The dialogic nature of double consciousness and double stimulation: Implications from Peirce and Vygotsky

The objective in this paper is to demonstrate the indispensability of Peirce’s double consciousness to foster abductive reasoning, so that internal/external dialogue inform the worthiness of hunches. These forms of dialogue establish a mental give-and-take forum in which novel meanings/effects are particularly highlighted and noticed. Such attentional shifts are compelled by surprising states of affairs within the beholder’s internal, interpretive competencies, or from external factors (pictures, gestural or linguistic performatives). The dialogic nature of these signs pre-forms operations not possible non-dialogically; they command, interrogate, or suggest alterations to established conduct/beliefs in contexts in which propositional/argumentative conflicts are obviated. This inquiry proposes experimental methodologies to measure when double consciousness (via private/inner speech) mediates hypothesis-making. Vygotsky’s conflict of motive at four distinct developmental stages constitutes the foundation for the proposed experiments. Designs draw upon Vygotsky’s ‘double stimulation’ paradigms that force decision-making processes when conflicts of motive surface. Paradigms include forced imitation of one model while ignoring another (imitating bear, not dragon), and altering a visual array to depict logical sequencing accurately (the “Cycles Test”; “The Odd One Out”). These conflicts require children to change their conduct/beliefs to accommodate to atypical states of affairs.

Multisensory visuo-tactile context learning enhances the guidance of unisensory visual search

Does multisensory distractor-target context learning enhance visual search over and above unisensory learning? To address this, we had participants perform a visual search task under both uni- and multisensory conditions. Search arrays consisted of one Gabor target that differed from three homogeneous distractors in orientation; participants had to discriminate the target’s orientation. In the multisensory session, additional tactile (vibration-pattern) stimulation was delivered to two fingers of each hand, with the odd-one-out tactile target and the distractors co-located with the corresponding visual items in half the trials; the other half presented the visual array only. In both sessions, the visual target was embedded within identical (repeated) spatial arrangements of distractors in half of the trials. The results revealed faster response times to targets in repeated versus non-repeated arrays, evidencing ‘contextual cueing’. This effect was enhanced in the multisensory session—importantly, even when the visual arrays presented without concurrent tactile stimulation. Drift–diffusion modeling confirmed that contextual cueing increased the rate at which task-relevant information was accumulated, as well as decreasing the amount of evidence required for a response decision. Importantly, multisensory learning selectively enhanced the evidence-accumulation rate, expediting target detection even when the context memories were triggered by visual stimuli alone.

Do estimates of numerosity really adhere to Weber’s law? A reexamination of two case studies

Both humans and nonhuman animals can exhibit sensitivity to the approximate number of items in a visual array or events in a sequence, and across various paradigms, uncertainty in numerosity judgments increases with the number estimated or produced. The pattern of increase is usually described as exhibiting approximate adherence to Weber’s law, such that uncertainty increases proportionally to the mean estimate, resulting in a constant coefficient of variation. Such a pattern has been proposed to be a signature characteristic of an innate “number sense.” We reexamine published behavioral data from two studies that have been cited as prototypical evidence of adherence to Weber’s law and observe that in both cases variability increases less than this account would predict, as indicated by a decreasing coefficient of variation with an increase in number. We also consider evidence from numerosity discrimination studies that show deviations from the constant coefficient of variation pattern. Though behavioral data can sometimes exhibit approximate adherence to Weber’s law, our findings suggest that such adherence is not a fixed characteristic of the mechanisms whereby humans and animals estimate numerosity. We suggest instead that the observed pattern of increase in variability with number depends on the circumstances of the task and stimuli, and reflects an adaptive ensemble of mechanisms composed to optimize performance under these circumstances.

