stimulus modality
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2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sohrab Najafian ◽  
Erin Koch ◽  
Kai-Lun Teh ◽  
Jianzhong Jin ◽  
Hamed Rahimi-Nasrabadi ◽  
...  

The cerebral cortex receives multiple afferents from the thalamus that segregate by stimulus modality forming cortical maps for each sense. In vision, the primary visual cortex also maps the multiple dimensions of the stimulus in patterns that vary across species for reasons unknown. Here we introduce a general theory of cortical map formation, which proposes that map diversity emerges from variations in sampling density of sensory space across species. In the theory, increasing afferent sampling density enlarges the cortical domains representing the same visual point allowing the segregation of afferents and cortical targets by additional stimulus dimensions. We illustrate the theory with a computational model that accurately replicates the maps of different species through afferent segregation followed by thalamocortical convergence pruned by visual experience. Because thalamocortical pathways use similar mechanisms for axon sorting and pruning, the theory may extend to other sensory areas of the mammalian brain.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emre Yorgancıgil ◽  
Burcu A. Urgen ◽  
Funda Yildirim

“Uncanny Valley Hypothesis” suggests that humanoid objects that materialize human beings virtually but not entirely realistically may elicit uncanny feelings of eeriness and revulsion in observers. While the uncanny valley (UV) has been largely investigated with a focus on the visual aspects of the robot-like designs with young adults, the auditory components that may contribute to this effect and how visual and auditory factors jointly play a role in uncanny reports across different generations has not been examined. In the present study, we investigated how multimodal stimuli and the congruence of visual and auditory aspects of the stimuli contribute to the uncanniness perception and differ from the audio and visual components across generations. Young and old adults rated animations that were presented in audio-visual, audio-only and visual-only modalities in terms of uncanniness. The visual and auditory aspects of the stimuli had four levels of naturalness: robot (unrealistic), semi-robot (semi-realistic), human-like (realistic) and human (real). Our results show that audio-visual stimuli have an amplified effect on UV scores than only auditory and only visual stimuli. In addition, multimodal stimuli that have incongruent audio and visual components elicited significantly higher uncanny scores than stimuli that have congruent components. However, the difference between congruent and incongruent stimuli were more pronounced in the younger group compared to the older group. We also found that younger generations are more sensitive to naturalness layers of audio-visual stimuli than older generations. In conclusion, uncanny valley effect is modulated by stimulus modality, congruence of visual and auditory modalities, naturalness as well as age.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emre Yorgancıgil ◽  
Funda Yildirim ◽  
Burcu A. Urgen

“Uncanny Valley Hypothesis” suggests that humanoid objects that materialize human beings virtually but not entirely realistically may elicit uncanny feelings of eeriness and revulsion in observers. While the uncanny valley (UV) has been largely investigated with a focus on the visual aspects of the robot-like designs with young adults, the auditory components that may contribute to this effect and how visual and auditory factors jointly play a role in uncanny reports across different generations has not been examined. In the present study, we investigated how multimodal stimuli and the congruence of visual and auditory aspects of the stimuli contribute to the uncanniness perception and differ from the audio and visual components across generations. Young and old adults rated animations that were presented in audio-visual, audio-only and visual-only modalities in terms of uncanniness. The visual and auditory aspects of the stimuli had four levels of naturalness: robot (unrealistic), semi-robot (semi-realistic), human-like (realistic) and human (real). Our results show that audio-visual stimuli have an amplified effect on UV scores than only auditory and only visual stimuli. In addition, multimodal stimuli that have incongruent audio and visual components elicited significantly higher uncanny scores than stimuli that have congruent components. However, the difference between congruent and incongruent stimuli were more pronounced in the younger group compared to the older group. We also found that younger generations are more sensitive to naturalness layers of audio-visual stimuli than older generations. In conclusion, uncanny valley effect is modulated by stimulus modality, congruence of visual and auditory modalities, naturalness as well as age.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Erik Van der Burg ◽  
Alexander Toet ◽  
Anne-Marie Brouwer ◽  
Jan B. F. Van Erp

Abstract How we perceive the world is not solely determined by what we sense at a given moment in time, but also by what we processed recently. Here we investigated whether such serial dependencies for emotional stimuli transfer from one modality to another. Participants were presented a random sequence of emotional sounds and images and instructed to rate the valence and arousal of each stimulus (Experiment 1). For both ratings, we conducted an intertrial analysis, based on whether the rating on the previous trial was low or high. We found a positive serial dependence for valence and arousal regardless of the stimulus modality on two consecutive trials. In Experiment 2, we examined whether passively perceiving a stimulus is sufficient to induce a serial dependence. In Experiment 2, participants were instructed to rate the stimuli only on active trials and not on passive trials. The participants were informed that the active and passive trials were presented in alternating order, so that they were able to prepare for the task. We conducted an intertrial analysis on active trials, based on whether the rating on the previous passive trial (determined in Experiment 1) was low or high. For both ratings, we again observed positive serial dependencies regardless of the stimulus modality. We conclude that the emotional experience triggered by one stimulus affects the emotional experience for a subsequent stimulus regardless of their sensory modalities, that this occurs in a bottom-up fashion, and that this can be explained by residual activation in the emotional network in the brain.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert S. Hurley ◽  
Jonathan Sander ◽  
Kayleigh Nemeth ◽  
Brittany R. Lapin ◽  
Wei Huang ◽  
...  

