Forced-choice Task Research Articles

‘Musical effort’ and ‘musical pleasantness’: a pilot study on the neurophysiological correlates of classical music listening in adults normal hearing and unilateral cochlear implant users

Objective This pilot case-control study is aimed to estimate ‘musical effort’ and ‘musical pleasantness’ in adults normal hearing (NH) and Unilateral Cochlear Implant (UCI) users via neurophysiological indices and a cognitive-behavioural approach. Methods 7 NH and 7 UCI subjects underwent electroencephalographic (EEG) recording with two EEG indices, Approach Withdrawal (AW) and Workload (WI), and behavioural tests conducted during a forced-choice musical emotion recognition task performed in quiet and noise in two emotional conditions. Results Musical effort in terms of WI did not vary between conditions and groups. Inversely, for AW, statistically significant differences in noisy conditions were observed between groups, indicating a difficulty for the patients in discriminating the musical pleasantness in noise. However, self-reported data suggest the ability of UCI to cognitively evaluate the stimulus in terms of both auditory difficulty and pleasantness. Conclusion Findings suggest the possible relevance of the Cochlear Implant in supporting the patients’ effort in listening to music in noise, allowing a pleasant enjoyment in the quiet condition. Overall, this study appears worthy of interest and paves the way for further investigation by providing data on the neurophysiological perception of music.

How big should this object be? Perceptual influences on viewing-size preferences

When viewing objects depicted in a frame, observers prefer to view large objects like cars in larger sizes and smaller objects like cups in smaller sizes. That is, the visual size of an object that “looks best” is linked to its typical physical size in the world. Why is this the case? One intuitive possibility is that these preferences are driven by semantic knowledge: For example, when we recognize a sofa, we access our knowledge about its real-world size, and this influences what size we prefer to view the sofa within a frame. However, might visual processing play a role in this phenomenon—that is, do visual features that are related to big and small objects look better at big and small visual sizes, respectively, even when observers do not have explicit access to semantic knowledge about the objects? To test this possibility, we used “texform” images, which are synthesized versions of recognizable objects, which critically retain local perceptual texture and coarse contour information, but are no longer explicitly recognizable. To test for visual size preferences, we first used a size adjustment task, and the results were equivocal. However, clear results were obtained using a two-interval forced choice task, in which each texform was presented at the preferred visual size of its corresponding original image, and a visual size slightly bigger or smaller. Observers consistently selected the texform presented at the canonical visual size as the more aesthetically pleasing one. An additional control experiment ruled out alternative explanations related to size priming effects. These results suggest that the preferred visual size of an object depends not only on explicit knowledge of its real-world size, but also can be evoked by mid-level visual features that systematically covary with an object's real-world size.

Changes in visual speed perception induced by anticipatory smooth eye movements.

Expectations about forthcoming visual motion shaped by observers' experiences are known to induce anticipatory smooth eye movements (ASEMs) and changes in visual perception. Previous studies have demonstrated discrete effects of expectations on the control of ASEM and perception. However, the tasks designed in those studies were not able to segregate the effects of expectations and execution of ASEM itself on perception. In the present study, we attempted to directly examine the effect of ASEM itself on visual speed perception with a two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) task, in which observers were asked to track a pair of sequentially presented visual motion stimuli with their eyes and to judge whether the second stimulus (test stimulus) was faster or slower than the first (reference stimulus). Our results showed that observers' visual speed perception, quantified by a psychometric function, shifted according to ASEM velocity. This was the case even though there was no difference in the steady-state eye velocity. Further analyses revealed that the observers' perceptual decisions could be explained by a difference in the magnitude of retinal slip velocity in the initial phase of ocular tracking when the reference and test stimuli were presented, rather than in the steady-state phase. Our results provide psychophysical evidence of the importance of initial ocular tracking in visual speed perception and the strong impact of ASEM.NEW & NOTEWORTHY We provide psychophysical evidence that the execution of anticipatory smooth eye movement (ASEM) leads to underestimation of visual speed perception, that is, observers perceive the object motion velocity as slower than when ASEM is not induced, even though the performance of subsequent ocular tracking is comparable. Moreover, our results showed that such perceptual decisions regarding object motion velocity were derived from the ASEM-induced decrease in retinal slip velocity during the initial phase of ocular tracking.

