Concurrent Perception Research Articles

Concurrent perception of competing predictions: A "split-stimulus effect".

Visual illusions are systematic misperceptions that can help us glean the heuristics with which the brain constructs visual experience. In a recently discovered visual illusion (the "frame effect"), it has been shown that flashing a stimulus inside of a moving frame produces a large misperception of that stimulus's position. Across two experiments, we investigated a novel illusion (the "split stimulus effect") where the symmetrical motion of two overlaid frames produces two simultaneous positional misperceptions of a single stimulus. That is, one stimulus is presented but two are perceived. In both experiments, a single red dot was flashed when the moving frames reversed direction, and participants were asked to report how many dots they saw. Naïve participants sometimes reported seeing two dots when only one was presented, indicating spontaneous perception of the illusion. A Bayesian analysis of the population prevalence of this effect was conducted. The dependence of this effect on the frames' speed, the dot's opacity, spatial attention, as the presence/absence of pre-flash motion ("postdiction") was also investigated, and the features of this illusion were compared to similar motion position illusions within a predictive processing framework. In demonstrating this illusory "splitting" effect, this study is the first to show that it is possible to be simultaneously aware of two opposing perceptual predictions about a single object and provides evidence of the hyperpriors that limit and inform the structure of visual experience.

Eye movement intervention facilitates concurrent perception and memory processing.

A widely used psychotherapeutic treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) involves performing bilateral eye movement (EM) during trauma memory retrieval. However, how this treatment-described as eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR)-alleviates trauma-related symptoms is unclear. While conventional theories suggest that bilateral EM interferes with concurrently retrieved trauma memories by taxing the limited working memory resources, here, we propose that bilateral EM actually facilitates information processing. In two EEG experiments, we replicated the bilateral EM procedure of EMDR, having participants engaging in continuous bilateral EM or receiving bilateral sensory stimulation (BS) as a control while retrieving short- or long-term memory. During EM or BS, we presented bystander images or memory cues to probe neural representations of perceptual and memory information. Multivariate pattern analysis of the EEG signals revealed that bilateral EM enhanced neural representations of simultaneously processed perceptual and memory information. This enhancement was accompanied by heightened visual responses and increased neural excitability in the occipital region. Furthermore, bilateral EM increased information transmission from the occipital to the frontoparietal region, indicating facilitated information transition from low-level perceptual representation to high-level memory representation. These findings argue for theories that emphasize information facilitation rather than disruption in the EMDR treatment.

An ART Tour de Force on Mental Imagery: Vividness, Individual Bias Differences, and Complementary Visual Processing Streams

Grossberg’s adaptive resonance theory (ART) provides a framework for understanding possible interactions between mental imagery and visual perception. Our purpose was to integrate, within ART, the phenomenological notion of mental image vividness and thus investigate the possible biasing effects of individual differences on visual processing. Using a Vernier acuity task, we tested whether indirect estimation of relative V1 size (small, medium, large) and self-reported vividness, in three subgroups of 53 observers, could predict significant effects of priming, interference, or more extreme Perky effects (negative and positive), which could be induced by imagery, impacting acuity performance. The results showed that small V1 was correlated with priming and/or negative Perky effects independently of vividness; medium V1 was related to interference at low vividness but priming at high vividness; and large V1 was related to positive Perky effects at high vividness but negative Perky effects at low vividness. Our interpretation of ART and related modeling based on ARTSCAN contributes to expanding Grossberg’s comprehensive understanding of how and why individually experienced vividness may drive the differential use of the dorsal and ventral complementary visual processing pathways, resulting in the observed effects of imagery on concurrent perception.

Associations Between Parental Monitoring and Multiple Types of Youth Violence Victimization: A Brief Report.

Youth violence victimization continues to be pervasive and a significant cause of adolescent mortality. Since their 2014 "Connecting the Dots" report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have encouraged researchers to identify shared protective factors that prevent multiple forms of youth violence. Parental monitoring, a bidirectional construct encompassing parental knowledge and regulation of their child's activities with children's concurrent perception of their parent's awareness of such activities, could be such a cross-cutting protective factor. In this study, we examined associations between parental monitoring and multiple types of violence victimization among a school-based sample of adolescents. We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of an anonymous survey of health risk and protective behaviors completed by students across Pittsburgh Public Schools (N = 2,426). In separate analyses, we used logistic regression to examine associations between youth-reported parental monitoring and multiple experiences of youth violence victimization, ranging from school- and electronic-based bullying to different forms of sexual and physical violence. We found that many experiences of youth violence victimization were consistent with nationally representative data. In addition, we determined that higher parental monitoring was significantly and inversely associated with all violence victimization outcomes examined (school-based bullying, electronic-based bullying, threatening someone with a weapon, adolescent relationship abuse, sexual assault, and exchange sex) at the p < .05 threshold. Overall, this study is one of the first that examines how parental monitoring relates to multiple forms of youth violence victimization, including exchange sex, which is a critical but less-studied violence experience. This work adds to the growing literature on how parental monitoring may serve as a shared protective factor for multiple forms of violence victimization.

