by a QUEST procedure, relative to a fixed length tactile rod. The length of the visual line matched to the reference length was significantly longer — compatible with being perceived as further away — in the tumbled room than in the control room. A separate experiment failed to replicate this change in distance perception when the observer’s orientation relative to gravity was changed outside the tumbled room, suggesting that the effect is due to a conflict between visually- and gravitationally-defined reference frames.


2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 253-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene Sperandio ◽  
Irene Sperandio ◽  
Philippe A. Chouinard

Size constancy is the result of cognitive scaling operations that enable us to perceive an object as having the same size when presented at different viewing distances. In this article, we review the literature on size and distance perception to form an overarching synthesis of how the brain might combine retinal images and distance cues of retinal and extra-retinal origin to produce a perceptual visual experience of a world where objects have a constant size. A convergence of evidence from visual psychophysics, neurophysiology, neuropsychology, electrophysiology and neuroimaging highlight the primary visual cortex (V1) as an important node in mediating size–distance scaling. It is now evident that this brain area is involved in the integration of multiple signals for the purposes of size perception and does much more than fulfil the role of an entry position in a series of hierarchical cortical events. We also discuss how information from other sensory modalities can also contribute to size–distance scaling and shape our perceptual visual experience.


1997 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 441-445 ◽  
Author(s):  
RICHARD S. BIRD

A common solution to the problem of handling list indexing efficiently in a functional program is to build a binary tree. The tree has the given list as frontier and is of minimum height. Each internal node of the tree stores size information (actually, the size of its left subtree) to direct the search for an element at a given position in the frontier. One application was considered in my previous pearl (Bird, 1997). There are two complementary methods for building such a tree, both of which can be implemented in linear time. One method is ‘recursive’, or top down, and works by splitting the list into two equal halves, recursively building a tree for each half, and then combining the two results. The other method is ‘iterative’, or bottom up, and works by first creating a list of singleton trees, and then repeatedly combining the trees in pairs until just one tree remains. The two methods lead to different trees, but in each case the result is a tree with smallest possible height.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (11) ◽  
pp. 136
Author(s):  
Jessica Dukes ◽  
J. Farley Norman ◽  
Hannah Shapiro ◽  
Ashley Peterson

2001 ◽  
Vol 63 (7) ◽  
pp. 1140-1152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Norman Haber ◽  
Charles A. Levin

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