People can identify the likely owner of heartbeats by looking at individuals’ faces

For more than a century it has been proposed that visceral and vasomotor changes inside the body influence and reflect our experience of the world. For instance, cardiac rhythms (heartbeats and consequent heart rate) reflect psychophysiological processes that underlie our cognition and affective experience. Yet, considering that we usually infer what others do and feel through vision, whether people can identify the most likely owner of a given bodily rhythm by looking at someone's face remains unknown. To address this, we developed a novel two-alternative forced-choice task in which 120 participants watched videos showing two people side by side and visual feedback from one of the individuals' heartbeats in the centre. Participants' task was to select the owner of the depicted heartbeats. Across five experiments, one replication, and supplementary analyses, the results show that: i) humans can judge the most likely owner of a given sequence of heartbeats significantly above chance levels, ii) that performance in such a task decreases when the visual properties of the faces are altered (inverted, masked, static), and iii) that the difference between the heart rates of the individuals portrayed in our 2AFC task seems to contribute to participants' responses. While we did not disambiguate the type of information used by the participants (e.g., knowledge about appearance and health, visual cues from heartbeats), the current work represents the first step to investigate the possible ability to infer or perceive others' cardiac rhythms. Overall, our novel observations and easily adaptable paradigm may generate hypotheses worth examining in the study of human and social cognition.

Information Avoidance in Consumer Choice: Do Avoidance Tendencies and Motives Vary by Age?

ABSTRACT Prior research suggests that older adults seek less information in consumer choices than younger adults do. However, it remains unclear if intentional information avoidance plays a role in such effects. To test this possibility, we examined age differences in deliberate information avoidance in consumer decisions and explored a range of potential motives. Adult lifespan samples completed two pre-registered online studies, which assessed information avoidance using a slider scale (Study 1, N =195) and a forced-choice task (Study 2, N = 500). In Study 1, age differences in information avoidance were not significant, but methodological limitations could have obscured age effects. In Study 2, age was associated with higher information avoidance. Avoidance was higher among participants who reported that the information would not impact decision preferences, would elicit more negative affect, and would be useless. Although age was associated with lower perceived impact on decision preferences and lower concerns about affective responses, age differences in information avoidance remained significant when these variables were statistically controlled. In conclusion, in the context of consumer choices, deliberate information avoidance is higher among older consumers. Thus, interventions to promote the acquisition of relevant information would benefit from being tailored to the target age group.

Experimental Enhancement of Feelings of Transcendence, Tenderness, and Expressiveness by Music in Christian Liturgical Spaces.

In western cultures, when it comes to places of worship and liturgies, music, acoustics and architecture go hand in hand. In the present study, we aimed to investigate whether the emotions evoked by music are enhanced by the acoustics of the space where the music was composed to be played on. We explored whether the emotional responses of western naïve listeners to two vocal pieces from the Renaissance, one liturgical and one secular, convolved with the impulse responses of four Christian temples from the United Kingdom, were modulated by the appropriate piece/space matching. In an alternative forced choice task where participants had to indicate their preference for the original recording of the piece (not convolved with any temple-like acoustics) vs. the convolved one, no significant differences were found. However, in the tasks where participants rated their emotional in response to each piece and acoustic condition, the factorial ANCOVA analyses performed on the results revealed significant effects. We observed that, across pieces and spaces, participants found the temple-like acoustics as more transcendent, compared to the acoustics of the original version of the pieces. In addition, they rated the secular piece as more tender and the liturgical piece as more expressive in its original versions, compared to the convolved ones. We conclude that the acoustic signature of the four Christian temples causes an exaltation of certain emotions on listeners, although this effect is not associated to one or another musical piece.

Context effects in similarity judgments.