Concurrent visual working memory bias in sequential integration of approximate number

Previous work has shown bidirectional crosstalk between Working Memory (WM) and perception such that the contents of WM can alter concurrent percepts and vice versa. Here, we examine WM-perception interactions in a new task setting. Participants judged the proportion of colored dots in a stream of visual displays while concurrently holding location- and color information in memory. Spatiotemporally resolved psychometrics disclosed a modulation of perceptual sensitivity consistent with a bias of visual spatial attention towards the memorized location. However, this effect was short-lived, suggesting that the visuospatial WM information was rapidly deprioritized during processing of new perceptual information. Independently, we observed robust bidirectional biases of categorical color judgments, in that perceptual decisions and mnemonic reports were attracted to each other. These biases occurred without reductions in overall perceptual sensitivity compared to control conditions without a concurrent WM load. The results conceptually replicate and extend previous findings in visual search and suggest that crosstalk between WM and perception can arise at multiple levels, from sensory-perceptual to decisional processing.

Comparison of temporal fine structure sensitivity and concurrent vowel perception between children with and without reading disability.

Background: Children with reading deficits (RD) exhibit difficulty in perceiving speech in background noise due to poor auditory stream segregation. There is a dearth of literature on measures of temporal fine structure sensitivity (TFS) and concurrent vowel perception abilities to assess auditory stream segregation in children with reading deficits. Hence the present study compared temporal fine structure sensitivity (TFS) and concurrent vowel perception abilities between children with and without reading deficits. Method: The present research consisted of a total number of 30 participants, 15 children with reading deficits (RD) and fifteen typically developing (TD) children within the age range of 7-14 years and were designated as Group 1 and Group 2 respectively. Both groups were matched for age, grade, and classroom curricular instructions. The groups were evaluated for TFS and concurrent vowel perception abilities and the performance was compared using independent 't' test and repeated measure ANOVA respectively. Results: Results revealed that the children with RD performed significantly (p < 0.001) poorer than TD children on both TFS and concurrent vowel identification task. On concurrent vowel identification tasks, there was no significant interaction found between reading ability and F0 difference suggesting that the trend was similar in both the groups. Conclusion: The study concludes that the children with RD show poor temporal fine structure sensitivity and concurrent vowel identification scores compared to age and grade matched TD children owing to poor auditory stream segregation in children with RD.

Mothers’ Talk about Perceptions, Wants, Feelings, and Thoughts during Play: General or Specific Relations to Infants’ Internal State Vocabularies and Gender?

ABSTRACTThe current study examined how mothers’ production of four types of internal state words at multiple ages across the second year in a free play context was related to their infants’ acquisition of those words. Twenty-nine mother-infant dyads were videotaped for 18 minutes during free play when infants were 13 and 17 months old. Mothers’ total and number of different internal state words—subcategorized as disposition (like, happy), perception (see, hear) volition (want, need), and cognition (think, know) —were obtained. Infants’ total and internal state subcategory vocabularies were measured with the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory at 13, 17, and 21 months. Maternal internal state speech at 13 months was related to infants’ overall concurrent receptive lexicons, while mothers’ volition words at 13 months predicted infants’ receptive total and internal state vocabularies at 17 months. Mothers’ different perception words at 17 months were linked to infants’ concurrent perception lexicons. Furthermore, mothers’ different disposition words at 17 months predicted children’s expressive disposition vocabularies at 21 months. These findings illuminate the value of examining subcategories of mothers’ internal state speech in free play and reveal a shift over time from general to specific relations between mothers’ and infants’ internal state language.