Grouping strategies in number estimation extend the subitizing range

When asked to estimate the number of items in a visual array, educated adults and children are more precise and rapid if the items are clustered into small subgroups rather than randomly distributed. This phenomenon, termed “groupitizing”, is thought to rely on the recruitment of the subitizing system (dedicated to the perception of very small numbers), with the aid of simple arithmetical calculations. The aim of current study is to verify whether the advantage for clustered stimuli does rely on subitizing, by manipulating attention, known to strongly affect attention. Participants estimated the numerosity of grouped or ungrouped arrays in condition of full attention or while attention was diverted with a dual-task. Depriving visual attention strongly decreased estimation precision of grouped but not of ungrouped arrays, as well as increasing the tendency for numerosity estimation to regress towards the mean. Additional explorative analyses suggested that calculation skills correlated with the estimation precision of grouped, but not of ungrouped, arrays. The results suggest that groupitizing is an attention-based process that leverages on the subitizing system. They also suggest that measuring numerosity estimation thresholds with grouped stimuli may be a sensitive correlate of math abilities.

An explicit investigation of the roles that feature distributions play in rapid visual categorization

Ensemble representations are often described as efficient tools when summarizing features of multiple similar objects as a group. However, it can sometimes be more useful not to compute a single summary description for all of the objects if they are substantially different, for example, when they belong to entirely different categories. It was proposed that the visual system can efficiently use the distributional information of ensembles to decide whether simultaneously displayed items belong to single or several different categories. Here we directly tested how the feature distribution of items in a visual array affects an ability to discriminate individual items (Experiment 1) and sets (Experiments 2-3) when participants were instructed explicitly to categorize individual objects based on the median of size distribution. We varied the width (narrow or fat) as well as the shape (smooth or two-peaked) of distributions in order to manipulate the ease of ensemble extraction from the items. We found that observers unintentionally relied on the grand mean as a natural categorical boundary and that their categorization accuracy increased as a function of the size differences among individual items and a function of their separation from the grand mean. For ensembles drawn from two-peaked size distributions, participants showed better categorization performance. They were more accurate at judging within-category ensemble properties in other dimensions (centroid and orientation) and less biased by superset statistics. This finding corroborates the idea that the two-peaked feature distributions support the “segmentability” of spatially intermixed sets of objects. Our results emphasize important roles of ensemble statistics (mean, range, distribution shape) in explicit visual categorization.

Features of the representations of Ukrainian identity in the visual content of popular telegram channels

In the article had been considered the features of the representations of Ukrainian identity in the visual content of 5 most popular Telegram-channels («Ukraine 24/7»; «Ukraine now», «Ukraine Online», «TSN», «Insider UA»). Two groups of its markers had been determineted – Political Identity (combination of blue-yellow colors, national banner or emblem (trident) as the center of the image or the dominant background) and Military (man and women in Ukrainian military uniforms, weapons and military equipment) In fact, the share of which markers had been highest than formally 2–3% of the total visual content for every group. The first group, which embodies the civic and political identity, had been determineted as a leading Its spread had been explained by the direction of the current government's domestic policy on «citizens of Ukraine» who were not differentiated according to geopolitical and value preferences. The production of Military markers had been explained by the continuing relevance of military news in the context of the undeclared war between Russia and Ukraine. It also reflects the state of partial military mobilization of public consciousness over the past 6 years. The broadcast of such images in the Telegram had been detached from its traditional basis – a real, ethnically charged identity. Whose identification characteristics (uniform, chevrons, stripes, awards, badges on military equipment) had been not brought to the center of image. On the basis of previous researches of the author had been noted that another – ethnically charged level of Ukrainian identity was more widely represented on social networks Facebook and Instagram. There Ukraine was associated with a woman in a national costume or an image of a field with ripe wheat or sunflower. The greater share of accompanying military images (14% of the total visual array in Facebook communities), the presence in their visual content of a special female military (3%) did not really change the narrative «Ukraine as a woman does not want war». In these communication channels had been found the only common present day symbol of Ukraine, both visual and memorial, – the images of the Independence Monument on the square of the same name in Kiev. This clearly demonstrates the incompleteness of Ukraine’s postmodernization processes, including at the area of values, cultural memory and the hierarchy of identities.