Tversky's (1977) famous demonstration of a diagnosticity effect indicates that the similarity between the same two stimuli depends on the presence of contextual stimuli. In a forced choice task, the similarity between a target and a choice, appears to depend on the other choices. Specifically, introducing a distractor grouped with one of the options would reduce preference for the grouped option. However, the diagnosticity effect has been difficult to replicate, casting doubt on its robustness and our understanding of contextual effects in similarity generally. We propose that the apparent brittleness of the diagnosticity effect is because it is in competition with an opposite attraction effect. Even though in both the similarity and decision-making literatures there are indications for such a competition, we provide the first direct experimental demonstration of how an attraction effect can give way to a diagnosticity one, as a distractor option is manipulated. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Familiarity with an Object's Size Influences the Perceived Size of Its Image.

It is known that judgments about objects’ distances are influenced by familiar size: a soccer ball looks farther away than a tennis ball if their images are equally large on the retina. We here investigate whether familiar size also influences judgments about the size of images of objects that are presented side-by-side on a computer screen. Sixty-three participants indicated which of two images appeared larger on the screen in a 2-alternative forced-choice discrimination task. The objects were either two different types of balls, two different types of coins, or a ball and a grey disk. We found that the type of ball biased the comparison between their image sizes: the size of the image of the soccer ball was over-estimated by about 5% (assimilation). The bias in the comparison between the two balls was equal to the sum of the biases in the comparisons with the grey disk. The bias for the coins was smaller and in the opposite direction (contrast). The average precision of the size comparison was 3.5%, irrespective of the type of object. We conclude that knowing a depicted object’s real size can influence the perceived size of its image, but the perceived size is not always attracted towards the familiar size.

Experienced entropy drives choice behavior in a boring decision-making task

Boredom has been defined as an aversive mental state that is induced by the disability to engage in satisfying activity, most often experienced in monotonous environments. However, current understanding of the situational factors inducing boredom and driving subsequent behavior remains incomplete. Here, we introduce a two-alternative forced-choice task coupled with sensory stimulation of different degrees of monotony. We find that human subjects develop a bias in decision-making, avoiding the more monotonous alternative that is correlated with self-reported state boredom. This finding was replicated in independent laboratory and online experiments and proved to be specific for the induction of boredom rather than curiosity. Furthermore, using theoretical modeling we show that the entropy in the sequence of individually experienced stimuli, a measure of information gain, serves as a major determinant to predict choice behavior in the task. With this, we underline the relevance of boredom for driving behavioral responses that ensure a lasting stream of information to the brain.

The Relationship Between Default Mode and Dorsal Attention Networks Is Associated With Depressive Disorder Diagnosis and the Strength of Memory Representations Acquired Prior to the Resting State Scan.

Previous research indicates that individuals with depressive disorders (DD) have aberrant resting state functional connectivity and may experience memory dysfunction. While resting state functional connectivity may be affected by experiences preceding the resting state scan, little is known about this relationship in individuals with DD. Our study examined this question in the context of object memory. 52 individuals with DD and 45 healthy controls (HC) completed clinical interviews, and a memory encoding task followed by a forced-choice recognition test. A 5-min resting state fMRI scan was administered immediately after the forced-choice task. Resting state networks were identified using group Independent Component Analysis across all participants. A network modeling analysis conducted on 22 networks using FSLNets examined the interaction effect of diagnostic status and memory accuracy on the between-network connectivity. We found that this interaction significantly affected the relationship between the network comprised of the medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, and hippocampal formation and the network comprised of the inferior temporal, parietal, and prefrontal cortices. A stronger positive correlation between these two networks was observed in individuals with DD who showed higher memory accuracy, while a stronger negative correlation (i.e., anticorrelation) was observed in individuals with DD who showed lower memory accuracy prior to resting state. No such effect was observed for HC. The former network cross-correlated with the default mode network (DMN), and the latter cross-correlated with the dorsal attention network (DAN). Considering that the DMN and DAN typically anticorrelate, we hypothesize that our findings indicate aberrant reactivation and consolidation processes that occur after the task is completed. Such aberrant processes may lead to continuous “replay” of previously learned, but currently irrelevant, information and underlie rumination in depression.

Creation and Validation of the Japanese Cute Infant Face (JCIF) Dataset.