Selection process for botulinum toxin injections in patients with chronic-stage hemiplegic stroke: a qualitative study

BackgroundBotulinum toxin (BT) injection is a new treatment for spasticity with hemiplegia after stroke. How a patient decides to receive BT injections after becoming aware of the treatment remains unclear. In this exploratory qualitative study, we aimed to investigate patients’ decision-making about treatment strategies in collaboration with family and health professionals and to identify conflicts in patients’ feelings about BT treatment.MethodsThe study included six patients with stroke sequelae. Data were collected using comprehensive interviews and were analyzed using the grounded theory approach and trajectory equifinality modeling.ResultsAfter patients learned about BT treatment, they clearly exhibited the following two concurrent perceptions: “the restriction of one’s life due to disabilities” and “the ability to do certain things despite one’s disabilities.” Some patients reported a “fear of not being able to maintain the status quo owing to the side effects of BT.” To alleviate this fear, timely support from family members was offered, and patients overcame anxiety through creative thinking. However, there were also expressions that revealed patients’ difficulties dealing with negative events. These factors influenced the patients’ development of “expectations of BT” or “hesitations about BT.”ConclusionsTo establish treatment strategies in collaboration with patients, healthcare professionals should show supportive attitudes and have discussions with patients and their family members to help patients resolve their conflicts and should establish treatment strategies that maintain the positive aspects of patients’ lives.

Investigating temporal sensory data via a graph theoretic approach

A graph theoretic approach is applied to investigate perception dynamics in the Sensometrics 2018 Data Analysis Workshop data sets. First, temporal check-all-that-apply (TCATA) data are investigated: ten sensory attributes are modelled as vertices and concurrent perception as edges, the size and width of each corresponding to the momentary elicitations and the concurrent elicitations, respectively. A temporal dominance of sensations (TDS) data set does not lend itself as readily to this type of analysis because the task for each assessor involves selection of only one dominant attributes at a time. For this reason, TDS data sets considered in this workshop are (re-)analyzed within localized temporal ranges, considering dominance elicitations within localized temporal ranges to be adjacent-dominant. In TDS by Modality (M-TDS), assessors taste the sample to evaluate the five taste and flavour attributes via TDS, then retaste the sample to evaluate the five texture attributes via TDS. M-TDS results from these two separate tasting timelines are adjoined as if they arose from a single evaluation timeline, which ignores systematic biases that may be introduced by the evaluation protocol (e.g. texture attributes are always evaluated with carryover effects from the first tasting). Data from each of these temporal sensory method are then analyzed using a graph theoretic approach. Cliques and attribute structures are identified. TCATA and TDS results are more similar to one another than either is to M-TDS results. Implications of method choice and various data pre-processing decisions are discussed.

Longitudinal dyadic analyses of emotion dysregulation and mother–child relationship quality in Chinese children with teacher‐reported oppositional defiant disorder

AbstractThis study examined whether and how mothers' and children's perceptions of mother–child relationship quality mediated associations between mothers' and children's initial emotion dysregulation and children's emotion dysregulation and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) symptoms 2 years later. The participants were 155 Chinese children with teacher‐reported ODD and their mothers derived from a three‐wave (2 years apart) longitudinal study. A multiple‐informant approach and a dyadic analysis approach (i.e., actor–partner interdependent modeling) were used. The results revealed that (a) mothers' and children's emotion dysregulation was significantly related to their own and their partners’ concurrent perceptions of relationship quality; (b) mothers' and children's perceptions of relationship quality from Wave 1 to Wave 2 were stable but were also interdependent, such that one's own perception of relationship quality at Wave 1 related to the partner's perception at Wave 2; and (c) relationship quality at the two waves interdependently mediated the associations between mothers' and children's emotion dysregulation at Wave 1 and children's emotion dysregulation and ODD symptoms at Wave 3. Implications for family intervention programs targeting maternal and child emotion dysregulation and strengthening mother–child relationship quality for children with ODD were discussed.

Patient Patterns and Perspectives on Using Opioid Regimens for Chronic Cancer Pain

ContextWith increasing attention to the undertreatment of cancer pain in parallel with concerns about opioid misuse, little is known about how patients with advanced cancer adhere to opioid regimens for chronic cancer pain. ObjectivesWe explored patient approaches to managing chronic cancer pain with long-acting opioids. MethodsIn a multimethods study at an academic medical center, adult patients with chronic cancer pain (n = 17) used electronic pill caps to record adherence to prescribed long-acting opioid regimens. After eight weeks, patients viewed their adherence records and completed a semistructured interview about their opioid use. With a framework approach, we coded interview data (Kappa >0.95) and identified themes in how patients perceived and used opioids to manage cancer pain. ResultsPatients (59% female; 94% non-Hispanic white; median age = 65 years) felt grateful about pain benefit from opioids yet concerned about opioid side effects and addiction/tolerance. Main reasons for nonadherence included both intentional decisions (e.g., skipping doses) and unintentional barriers (e.g., missing doses due to inconsistent sleep schedules). Overall, patients set their own opioid adherence goals and developed routines to achieve them. Residual pain varied and was not consistently linked with opioid adherence. ConclusionPatients commonly felt conflicted about using prescribed long-acting opioids to manage cancer pain due to concurrent perceptions of their risks and benefits, and they set their own parameters for opioid-taking practices. Intentional and unintentional deviations from prescribed opioid schedules highlight the need to enhance adherence communication, education, and counseling, to optimize the use of long-acting opioids as a component of cancer pain management.

