Mugs and Plants: Object Semantic Knowledge Alters Perceptual Processing with Behavioral Ramifications

Neural processing of objects with action associations is thought to recruit dorsal visual regions more than objects without such associations. We hypothesized that because the dorsal and ventral visual pathways have differing proportions of magno-and parvo-cellular input, there should be behavioral differences in perceptual tasks between manipulable and non-manipulable objects. This hypothesis was tested using gap detection task, suited to the spatial resolution of the ventral parvocellular processing, and object flicker discrimination task, suited to the temporal resolution of the dorsal magnocellular processing. Directly predicted from the cellular composition of each pathway, a non-manipulable object advantage was observed in tasks relying on spatial resolution, and a manipulable object advantage in temporal discrimination. We also show that these relative advantages are modulated by either reducing object recognition through inversion or by suppressing magnocellular processing using red light. These results establish perceptual differences between objects dependent on prior knowledge and experience.

Mugs and Plants: Object Semantic Knowledge Alters Perceptual Processing with Behavioral Ramifications

Neural processing of objects with action associations is thought to recruit dorsal visual regions more than objects without such associations. We hypothesized that because the dorsal and ventral visual pathways have differing proportions of magno- and parvo-cellular input, there should be behavioral differences in perceptual tasks between manipulable and non-manipulable objects. This hypothesis was tested using gap detection task, suited to the spatial resolution of the ventral parvocellular processing, and object flicker discrimination task, suited to the temporal resolution of the dorsal magnocellular processing. Directly predicted from the cellular composition of each pathway, a non-manipulable object advantage was observed in tasks relying on spatial resolution, and a manipulable object advantage in temporal discrimination. We also show that these relative advantages are modulated by either reducing object recognition through inversion or by suppressing magnocellular processing using red light. These results establish perceptual differences between objects dependent on prior knowledge and experience.

Manipulable Object and Human Contact: Preference and Modulation of Emotional States in Weaned Pigs

Enriching the life of farm animals is a legal obligation in intensive farming conditions in the European Union, though not worldwide. In pigs, manipulable materials are mandatory when no bedding is available. Like manipulable objects, positive human interactions might also be considered as enrichment, as they provide the animals with opportunities to interact, increase their activity and lead to positive emotional states. In this study, we investigated how weaned pigs perceived an inanimate manipulable object and a familiar human. After a similar (in length, frequency, and procedure) familiarization to both stimuli, 24 weaned pigs were tested for a potential preference for one of the stimuli and submitted to isolation/reunion tests to evaluate the emotional value of the stimuli. We hypothesized that being reunited with a stimulus would attenuate the stress of social isolation and promote a positive state, especially if the stimulus had a positive emotional value for pigs. Although our behavioral data showed no evidence that pigs spent more time close to, or in contact with, one of the stimuli during a choice test, pigs more often approached the human and were observed lying down only near the human. Using behavioral and bioacoustic data from isolation/reunion tests, we showed that a reunion with the human decreased the time spent in an attentive state and mobility of pigs to a greater extent than a reunion with the object, or isolation. Vocalizations differed between reunions with the object and the human, and were different from those during isolation. The human and object presence led to higher frequency range and more noisy grunts, but only the human led to the production of positive shorter grunts, usually associated with positive situations. In conclusion, pigs seemed to be in a more positive emotional state, or be reassured, in the presence of a familiar human compared to the object after a short period of social isolation. This confirms the potential need for positive pseudo-social interactions with a human to enrich the pigs' environment, at least in or after potentially stressful situations.

Manipulable object and human contact: preferences and modulation of emotional states in weaned piglets

1AbstractEnriching the life of farm animals is an obligation in intensive farming conditions. In pigs, manipulable materials are mandatory when no bedding is available. Like manipulable objects, positive human interactions might be considered as enrichment, as they provide the animals occasions to interact, increase their activity and lead to positive emotional states. In this study, we investigated how weaned piglets perceived a manipulable object, and a familiar human. After a similar familiarization to both stimuli, twenty-four weaned piglets were tested for a potential preference for one of the stimuli and submitted to isolation/reunion tests to evaluate the emotional value of the stimuli. We hypothesized that being reunited with a stimulus would attenuate the stress of social isolation and promote positive behaviors, and even more that the stimulus has a positive emotional value for piglets. Although our behavioural data did not allow to show a preference for one of the stimuli, piglets approached more often the human and were observed laying down only near the human. Using behavioural and bioacoustic data, we showed that reunion with the human decreased more the time spent in an attentive state and mobility of piglets than reunion with the object, and isolation. Vocalizations differed between reunions with the object and the human, and were different from vocalizations during isolation. The human presence led to higher frequency range, more noisy and shorter grunts. Finally, both stimuli decreased the isolation stress of piglets, and piglets seemed to be in a more positive emotional state with the human compared to the object. It confirms the potential need for positive human interactions to be used as pseudo-social enrichment in pigs.

In smell’s shadow: Materials and politics at the edge of perception

This article examines the politics of smell at the edge of perception. In January 2014, the municipal water supply of Charleston, West Virginia was contaminated by an under-characterized chemical, crude MCHM. Even when instrumental measurements no longer detected the chemical, people continued to smell its licorice-like odor. In a space where nothing was certain, smell became the only indicator of potential harm. Officials responded by commissioning state-funded sensory testing of crude MCHM to determine its sensory threshold. Via the critical passage point of sensory science, some instances of embodied attunement were allowed to enter into the evidentiary regimes of perception, while other, similarly trained moments of attunement were excluded from the process. This, I show, produced knowledge about the spilled chemical that maintained the systems that contributed to the spill in the first place. Drawing on new materialist thought, I riff on biology and ‘transduce’ the ephemeral phenomena of smelling crude MCHM into a new medium: Rather than thinking of smell as a volatile molecular material (an odorant), I show that consideration of smell as a manipulable object that one can imagine as having tangible substance and shape offers a way to experiment with disciplinary forms. I suggest an alternate future, where sensory science acts to record sensory labor that produces facts about collective experience that cannot (easily) travel through current systems, a process that is one possible way of beginning to unravel entrenched systems of toxic harm.