Perceptual Conflict Research Articles

Does Social Value Mean Customer Value? The Perceptual Conflict Underlying Customers’ Decisions

Does Social Value Mean Customer Value? The Perceptual Conflict Underlying Customers’ Decisions

Pretrial predictors of conflict response efficacy in the human prefrontal cortex

The ability to perform motor actions depends, in part, on the brain's initial state. We hypothesized that initial state dependence is a more general principle and applies to cognitive control. To test this idea, we examined human single units recorded from the dorsolateral prefrontal (dlPFC) cortex and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) during a task that interleaves motor and perceptual conflict trials, the multisource interference task (MSIT). In both brain regions, variability in pre-trial firing rates predicted subsequent reaction time (RT) on conflict trials. In dlPFC, ensemble firing rate patterns suggested the existence of domain-specific initial states, while in dACC, firing patterns were more consistent with a domain-general initial state. The deployment of shared and independent factors that we observe for conflict resolution may allow for flexible and fast responses mediated by cognitive initial states. These results also support hypotheses that place dACC hierarchically earlier than dlPFC in proactive control.

The Theory of Hermann Rorschach

Abstract: We trace the development of Hermann Rorschach’s ideas, from his early experiments, interests, and his medical thesis (1912) on reflex hallucinations to the writing of Psychodiagnostics ( 1921 ) in order to demonstrate that he was in the process of constructing a global theory of personality. The key to his experimentation with inkblots was the notion of representational or perceptual conflict, the psychological functioning of the tested person being reflected in the way responses are chosen. He conceived personality as a dynamic structure with a psychic apparatus that operates our relationships with the external and internal worlds of experience, thus highlighting the workings of the conscious/preconscious systems.

On the Verge Between Cocreation and Codestruction: The Interesting Case of a Greek Traditional Cultural Event

Traditional cultural events provide unique opportunities for resident-attendee destination experience and image cocreation, yet the cognitive, perceptual, and behavioral disparities between these key actor groups remain rather sparse. Focusing on the process rather than the outcome of cocreation, this article adopts a Service-Dominant Logic (SDL) to explore the underlying dynamics of social and economic actor encounters and their role in service value and image cocreation and destination resource management. More specifically, the study applies a mixed-method approach to study the interface of social and psychological carrying capacity during the Easter Rocket War in Chios (Greece). Building on the particularities of this traditional event, the research identifies variables that trigger cognitive and perceptual conflicts of interests that may jeopardize an event's and a destination's image cocreation process, resulting in its codestruction. Research findings contribute to the broader event image cocreation and destination branding body of literature, though the exploration of the underlying dynamics of multistakeholder and multiattribute event dimensions (cultural, spiritual, historical, recreational). From a managerial perspective, research findings aim to inform destination planning and decision-making processes that dictate event viability, publicity, and multistakeholder satisfaction.

The Stroop effect involves an excitatory–inhibitory fronto-cerebellar loop

The Stroop effect is a classical, well-known behavioral phenomenon in humans that refers to robust interference between language and color information. It remains unclear, however, when the interference occurs and how it is resolved in the brain. Here we show that the Stroop effect occurs during perception of color–word stimuli and involves a cross-hemispheric, excitatory–inhibitory loop functionally connecting the lateral prefrontal cortex and cerebellum. Participants performed a Stroop task and a non-verbal control task (which we term the Swimmy task), and made a response vocally or manually. The Stroop effect involved the lateral prefrontal cortex in the left hemisphere and the cerebellum in the right hemisphere, independently of the response type; such lateralization was absent during the Swimmy task, however. Moreover, the prefrontal cortex amplified cerebellar activity, whereas the cerebellum suppressed prefrontal activity. This fronto–cerebellar loop may implement language and cognitive systems that enable goal-directed behavior during perceptual conflicts.