Reducing stress: Social support and group identification

Three studies systematically explored the relationship between social support and group identification in the context of how individuals cope with stress. In Study 1, 101 participants took part in a simulated group task where they either received social support or not under conditions of either high or low demand. Social support was associated with higher group identification, and this mediated the effect of social support on more positive appraisals and task satisfaction. In Study 2, 83 participants were either made aware of their group membership or worked as individuals on a group task under high or low demand. In this study, group membership salience was associated with greater perceived support, which was associated with greater group identification, and subsequently more positive primary and secondary appraisals, more problem-focused coping, and task satisfaction. Study 3 assessed the perceived social support and group identification reported by 71 volleyball team members before and after a game. Results were more consistent with the notion that support and identification were two concurrent perceptions associated with being in a group, rather than identification priming the recognition of support or support increasing identification.

The content of visual working memory alters processing of visual input prior to conscious access: evidence from pupillometry

Visual working memory (VWM) allows for keeping relevant visual information available after termination of its sensory input. Storing information in VWM, however, affects concurrent conscious perception of visual input: initially suppressed visual input gains prioritized access to consciousness when it matches the content of VWM (Gayet et al., 2013). Recently, there has been a debate whether such modulations of conscious access operate prior to conscious perception or, rather, during a transition period from non-conscious to conscious perception. Here, we used pupil size measurements to track the influence of VWM on visual input continuously, and dissociate between these possibilities. Participants were sequentially presented with two shapes drawn from different shape categories (ellipses, rectangles, or triangles) and a retro-cue, indicating which of the two shapes should be remembered for subsequent recall. During the retention interval, participants were instructed to report whether a target shape, which either matched or mismatched the concurrently memorized item, was presented left or right of fixation. Critically, the target shape was initially suppressed from consciousness by continuous flash suppression, and could therefore only be responded to once it was consciously accessible. Analyses of response times revealed that targets were released from suppression faster when they matched compared to when they mismatched the memorized shape. This behavioral effect was paralleled by a differential pupillary response such, that pupil constriction was more pronounced when visual input matched compared to when it mismatched the content of VWM. Importantly, this difference in pupil size emerged already 500ms after target onset, and almost two seconds before participants could report the location of the target shape. We conclude that the content of VWM affects processing of visual input when it is not yet consciously accessible, thereby allowing it to reach prioritized conscious access. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2017.

Effects of Physiological Internal Noise on Model Predictions of Concurrent Vowel Identification for Normal-Hearing Listeners.

Previous studies have shown that concurrent vowel identification improves with increasing temporal onset asynchrony of the vowels, even if the vowels have the same fundamental frequency. The current study investigated the possible underlying neural processing involved in concurrent vowel perception. The individual vowel stimuli from a previously published study were used as inputs for a phenomenological auditory-nerve (AN) model. Spectrotemporal representations of simulated neural excitation patterns were constructed (i.e., neurograms) and then matched quantitatively with the neurograms of the single vowels using the Neurogram Similarity Index Measure (NSIM). A novel computational decision model was used to predict concurrent vowel identification. To facilitate optimum matches between the model predictions and the behavioral human data, internal noise was added at either neurogram generation or neurogram matching using the NSIM procedure. The best fit to the behavioral data was achieved with a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 8 dB for internal noise added at the neurogram but with a much smaller amount of internal noise (SNR of 60 dB) for internal noise added at the level of the NSIM computations. The results suggest that accurate modeling of concurrent vowel data from listeners with normal hearing may partly depend on internal noise and where internal noise is hypothesized to occur during the concurrent vowel identification process.

Migraine in Synesthetes and Nonsynesthetes: A Prevalence Study.

Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which an inducer stimulus in one sense leads to a concurrent percept in a second sense. The immune hypothesis of synesthesia links synesthesia to immune-related conditions such as migraine. More specifically, migraine with aura may be linked to grapheme-color synesthesia as both involve cortical hyperexcitability. In this study, 161 female synesthetes, and 92 female nonsynesthetes, completed an online questionnaire about synesthesia and migraine. We found no general link between migraine and synesthesia nor between migraine with aura and grapheme-color synesthesia. Exploratory analyses, however, showed that certain types of synesthetic inducer (non-linguistic visual experiences, scent, taste, emotion and personality) were associated with visual disturbances in headache among female participants, and touch as a concurrent was associated with migraine with aura. On the basis of our exploratory analyses, we hypothesize that specific subtypes of synesthesia are related to migraine. The relationship between these two conditions is likely to become clearer as research on the underlying causes of synesthesia and migraine progresses.