Research interest in cuteness perception and its effects on subsequent behavior and physiological responses has recently been increasing. The purpose of the present study was to produce a dataset of Japanese infant faces that are free of portrait rights and can be used for cuteness research. A total of 80 original facial images of 6-month-old infants were collected from their parents. The cuteness level of each picture was rated on a 7-point scale by 200 Japanese people (100 men and 100 women in their 20s–60s). Prototypical high- and low-cuteness faces were created by averaging the top 10 and bottom 10 faces according to the mean cuteness ratings. Then, 50 composite faces were made by mixing two faces randomly chosen from the 60 unused middle-cuteness faces. The normative cuteness ratings of these composite faces were obtained from 229 Japanese men and women in their 20s–60s. The shape of each composite face was transformed to be cuter (+50%) or less cute (–50%) along a continuum between the high- and low-cuteness prototypical faces. A two-alternative forced-choice task (N = 587) confirmed that cuteness discrimination was better than the chance level for all 50 face pairs. Moreover, the results showed that young men had poorer sensitivity to cuteness differences in infant faces than older men and women of any age. This Japanese Cute Infant Face (JCIF, “jay-sif”) dataset, including composite face images and normative rating scores, is publicly available online.

Assessing the Sensitivity of EEG-Based Frequency-Tagging as a Metric for Statistical Learning.

Statistical learning (SL) is hypothesized to play an important role in language development. However, the measures typically used to assess SL, particularly at the level of individual participants, are largely indirect and have low sensitivity. Recently, a neural metric based on frequency-tagging has been proposed as an alternative measure for studying SL. We tested the sensitivity of frequency-tagging measures for studying SL in individual participants in an artificial language paradigm, using non-invasive electroencephalograph (EEG) recordings of neural activity in humans. Importantly, we used carefully constructed controls to address potential acoustic confounds of the frequency-tagging approach, and compared the sensitivity of EEG-based metrics to both explicit and implicit behavioral tests of SL. Group-level results confirm that frequency-tagging can provide a robust indication of SL for an artificial language, above and beyond potential acoustic confounds. However, this metric had very low sensitivity at the level of individual participants, with significant effects found only in 30% of participants. Comparison of the neural metric to previously established behavioral measures for assessing SL showed a significant yet weak correspondence with performance on an implicit task, which was above-chance in 70% of participants, but no correspondence with the more common explicit 2-alternative forced-choice task, where performance did not exceed chance-level. Given the proposed ubiquitous nature of SL, our results highlight some of the operational and methodological challenges of obtaining robust metrics for assessing SL, as well as the potential confounds that should be taken into account when using the frequency-tagging approach in EEG studies.

Spiking Recurrent Neural Networks Represent Task-Relevant Neural Sequences in Rule-Dependent Computation.

Prefrontal cortical neurons play essential roles in performing rule-dependent tasks and working memory-based decision making. Motivated by PFG recordings of task-performing mice, we developed an excitatory-inhibitory spiking recurrent neural network (SRNN) to perform a rule-dependent two-alternative forced choice (2AFC) task. We imposed several important biological constraints onto the SRNN, and adapted spike frequency adaptation (SFA) and SuperSpike gradient methods to train the SRNN efficiently. The trained SRNN produced emergent rule-specific tunings in single-unit representations, showing rule-dependent population dynamics that resembled experimentally observed data. Under varying test conditions, we manipulated the SRNN parameters or configuration in computer simulations, and we investigated the impacts of rule-coding error, delay duration, recurrent weight connectivity and sparsity, and excitation/inhibition (E/I) balance on both task performance and neural representations. Overall, our modeling study provides a computational framework to understand neuronal representations at a fine timescale during working memory and cognitive control, and provides new experimentally testable hypotheses in future experiments.

Él Code-Switches More Than tú y yo: New Data for the Subject Pronoun-Verb Switch Constraint

In early studies, code-switches between a subject pronoun and a finite verb were considered highly dispreferred or even impossible. However, naturalistic data from several language pairs has since highlighted that such switches are possible, although their grammaticality is constrained by the typology of the pronouns involved. In this study, we test the switching constraints postulated for subject pronouns-verbs among P’urhepecha-Spanish bilinguals (n = 12) from Michoacán, western Mexico. Using a two-alternative forced-choice acceptability judgement task (2AFC), we found that, contrary to expectations, switches between a third person singular pronoun and a verb were considered the most acceptable, followed by the coordinated ‘you and I’ second person, then the first person singular. The same order was found for both switch directions, despite third-person pronouns in P’urhepecha having a stronger typological profile. Building on the results of previous studies, we suggest that the lack of preference for a single switch direction is evidence for language-specific code-switching patterns, as well as possible differences in productive vs. receptive language. Additionally, we highlight the probative value of judgement data, particularly those emerging from 2AFC tasks, as a means of expanding our understanding of grammaticality in code-switching.