Captured by associations: Semantic distractibility during analogical reasoning in schizophrenia

Impaired cognitive control, for instance increased distractibility in simple conflict tasks such as Stroop, is considered one of fundamental cognitive deficits in schizophrenia patients. Relatively less is known about patients proneness to distraction in more complex, longer-lasting cognitive tasks. We applied the four-term analogies with and without distraction to 51 schizophrenia patients in order to examine whether they display increased distractibility during analogical reasoning, and to test which kind of distractors (semantic, categorical, or perceptual) elicits their strongest distraction, as compared to 51 matched controls. We found that (a) both groups reasoned by analogy comparably well when distraction was absent; (b) in both groups distraction significantly decreased performance; (c) schizophrenia patients were significantly more distracted than the controls; (d) in both groups the semantic distractors were selected more frequently than the categorical distractors, while the perceptual distractors were virtually ignored; as well as (e) in both groups distractibility in the four-term analogies was unrelated with distractibility in the simple perceptual conflict task, suggesting that these two distraction types tap into different cognitive mechanisms. Importantly, a significantly stronger distractibility in the schizophrenia group could not be explained by their lower intelligence, because the two groups were matched on the fluid reasoning test. We conclude that during complex cognitive processing schizophrenia patients become captured by irrelevant semantic associations. The patients are also less willing to critically evaluate their responses.

30.3 Eye-Tracking, Gaze, and Pupil Dynamics in ADHD: Biofeedback Possibilities During Novel Perceptual Conflict Task

30.3 Eye-Tracking, Gaze, and Pupil Dynamics in ADHD: Biofeedback Possibilities During Novel Perceptual Conflict Task

The Cross-Zone Navigation and Signage Systems for Combatting Cybersickness and Disorientation in Middle-Aged and Older People within a 3D Virtual Store

With the maturation and popularization of 3D virtual reality (3D VR) technology, various corporations have employed 3D VR animations to enrich the experience of visiting a store and change how products are presented. Because middle-aged and older adults have weaker mobility and perception abilities, their behaviors in 3D virtual stores may differ entirely from those of younger age groups. This study aimed to develop a cross-zone navigation system and a signage system for 3D virtual retail stores to provide middle-aged and older consumers with high-efficiency navigation for finding products quickly. Additionally, the effect of the systems on combating perceptual conflict was assessed to confirm the practicability of 3D virtual retail shopping. The results revealed that the cross-zone navigation system effectively assisted participants in searching for their desired products. Additionally, the cybersickness score (SSQ) of the cross-zone navigation system group was significantly lower than that of the map-based navigation system group. The participants who used both the cross-zone navigation system and the signage system exhibited the lowest perceptual conflict scores. Therefore, this study provides references for developing a novel navigation system for 3D virtual retail stores (i.e., a cross-zone navigation system with signage).

How does the use of simultaneous contrast illusion on product-background color combination nudge consumer behavior? A behavioral and event-related potential study.

Color, as one of the most critical visual factors influencing consumer decisions, has been widely used in e-commerce marketing. However, the effects of product-background saturation combination on consumers’ willingness to purchase products with different heaviness attributes (e.g., heaviness-positive products or heaviness-negative products) have not been conclusively determined. The current study demonstrated the effects of product-background saturation combination on product heaviness perception and its downstream consequences. Based on behavioral method, study 1 showed that a patch of color placed in a pale background (the saturation of the background is lower than the saturation of the color patch) was perceived as visually heavier than that in a colorful background (the saturation of the background is higher than the saturation of the color patch). Study 2 applied event-related potentials (ERPs) method to explore the underlying neural mechanisms of how the interactions between the presentation modes and the product types affect consumer decisions. Behaviorally, compared to the colorful background, the pale background would lead to a higher purchase rate for the heaviness-positive products, whereas the opposite results were found for the heaviness-negative products. Furthermore, for both the heaviness-positive and heaviness-negative products, a shorter reaction time would be observed in the pale background condition than in the colorful background condition. Neurophysiologically, the pale background would result in smaller N2 component and larger P3 component compared to the colorful background for the heaviness-positive products, while the reverse held for the heaviness-negative products. Smaller N2 component implies decreased perceptual conflicts and larger P3 component implies increased decision confidence, suggesting that e-retailers should present heaviness-positive products with pale backgrounds and heaviness-negative products with colorful backgrounds.