Using TDS dyads and other dominance sequences to characterize products and investigate liking changes

Temporal Dominance of Sensations (TDS) involves selection and continuous update of a dominant attribute, and provides sequence data to characterize products. As a novel development in this manuscript, TDS data are represented in dominance sequences (TDS monads, TDS dyads, TDS triads, and TDS tetrads). Then, two main lines of research are followed. The first line of investigation focuses on the flavoured fresh cheeses, with objectives related mainly to product characterization, hypothesis generation in relation to aspects of the consumption experience, and connection of TDS dyads to temporal liking (TL) data collected from the same consumers in a different session. Associations between TDS dyads and average, positive, and negative liking changes are investigated. The attributes Fresh Herbs and Garlic emerge as positive hedonic drivers, and Cooked Herbs as a negative hedonic driver. The second line of investigation focuses on methodological aspects of TDS, made possible by a novel data treatment. The TDS task requires that attributes be selected sequentially. Symmetric dyad frequency matrices and alternating dominance sequences (ABA and ABAB patterns) suggest concurrent perception. Additional points are also raised, especially related to dominance gaps in TDS data that arise from methodology that is intended to maintain assessors’ engagement.

The brain of synesthetes

Synesthesia is a fascinating phenomenon in which a particular perception induces a concurrent perception resulting in a kind of double perception. This phenomenon has received considerable attraction in the last 15 years by neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists. Here I will summarize and discuss some of the main findings and ideas from this research. First, I will discuss the main neurophysiological models trying to explain this extraordinary phenomenon. Secondly, I will describe the findings trying to delineate the time course of synesthetic perception in relation to the associated neurophysiological models. Finally, current findings reporting specific and general neuroanatomical features of the synesthete’s brain will be discussed. These findings will be integrated into the current models about the neurophysiological underpinnings of synesthesia.

Concurrent Vowel Identification and Speech Perception in Noise in Individuals With Cochlear Hearing Loss

Concurrent Vowel Identification and Speech Perception in Noise in Individuals With Cochlear Hearing Loss

Teachers' Behavior and Pupils' Achievement Motivation as Determinants of Intended Helping Behavior in Physical Education

The present two-wave longitudinal study examined the extent to which physical education (PE) teachers' democratic and socially supportive behavior, pupils' goal orientations, and the perceived motivational climate in PE explained differences in pupils' intended helping behavior by gender in PE classes. The results of 105 boys and 109 girls based on structural equation modeling revealed at both time points that the PE teachers' democratic and socially supportive behavior was positively related to pupils' concurrent perceptions of the motivational climate as task-involving as well as their higher concurrent intended helping behavior in PE. Pupils' prior perceptions of the motivational climate of PE as ego-involving were negatively related to their later perceptions of their PE teacher as behaving democratically and socially supportively. The study variables explained 50% (in boys) and 77% (in girls) of the variance of intended helping behavior at Time 2.

Pathways to seeing music: enhanced structural connectivity in colored-music synesthesia.

Synesthesia, a condition in which a stimulus in one sensory modality consistently and automatically triggers concurrent percepts in another modality, provides a window into the neural correlates of cross-modal associations. While research on grapheme-color synesthesia has provided evidence for both hyperconnectivity-hyperbinding and disinhibited feedback as potential underlying mechanisms, less research has explored the neuroanatomical basis of other forms of synesthesia. In the current study we investigated the white matter correlates of colored-music synesthesia. As these synesthetes report seeing colors upon hearing musical sounds, we hypothesized that they might show unique patterns of connectivity between visual and auditory association areas. We used diffusion tensor imaging to trace the white matter tracts in temporal and occipital lobe regions in 10 synesthetes and 10 matched non-synesthete controls. Results showed that synesthetes possessed hemispheric patterns of fractional anisotropy, an index of white matter integrity, in the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF), a major white matter pathway that connects visual and auditory association areas to frontal regions. Specifically, white matter integrity within the right IFOF was significantly greater in synesthetes than controls. Furthermore, white matter integrity in synesthetes was correlated with scores on audiovisual tests of the Synesthesia Battery, especially in white matter underlying the right fusiform gyrus. Our findings provide the first evidence of a white matter substrate of colored-music synesthesia, and suggest that enhanced white matter connectivity is involved in enhanced cross-modal associations.