FEATURES OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONTEMPORARY CHINESE, KOREAN AND JAPANESE ART AND CINEMA

The article analyzes the conditions and factors that influenced the formation of contemporary art and cinema in China, South Korea and Japan. We can determine the peculiarities of the development of Chinese contemporary art, such as the desire of the first artists, after the Cultural Revolution, to reflect its flux and effects as much as possible. Further, artistic tendencies become diverse: the commercial component and a certain element of the state of affairs are viewed in the works of art by Chinese authors, but the desire for self-expression in different ways testify to the progressive phenomena characteristic of art. Modern Korean art proves that the scientific and technological revolution and the dominant avant-garde component of mass culture in general cannot supplant the ultimate traditional artistic creativity. One of the characteristic features of contemporary Korean art is a demonstration of belonging to the culture of the country. First of all, this is the influence of the traditions of Confucianism, Buddhism, along with the painful memories of war and long-term colonization by Japan. One can note the simplicity, orderliness, harmony of colors and shapes as an inalienable feature of Korean contemporary art, but modern tendencies show the striving for the discovery of individuality of the artist, which manifests itself in non-standard artistic forms. Japanese visual art combines the works of autochthonous traditions and European artistic principles. Considerable attention is paid to the issue of the relationship between nature and man, reflected in the work of adherents of the synthesis of Japanese traditions and Western variety of forms. Particular attention is paid to contemporary artists in Japan with the latest technology – video art, 3D painting, interactive installations and installations-hybrids. Chinese cinema with the generation of directors, known as the Fifth Generation, reveals new trends. These artists initially sought to convey events and tragedies during the Cultural Revolution, but over time they turned to other themes and genres. Directors of the "Sixth Generation" paid special attention to social problems, the place of action in their films is unknown China – small settlements or cities. Modern Korean cinema covers two large areas: cinema for women – melodrama, and for men – adventure. Today the adventure genre is oriented mainly to teens, and the melodrama genre has been transformed from the problems of the middle-aged women's interest towards the youth audience, therefore, it is more likely to come closer to the romantic comedy. The tragedy of Korea, which is split up into two parts, worries the movie-makers. In recent years there have been changes in South Korean position in exposing North Korean residents. If the previous decades in South Korean cinema was cultivating the image of the enemy: North Korean could be either a spy or killer, but now the inhabitants of North Korea are perceived and presented in films differently, not embodying exclusively negative features. In Japanese cinema, the emphasis is on the visual array, which allows you to bring forward contemplation and the deep meaning is transmitted by artistic images typical of the oriental art in general. In films, much attention is paid to the smallest details; certain asceticism along with the aesthetization of the frame is a reflection of purely Japanese features – minimalism as the meaning of existence. Familiarity with the peculiarities of the development of contemporary art and cinema in China, Korea and Japan is a necessary component for further dialogue between the cultures of East and West in terms of balanced interaction and artistic transformations of the modern world.

Beer? Over here! Examining attentional bias towards alcoholic and appetitive stimuli in a visual search eye-tracking task

Rationale: Experimental tasks that demonstrate alcohol-related attentional bias typically expose participants to single-stimulus targets (e.g., addiction stroop, visual probe, anti-saccade task), which may not correspond fully with real-world contexts where alcoholic and non-alcoholic cues simultaneously compete for attention. Moreover, alcoholic stimuli are rarely matched to other appetitive non-alcoholic stimuli. Objectives: To address these limitations by utilising a conjunction search eye-tracking task and matched stimuli to examine alcohol-related attentional bias. Methods: Thirty social drinkers (Mage = 19.87, SD = 1.74) were asked to detect whether alcoholic (beer), non-alcoholic (water) or non-appetitive (detergent) targets were present or absent amongst a visual array of matching and non-matching distractors. Both behavioural response times and eye-movement dwell time were measured. Results: Social drinkers were significantly quicker to detect alcoholic and non-alcoholic appetitive targets relative to non-appetitive targets in an array of matching and mismatching distractors. Similarly, proportional dwell time was lower for both alcoholic and non-alcoholic appetitive distractors relative to non-appetitive distractors, suggesting that appetitive targets were relatively easier to detect. Conclusions: Social drinkers may exhibit generalised attentional bias towards alcoholic and non-alcoholic appetitive cues. This adds to emergent research suggesting that the mechanisms driving these individual’s attention towards alcoholic cues might ‘spill over’ to other appetitive cues, possibly due to associative learning.