The Conflict of sexuality in Films: Analysis of Nollywood depiction of Homosexuality

This study addresses a sensitive subject in the context of the socio-cultural, political, legal and religious opposition to homosexual groups in Nigeria. It addresses the social depictions, honest portrayal, and conflicts between heterosexual and homosexual characters based on sexuality in Nollywood films. The study adopted a quantitative content analysis of twenty (20) Nollywood films. The study revealed that homosexual characters are depicted as physiologically, psychologically, socially and spiritually misfits. However, the film producers made an educational effort in exposing practices seen as offensive to societal norms and values. Further findings reveal that homosexual characters are portrayed as morally negative. This demonstrates the truism of the normative hypothesis that media take colouration of society in which they are situated. Finally, the study revealed a high level of perceptual conflict of non-acceptance, stigmatisation, rejection and prohibited reaction by heteronormative characters towards homosexuals based on their sexuality. In this sense, the Nollywood films examined by this study illustrate unwelcome, stereotypic, anti-social and homophobic narratives of homosexual characters that align with Nigerian society's social, civil, cultural, and religious belief systems. It is recommended that well-researched based content on sexual minorities beyond the depiction of the social position on their sexuality to more issues relating to the causal factors and ways of addressing such sexuality should be more focused on since in it has been marked as a crime in Nigeria.

Hybrid motion illusions as examples of perceptual conflict

Shapiro and Hedjar (2019) proposed a shift in the definition of illusion, from ‘differences between perception and reality’ to ‘conflicts between possible constructions of reality’. This paper builds on this idea by presenting a series of motion hybrid images that juxtapose fine scale contrast (high spatial frequency content) with coarse scale contrast-generated motion (low spatial frequency content). As is the case for static hybrid images, under normal viewing conditions the fine scale contrast determines the perception of motion hybrid images; however, if the motion hybrid image is blurred or viewed from a distance, the perception is determined by the coarse scale contrast. The fine scale contrast therefore masks the perception of motion (and sometimes depth) produced by the coarser scale contrast. Since the unblurred movies contain both fine and coarse scale contrast information, but the blurred movies contain only coarse scale contrast information, cells in the brain that respond to low spatial frequencies should respond equally to both blurred and unblurred movies. Since people undoubtedly differ in the optics of their eyes and most likely in the neural processes that resolve conflict across scales, the paper suggests that motion hybrid images illustrate trade-offs between spatial scales that are important for understanding individual differences in perceptions of the natural world.

Alerting, orienting, and executive control in intellectually gifted children.

IntroductionIntellectually gifted children have higher performance in many domains of attention than intellectually average children. However, these empirical findings are not consistent in the literature. Few studies investigated the characteristics of alerting, orienting, and executive control networks in intellectually gifted children. The aim of our study was to investigate their characteristics of attentional abilities compared to intellectually average children.MethodFifty‐five intellectually gifted children (age range 8–14 years old) were compared to 55 intellectually average children (age range 8–14 years old) using the Attention Network Test (ANT) to assess these three attentional constructs.ResultsIntellectually gifted children made fewer errors than intellectually average children in the processing of the ANT. In terms of attention network scores, they also outperformed intellectually average children in executive control only.ConclusionIntellectually gifted children do not differ from intellectual average children in terms of the speed of processing in a speeded task such as ANT, but they stand out in terms of accuracy of processing. Intellectually gifted children have better ability to focus volitionally in order to solve a simple perceptual conflict than intellectually average children.

An Investigation of a Frontal Negative Slow Wave in a Virtual Hedonic Purchase Task.

There is a connection between the frontal negative slow wave (FNSW) and the arousal inhibition in the hedonic purchase context. To calculate the FNSW (400–800 ms), event-related potentials (ERPs) method was applied to depict the neural substrates on prudent and impulsive consumers’ behaviors within various states of promotion. Promotion types include the pure price promotion and the mixed promotion (a mixture of a charitable donation and a discount). Behaviorally, consumers response more quickly in the pure price promotion condition and they express a preference for the mixed promotion. More importantly, a larger FNSW emerged in the impulsive consumers than the prudent, suggesting that the former might tend to control their eagerness to consume hedonic items. Compared with the price promotion as the worse option, the mixed promotion as the better option caused more perceptual conflict, leading to an increase in N2 amplitude. It suggests that consumers incline to reject the worse offers. These results also reveal that people primarily have to search negative promotion information by their insight and subsequently impulsive consumers inhibit the responses to the promotion information. The method of ERPs and FNSW should be helpful for marketing researchers and professionals on hedonic consumption and sales promotion.