In addition to “nonverbal search” for objects, modern life also necessitates “verbal search” for written words in variable configurations. We know less about how we locate words in novel spatial arrangements, as occurs on websites and menus, than when words are located in passages. In this study we leveraged eye tracking technology to examine the hypothesis that objects are simultaneously screened in parallel while words can only be found when each are directly foveated in serial fashion. Participants were provided with a cue (e.g. rabbit) and tasked with finding a thematically-related target (e.g. carrot) embedded within an array including a dozen distractors. The cues and arrays were comprised of object pictures on nonverbal trials, and of written words on verbal trials. In keeping with the well-established “picture superiority effect,” picture targets were identified more rapidly than word targets. Eye movement analysis showed that picture superiority was promoted by parallel viewing of objects, while words were viewed serially. Different factors influenced performance in each stimulus modality; lexical characteristics such as word frequency modulated viewing times during verbal search, while taxonomic category affected viewing times during nonverbal search. In addition to within-platform task conditions, performance was examined in cross-platform conditions where picture cues were followed by word arrays, and vice versa. Although taxonomically-related words did not capture gaze on verbal trials, they were viewed disproportionately when preceded by cross-platform picture cues. Our findings suggest that verbal and nonverbal search are associated with qualitatively different search strategies and forms of distraction, and cross-platform search incorporates characteristics of both.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Jones ◽  
Madeleine Verriotis ◽  
Robert Cooper ◽  
Maria Laudiano-Dray ◽  
Mohammed Rupawala ◽  
...  

Topographic cortical maps are essential for spatial localisation of sensory stimulation and generation of appropriate task-related motor responses. Somatosensation and nociception are finely mapped and aligned in the adult somatosensory (S1) cortex, but in infancy, when pain behaviour is disorganised and poorly directed, nociceptive maps may be less refined. We compared the topographic pattern of S1 activation following noxious (clinically required heel lance) and innocuous (touch) mechanical stimulation of the same skin region in newborn infants (n=32) using multi-optode functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Signal to noise ratio and overall activation area did not differ with stimulus modality. Within S1 cortex, touch and lance of the heel elicit localised, partially overlapping increases in oxygenated haemoglobin (HbO), but while touch activation was restricted to the heel area, lance activation extended into cortical hand regions. The data reveals a widespread cortical nociceptive map in infant S1, consistent with their poorly directed pain behaviour.


Author(s):  
Donna Bryce ◽  
Daniel Bratzke

AbstractBeing able to accumulate accurate information about one’s own performance is important in everyday contexts, and arguably particularly so in complex multitasking contexts. Thus, the observation of a glaring gap in participants’ introspection regarding their own reaction time costs in a concurrent dual-task context is deserving of closer examination. This so-called introspective blind spot has been explained by a ‘consciousness bottleneck’ which states that while attention is occupied by one task, participants cannot consciously perceive another stimulus presented in that time. In the current study, a series of introspective Psychological Refractory Period (PRP) experiments were conducted to identify the determinants of an introspective blind spot; to our surprise, in half of the experiments participants appeared to be aware of their dual-task costs. A single trial analysis highlighted the sensory modality of the two stimuli within the trial as an important predictor of introspective accuracy, along with temporal gaps in the trial. The current findings call into question the claim that attention is required for conscious awareness. We propose a memory-based account of introspective processes in this context, whereby introspective accuracy is determined by the memory systems involved in encoding and rehearsing memory traces. This model of the conditions required to build up accurate representations of our performance may have far-reaching consequences for monitoring and introspection across a range of tasks.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saskia Johannsen ◽  
Philipp Wichert ◽  
Anja Leue

The present meta-analysis investigates study and sample characteristics of mock earwitness performance. Based on primary studies we disentangled several a-priori moderators that modulate earwitness performance. Despite heterogeneous results in articles, we found experimental studies investigating effects of stimulus modality, stimulus length, retention interval, familiarity of language, and own-group or gender effects on earwitness performance. Including 33 articles with k = 49 experimental studies we performed a bare-bones and an artefact-corrected meta-analysis across all included primary studies and for five a-priori moderators. The results show a substantial ratio of the population effect size and the standard deviation of the population effect size exclusively for bimodal stimuli and concrete stimuli of the moderator stimulus modality. The fail-safe number was calculated to demonstrate which population effect sizes might be changed to zero depending on the number of unpublished primary studies. We highlight study and sample characteristics that facilitate earwitness performance. In power analyses, we show that the experimental design and individual differences should be taken into account to calculate sample sizes for future earwitness studies. We recommend best-practice strategies to investigate earwitness performance in future experimental studies and in individual earwitness assessments.


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