Perceptual Cues Research Articles

Exploring Professional Riders’ Understanding and Experience of Feel Within the Equestrian Dyad

ABSTRACT More than just technical skill and trained movements, riding involves horse and human dynamically sensing and responding to each other. Horses’ superior tactile sensitivity and heightened perception of non-verbal cues suggest that, whether intentionally or not, the dyad is constantly communicating. This complex horse–rider interaction is anecdotally referred to in the equestrian world as “feel.” Although considered a valued attribute of talented equestrians, little is known about riders’ understanding and experience of it. This study sought to investigate professional riders’ perceptions of feel. Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted online (6 female, 3 male, M = 49.38 ± 17.9 years) exploring the riders’: (1) understanding of the concept of feel; (2) recognition of feel in self and others; (3) perceived influential factors; and (4) perception of the horse’s role. Interviews were analyzed inductively using reflexive thematic analysis. Four key themes were generated from the data to represent the riders’ understanding and experience: (1) feel as an ideal (2) feel as a training tool, (3) feel as feedback from the horse, (4) feel as self-awareness. Feel is perceived as a multifaceted skill, with physical, cognitive, and emotional components, which is key to optimizing performance and equine welfare. Good feel is believed to distinguish exceptional riders and be a transcendent experience. However, it is regarded as difficult to teach. Riders emphasized the influence of their body and mind on the horse, and a need to appreciate horses’ communication and sentience and develop a reciprocal connection. Further investigation into riders’ experience of feel within the dyad is warranted.

Dynamic-Aware Network for Moving Object Detection

Moving object detection (MOD) plays an important role in many applications that aim to identify regions of interest in videos. However, most existing MOD methods ignore the variability brought by time-varying information. Additionally, many network frameworks primarily focus on low-level feature learning, neglecting the higher-level contextual understanding required for accurate detection. To solve the above issues, we propose a symmetric Dynamic-Aware Network (DAN) for MOD. DAN explores the interactions between different types of information via structural design and feature optimization. To locate the object position quickly, we build a Siamese convolutional network to emphasize changes in the scene. Subsequently, a Change-Aware Module (CAM) is designed, which can maximize the perception of object change cues by exploiting complementary depth-varying features and different levels of disparity information, thereby enhancing the feature discrimination capability of the network. Moreover, to reinforce the effective transfer between features, we devise a Motion-Attentive Selection Module (MASM) to construct an autonomous decoder for augmenting detail representation. Experimental results on benchmark datasets indicate the rationality and validity of the proposed approach.

Virtual reality games for spatial hearing training in children and young people with bilateral cochlear implants: the "Both Ears (BEARS)" approach.

Spatial hearing relies on the encoding of perceptual sound location cues in space. It is critical for communicating in background noise, and understanding where sounds are coming from (sound localization). Although there are some monoaural spatial hearing cues (i.e., from one ear), most of our spatial hearing skills require binaural hearing (i.e., from two ears). Cochlear implants (CIs) are often the most appropriate rehabilitation for individuals with severe-to-profound hearing loss, with those aged 18 years of age and younger typically receiving bilateral implants (one in each ear). As experience with bilateral hearing increases, individuals tend to improve their spatial hearing skills. Extensive research demonstrates that training can enhance sound localization, speech understanding in noise, and music perception. The BEARS (Both Ears) approach utilizes Virtual Reality (VR) games specifically designed for young people with bilateral CIs to train and improve spatial hearing skills. This paper outlines the BEARS approach by: (i) emphasizing the need for more robust and engaging rehabilitation techniques, (ii) presenting the BEARS logic model that underpins the intervention, and (iii) detailing the assessment tools that will be employed in a clinical trial to evaluate the effectiveness of BEARS in alignment with the logic model.

Perception of voice cues and speech-in-speech by children with prelingual single-sided deafness and a cochlear implant