An active role of inferior frontal cortex in conscious experience

In the search for the neural correlates of consciousness, it has remained controversial whether prefrontal cortex determines what is consciously experienced or, alternatively, serves only complementary functions, such as introspection or action. Here, we provide converging evidence from computational modeling and two functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments that indicated a key role of inferior frontal cortex in detecting perceptual conflicts caused by ambiguous sensory information. Crucially, the detection of perceptual conflicts by prefrontal cortex turned out to be critical in the process of transforming ambiguous sensory information into unambiguous conscious experiences: in a third experiment, disruption of neural activity in inferior frontal cortex through transcranial magnetic stimulation slowed down the updating of conscious experience that occurs in response to perceptual conflicts. These findings show that inferior frontal cortex actively contributes to the resolution of perceptual ambiguities. Prefrontal cortex is thus causally involved in determining the contents of conscious experience.

Adjustments of selective attention to response conflict \u2013 controlling for perceptual conflict, target-distractor identity, and congruency level sequence pertaining to the congruency sequence effect

The congruency sequence effect (CSE) describes the performance difference of congruent trials (in which target and distractor stimuli are associated with the same response) compared to incongruent trials (in which target and distractor stimuli are associated with different responses) as a function of the preceding congruency level (congruent trials relative to incongruent trials). The CSE is commonly interpreted as a measure of conflict-induced attentional adjustment. Although previous research has made substantial progress aiming at controlling for alternative explanations of the CSE, both task-specific and fundamental confounds have remained. In the current study, we used a temporal flanker task, in which two stimuli (i.e., distractor and target) are presented in rapid succession, and extended previous demonstrations of a CSE in flanker tasks by deconfounding target-distractor congruency from perceptual similarity. Using a four-choice task, we could also control for the reversal of distractor-response priming after incongruent trials (which is only feasible in two-choice tasks). Furthermore, we controlled for all confounds based on the sequence (i.e., repetition versus alternation) of the congruency level – such as feature sequence effects, distractor-response contingency switch costs, or temporal learning – by probing the allocation of attention to the points in time of presentation of the first and the second stimulus of a trial. This was achieved by intermixing trials of a temporal search task. The performance accuracy results in this task were consistent with a stronger attentional bias in favor of the target stimulus’ temporal position after incongruent than after congruent trials.

Flexibility in Problem Solving: Analogical Transfer of Tool Use in Toddlers Is Immune to Delay.

Solving problems that are perceptually dissimilar but require similar solutions is a key skill in everyday life. In adults, this ability, termed analogical transfer, draws on memories of relevant past experiences that partially overlap with the present task at hand. Thanks to this support from long-term memory, analogical transfer allows remarkable behavioral flexibility beyond immediate situations. However, little is known about the interaction between long-term memory and analogical transfer in development as, to date, they have been studied separately. Here, for the first time, effects of age and memory on analogical transfer were investigated in 2–4.5-olds in a simple tool-use setup. Children attempted to solve a puzzle box after training the correct solution on a different looking box, either right before the test or 24 h earlier. We found that children (N = 105) could transfer the solution regardless of the delay and a perceptual conflict introduced in the tool set. For children who failed to transfer (N = 54) and repeated the test without a perceptual conflict, the odds of success did not improve. Our findings suggest that training promoted the detection of functional similarities between boxes and, thereby, flexible transfer both in the short and the long term.