Influence of the Location of a Decision Cue on the Dynamics of Pupillary Light Response.

The pupils of the eyes reflexively constrict in light and dilate in dark to optimize retinal illumination. Non-visual cognitive factors, like attention, arousal, decision-making, etc., also influence pupillary light response (PLR). During passive viewing, the eccentricity of a stimulus modulates the pupillary aperture size driven by spatially weighted corneal flux density (CFD), which is the product of luminance and the area of the stimulus. Whether the scope of attention also influences PLR remains unclear. In this study, we contrasted the pupil dynamics between diffused and focused attentional conditions during decision-making, while the global CFD remained the same in the two conditions. A population of 20 healthy humans participated in a pair of forced choice tasks. They distributed attention to the peripheral decision cue in one task, and concentrated at the center in the other to select the target from four alternatives for gaze orientation. The location of this cue did not influence participants’ reaction time (RT). However, the magnitude of constriction was significantly less in the task that warranted attention to be deployed at the center than on the periphery. We observed similar pupil dynamics when participants either elicited or canceled a saccadic eye movement, which ruled out pre-saccadic obligatory attentional orientation contributing to PLR. We further addressed how the location of attentional deployment might have influenced PLR. We simulated a biomechanical model of PLR with visual stimulation of different strengths as inputs corresponding to the two attentional conditions. In this homeomorphic model, the computational characteristic of each element was derived from the physiological and/or mechanical properties of the corresponding biological element. The simulation of this model successfully mimicked the observed data. In contrast to common belief that the global ambient luminosity drives pupillary response, the results of our study suggest that the effective CFD (eCFD) determined via the luminance multiplied by the size of the stimulus at the location of deployed attention in the visual space is critical for the magnitude of pupillary constriction.

Modulation Depth Discrimination by Cochlear Implant Users

Cochlear implants (CIs) convey the amplitude envelope of speech by modulating high-rate pulse trains. However, not all of the envelope may be necessary to perceive amplitude modulations (AMs); the effective envelope depth may be limited by forward and backward masking from the envelope peaks. Three experiments used modulated pulse trains to measure which portions of the envelope can be effectively processed by CI users as a function of AM frequency. Experiment 1 used a three-interval forced-choice task to test the ability of CI users to discriminate less-modulated pulse trains from a fully modulated standard, without controlling for loudness. The stimuli in experiment 2 were identical, but a two-interval task was used in which participants were required to choose the less-modulated interval, ignoring loudness. Catch trials, in which judgements based on level or modulation depth would give opposing answers, were included. Experiment 3 employed novel stimuli whose modulation envelope could be modified below a variable point in the dynamic range, without changing the loudness of the stimulus. Overall, results showed that substantial portions of the envelope are not accurately encoded by CI users. In experiment 1, where loudness cues were available, participants on average were insensitive to changes in the bottom 30% of their dynamic range. In experiment 2, where loudness was controlled, participants appeared insensitive to changes in the bottom 50% of the dynamic range. In experiment 3, participants were insensitive to changes in the bottom 80% of the dynamic range. We discuss potential reasons for this insensitivity and implications for CI speech-processing strategies.