Voice cues, such as fundamental frequency (F0) and vocal tract length (VTL), help listeners identify the speaker's gender, perceive the linguistic and emotional prosody, and segregate competing talkers. Postlingually implanted adult cochlear implant (CI) users seem to have difficulty in perceiving and making use of voice cues, especially of VTL. Early implanted child CI users, in contrast, perceive and make use of both voice cues better than CI adults, and in patterns similar to their peers with normal hearing (NH).In our study, we investigated the perception and use of voice cues in children with single-sided deafness (SSD) who received their CI at an early age (SSD+CI), in an attempt to bridge the gap between these two groups. The SSD+CI children have access to bilateral auditory information and often receive their CI at an early age, similar to CI children. They may also have dominant acoustic representations, similar to CI adults who acquired hearing loss at a later age. As such, the current study aimed to investigate the perception and use of voice cues by a group of nine early-implanted children with prelingual SSD. The study consisted of three experiments: F0 and VTL discrimination, voice gender categorization, and speech-in-speech perception. In each experiment, the results of the SSD group are compared to children and adults with CIs (for their CI ear) and with typical hearing (for their NH ear).Overall, the SSD+CI children had poorer VTL detection thresholds with their CI compared to their NH ear, while their F0 perception was similar across ears. Detection thresholds for both F0 and VTL with their CI ear was comparable to those of bilaterally implanted CI children, suggesting that SSD+CI children do not only rely on their NH ear, but actually make use of their CI. SSD+CI children relied more heavily on F0 cues than on VTL cues for voice gender categorization, with cue weighting patterns comparable to those of CI adults. In contrast to CI children, the SSD+CI children showed limited speech perception benefit based on F0 and VTL differences between the target and masker speaker, which again corresponded to the results of CI adults. Altogether, the SSD+CI children make good use of their CI, despite a good-hearing ear, however, the perceptual patterns seem to fall in-between those of CI children and CI adults. Perhaps a combination of childhood neuroplasticity, limited experience with relying only on the CI, and a dominant acoustic representation of voice gender explain these results.

The influence of dialect loss on tone perception: Diminishing voice quality cues in preserved tone contrast.

This study examines whether cue integration in tone perception undergoes changes caused by disparities in language experience among two groups of multidialectal speakers from Changsha: participants in the dialect-preserving group speak Changsha dialect (CD), Changsha Plastic Mandarin (CPM), and Standard Mandarin (SM), whereas participants in the dialect-lost group speak CPM and SM but not CD. An identification test on T1 and T4 was conducted, both of which are present in the CD and CPM. T1 and T4 are associated with a high pitch, but they differ in pitch height, pitch contour, and voice quality. In particular, T4 is associated with a tense voice quality. The results showed that F0 height is the primary cue for distinguishing T1 and T4 by both groups. Voice quality affects the perception of the dialect-preserving group, but it does not have an impact on the perception of the dialect-lost group. Alternatively, F0 contour plays a more important role in T1/T4 perception for the dialect-preserving group than for the dialect-lost group. This suggests that differences in language experience caused by dialect loss affect the use of F0 and voice quality cues in tone perception.

Perceptual Cue Weighting Matters in Real-Time Integration of Acoustic Information During Spoken Word Recognition.

This study investigates whether listeners' cue weighting predicts their real-time use of asynchronous acoustic information in spoken word recognition at both group and individual levels. By focusing on the time course of cue integration, we seek to distinguish between two theoretical views: the associated view (cue weighting is linked to cue integration strategy) and the independent view (no such relationship). The current study examines Seoul Korean listeners' (n = 62) weighting of voice onset time (VOT, available earlier in time) and onset fundamental frequency of the following vowel (F0, available later in time) when perceiving Korean stop contrasts (Experiment 1: cue-weighting perception task) and the timing of VOT integration when recognizing Korean words that begin with a stop (Experiment 2: visual-world eye-tracking task). The group-level results reveal that the timing of the early cue (VOT) integration is delayed when the later cue (F0) serves as the primary cue to process the stop contrast, supporting a relationship between cue weighting and the timing of cue integration (the associated view). At the individual level, listeners with greater reliance on F0 than VOT exhibited a further delayed integration of VOT. These findings suggest that the real-time processing of asynchronously occurring acoustic cues for lexical activation is modulated by the weight that listeners assign to those cues, providing evidence for the associated view of cue integration. This study offers insights into the mechanisms of cue integration and spoken word recognition, and they shed light on variability in cue integration strategies among listeners.

Temporal cue based categorization and speech perception in noise among pediatric cochlear implant users

ObjectivesVoice onset time (VOT) has been identified as a potential temporal cue for predicting children's performance in speech-in-noise tasks, yet the relationship between these two factors has never been explored among children using CI. Hence, the present study aimed to explore the performance of children using CI on temporal cue-based syllable categorization test and speech perception in noise and examine the relationship between the two. MethodsTemporal cue-based syllable categorization test was developed with the manipulation of /ba/ sound in 10 steps continuum with VOT varied between −74 ms to 26 ms. The developed test and revised speech in noise for Marathi-speaking children (0 and 5 dB SNR) were administered to thirty children with unilateral cochlear implant and thirty children with normal hearing, aged between 5 to 7 years. ResultsThe Mann-Whitney U test showed significant differences between groups in temporal cue-based categorization and speech in noise tests at 0 dB and 5 dB SNR. Kendall Tau B revealed a moderate correlation between implant age and scores on the temporal cue-based categorization and speech in noise tests at 0 dB SNR, with a strong correlation at 5 dB SNR. Additionally, there was a significant moderate relationship between temporal cue-based categorization and speech in noise test scores at both 0 dB and 5 dB SNR. ConclusionThe present study highlights the importance of temporal cues in speech perception and the need for temporal processing for children using cochlear implants. It reinforces the evidence that speech perception skills improve with implant age.