The Müller-Lyer line-length task interpreted as a conflict paradigm: A chronometric study and a diffusion account

We propose to interpret tasks evoking the classical Müller-Lyer illusion as one form of a conflict paradigm involving relevant (line length) and irrelevant (arrow orientation) stimulus attributes. Eight practiced observers compared the lengths of two line-arrow combinations; the length of the lines and the orientation of their arrows was varied unpredictably across trials so as to obtain psychometric and chronometric functions for congruent and incongruent line-arrow combinations. To account for decision speed and accuracy in this parametric data set, we present a diffusion model based on two assumptions: inward (outward)-pointing arrows added to a line (i) add (subtract) a separate, task-irrelevant drift component, and (ii) they reduce (increase) the distance to the barrier associated with the response identifying this line as being longer. The model was fitted to the data of each observer separately, and accounted in considerable quantitative detail for many aspects of the data obtained, including the fact that arrow-congruent responses were most prominent in the earliest RT quartile-bin. Our model gives a specific, process-related meaning to traditional static interpretations of the Müller-Lyer illusion, and combines within a single coherent framework structural and strategic mechanisms contributing to the illusion. Its central assumptions correspond to the general interpretation of geometrical-optical illusions as a manifestation of the resolution of a perceptual conflict (Day & Smith, 1989; Westheimer, 2008).

Cognitive control strategies from the perspective of perceptual conflict: An example of stereotyped information and counterstereotyped information

Cognitive control strategies from the perspective of perceptual conflict: An example of stereotyped information and counterstereotyped information

The Emergence of Spindles and K-Complexes and the Role of the Dorsal Caudal Part of the Anterior Cingulate as the Generator of K-Complexes.

The large multicomponent K-complex (KC) and the rhythmic spindle are the hallmarks of non-rapid eye movement (NREM)-2 sleep stage. We studied with magnetoencephalography (MEG) the progress of light sleep (NREM-1 and NREM-2) and emergence of KCs and spindles. Seven periods of interest (POI) were analyzed: wakefulness, the two quiet “core” periods of light sleep (periods free from any prominent phasic or oscillatory events) and four periods before and during spindles and KCs. For each POI, eight 2-s (1250 time slices) segments were used. We employed magnetic field tomography (MFT) to extract an independent tomographic estimate of brain activity from each MEG data sample. The spectral power was then computed for each voxel in the brain for each segment of each POI. The sets of eight maps from two POIs were contrasted using a voxel-by-voxel t-test. Only increased spectral power was identified in the four key contrasts between POIs before and during spindles and KCs versus the NREM2 core. Common increases were identified for all four subjects, especially within and close to the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). These common increases were widespread for low frequencies, while for higher frequencies they were focal, confined to specific brain areas. For the pre-KC POI, only one prominent increase was identified, confined to the theta/alpha bands in a small area in the dorsal caudal part of ACC (dcACC). During KCs, the activity in this area grows in intensity and extent (in space and frequency), filling the space between the areas that expanded their low frequency activity (in the delta band) during NREM2 compared to NREM1. Our main finding is that prominent spectral power increases before NREM2 graphoelements are confined to the dcACC, and only for KCs, sharing common features with changes of activity in dcACC of the well-studied error related negativity (ERN). ERN is seen in awake state, in perceptual conflict and situations where there is a difference between expected and actual environmental or internal events. These results suggest that a KC is the sleep side of the awake state ERN, both serving their putative sentinel roles in the frame of the saliency network.

PENGARUH ASIMETRI KONFLIK TUGAS TERHADAP KINERJA DAN PERAN MANAJEMEN KONFLIK KOLABORASI (Kasus pada Organisasi Non Profit)

This study aims to explore the influence of the composition of perceptual task conflicts on group performance in non-profit organizations. In addition, this study also explores the role of moderators of collaborative conflict management on the influence of the composition of perceptual task conflicts on group performance. Data collection is done by questionnaire. Data were analyzed using hierarchical regression analysis.
 This study involved 232 respondents from 58 teams / working groups from non-profit organizations namely college scouts, libraries, village level government institutions, early childhood education, PKK organizations and dasa wisma. The results of hierarchical regression analysis indicate that the composition of perceptual task conflicts negatively affects group performance. However, there is not enough evidence of the role of collaboration conflict management in with the influence of the composition of the conflict on the task of the group on group performance. Several implications are given based on the results of this study