Emotion-modulated Recall: Congruency Effects of Nonverbal Facial and Vocal Cues on Semantic Recall

The current study had two main goals: First, to replicate the ‘bimodal integration’ effect (i.e. the automatic integration of crossmodal stimuli, namely facial emotions and emotional prosody); and second, to investigate whether this phenomenon facilitates or impairs the intake and retention of unattended verbal content. The study borrowed from previous bimodal integration designs and included a two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) task, where subjects were instructed to identify the emotion of a face (as either ‘angry’ or ‘happy’) while ignoring a concurrently presented sentence (spoken in an angry, happy, or neutral prosody), after which a surprise recall was administered to investigate effects on semantic content retention. While bimodal integration effects were replicated (i.e. faster and more accurate emotion identification under congruent conditions), congruency effects were not found for semantic recall. Overall, semantic recall was better for trials with emotional (vs. neutral) faces, and worse in trials with happy (vs. angry or neutral) prosody. Taken together, our findings suggest that when individuals focus their attention on evaluation of facial expressions, they implicitly integrate nonverbal emotional vocal cues (i.e. hedonic valence or emotional tone of accompanying sentences), and devote less attention to their semantic content. While the impairing effect of happy prosody on recall may indicate an emotional interference effect, more research is required to uncover potential prosody-specific effects. All supplemental online materials can be found on OSF (https://osf.io/am9p2/).

Crosslinguistic influence from Catalan and Yucatec Maya on judgments and processing of Spanish focus

Abstract Although a bilingual’s knowledge of one language can affect the other, crosslinguistic influence (CLI) is constrained: certain domains, such as the syntax-discourse interface, are more likely to be affected. Linguists have debated CLI’s nature and cause: the Structural Overlap Hypothesis identifies surface overlap between the languages as the key factor determining CLI, while the Interface Hypothesis highlights the role of processing overloads. Our study presents evidence from processing and judgments of a syntax-discourse interface property – information focus – in the Spanish of Yucatecan Spanish monolinguals, Yucatec Maya-Spanish bilinguals, and Catalan-Spanish bilinguals. The comparison across language dyads that realize information focus in different ways allows us to test predictions for language-specific effects of CLI. Using a forced-choice task to measure offline sentence preferences and a self-paced reading task to measure real-time processing, we find (i) language-specific CLI for Yucatec Maya bilinguals but (ii) no CLI for Catalan bilinguals and (iii) no significant differences in real-time processing. We conclude that these results provide partial support for the Structural Overlap Hypothesis but do not align with the Interface Hypothesis. We also examine the role of language dominance on CLI but find no such effects.

Perceptual clustering of high-pitched vowels in Chinese Yue Opera

Numerous studies on Western Opera singing have shown that listeners’ vowel identification performance decreases with an increasing fundamental frequency (fo). This study explores the intelligibility of high-pitched vowels in Yue Opera, the largest dialectal opera in China. Six long vowels (/i y e a o u/) were recorded by a professional female singer at ten fos between 220 and 932 Hz, of which 700-ms nuclei with flat fo contours and resonance trajectories were extracted as stimuli. In a within-subject design, sixteen phonetically trained listeners responded on a free-choice vowel quadrilateral (task 1) and in a two-alternative forced-choice task (task 2) to indicate which vowel was presented. Results show that vowels cluster in the perceptual space into three groups (/i y e/, /u o/, /a/) above 521 Hz and that listeners could identify vowels between but not within groups with high accuracy up to at least 932 Hz. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) of simulated auditory excitation patterns reveals highly differentiable spectral shapes between groups. These findings put into question whether previous results on Western Opera could be generalized to other forms of opera singing.

Alternating Italian thetic and sentence-focus constructions

AbstractIn this article we study the alternation between the two most prominent Italian thetic and sentence-focus constructions, viz. the Syntactic Inversion Construction (henceforth: SIC), e.g.Arriva il treno(‘The train is arriving’), and the Presentational Cleft (henceforth: PC), e.g.C’è il treno che arriva(‘The train is arriving’). Based on the existing literature on the two constructions and drawing inspiration from a number of cognitive-functional hypotheses pertaining to constraints on the amount of referentially new constituents that can be conveyed in a single clause, we put forward the hypothesis that Italian language users are more likely to prefer the PC over the SIC if the utterance involves a high number of referentially new constituents. To assess this hypothesis, we constructed a pilot experiment consisting of a 100-split forced choice task that was administered by means of an online questionnaire to 66 native speaker participants. The results of the experiment indicate that the preference for the PC indeed increases if the number of referentially new constituents is higher. This is however not the only factor involved in the alternation and the preference of the language users seems not only to be determined by the number of referentially new constituents, but also by their syntactic status.