Visual cues for moisture perception of facial skin: Enhancing high-frequency components of skin lightness increases perceived dryness

Visual cues for moisture perception of facial skin: Enhancing high-frequency components of skin lightness increases perceived dryness

Changes in Male Behavior in Response to Female Chemical Stimulus in an Understudied Arthropod Model

ABSTRACTIntraspecific sexual communication, crucial in reproductive interactions, often involves the interchange of signals like vibrations, visual signals, and chemical compounds like sex chemical cues. Within the arachnids, solifuges (“camel spiders”) are an understudied group in terms of the detection of chemical compounds during mate searching and sexual interactions. In solifugids, the malleoli, chemoreceptor structures located on the ventral side of legs IV, are putative structures capable of capturing chemical signals. Our study focused on chemical male perception of female cues in Titanopuga salinarum (Ammotrechidae), examining associated behavioral modifications and the role of malleoli. We analyzed alterations in the motion pattern (activity pulse) and specific behaviors performed by males in association with female chemical stimuli. Using experimental arenas, we exposed males to female chemical cues stimuli similar to those available at the field. Stimuli comprised females (F) and cuticular extracts (CE), with corresponding controls. Males with intact malleoli (N = 26 with F, N = 20 with CE) were compared to those with malleoli removed (N = 21 with F, N = 17 with CE). We found partial evidence that males detect chemical cues of females deposited on the substrate. We observed no differences in the duration and number of the activity pulses spent in the zones with and without stimuli in any of the groups analyzed. However, the males exhibit significant changes in locomotion patterns in response to female chemical cues, suggesting a behavioral response to these stimuli. This finding suggests that the males of this species detect the female chemical cues and modify their behavior, and can quickly gather the necessary olfactory information where the stimulus is located. In addition, we found a possible condition‐dependent regime for the detection of female cues by males, which would be expected from life‐history characteristics of T. salinarum. Our findings prompt discussion from a sexual selection perspective, suggesting the importance of chemical communication in intraspecific interactions in this elusive but fascinating animal model.

Mapping the spectrotemporal regions influencing perception of French stop consonants in noise

Understanding how speech sounds are decoded into linguistic units has been a central research challenge over the last century. This study follows a reverse-correlation approach to reveal the acoustic cues listeners use to categorize French stop consonants in noise. Compared to previous methods, this approach ensures an unprecedented level of detail with only minimal theoretical assumptions. Thirty-two participants performed a speech-in-noise discrimination task based on natural /aCa/ utterances, with C = /b/, /d/, /g/, /p/, /t/, or /k/. The trial-by-trial analysis of their confusions enabled us to map the spectrotemporal information they relied on for their decisions. In place-of-articulation contrasts, the results confirmed the critical role of formant consonant-vowel transitions, used by all participants, and, to a lesser extent, vowel-consonant transitions and high-frequency release bursts. Similarly, for voicing contrasts, we validated the prominent role of the voicing bar cue, with some participants also using formant transitions and burst cues. This approach revealed that most listeners use a combination of several cues for each task, with significant variability within the participant group. These insights shed new light on decades-old debates regarding the relative importance of cues for phoneme perception and suggest that research on acoustic cues should not overlook individual variability in speech perception.

Breathy Vocal Quality, Background Noise, and Hearing Loss: How Do These Adverse Conditions Affect Speech Perception by Older Adults?

Although breathy vocal quality and hearing loss are both prevalent age-related changes, their combined impact on speech communication is poorly understood. This study investigated whether breathy vocal quality affected speech perception and listening effort by older listeners. Furthermore, the study examined how this effect was modulated by the adverse listening environment of background noise and the listener's level of hearing loss. Nineteen older adults participated in the study. Their hearing ranged from near-normal to mild-moderate sensorineural hearing loss. Participants heard speech material of low-context sentences, with stimuli resynthesized to simulate original, mild-moderately breathy, and severely breathy conditions. Speech intelligibility was measured using a speech recognition in noise paradigm, with pupillometry data collected simultaneously to measure listening effort. Simulated severely breathy vocal quality was found to reduce intelligibility and increase listening effort. Breathiness and background noise level independently modulated listening effort. The impact of hearing loss was not observed in this dataset, which can be due to the use of individualized signal to noise ratios and a small sample size. Results from this study demonstrate the challenges of listening to speech with a breathy vocal quality. Theoretically, the findings highlight the importance of periodicity cues in speech perception in noise by older listeners. Breathy voice could be challenging to separate from the noise when the noise also lacks periodicity. Clinically, it suggests the need to address both listener- and talker-related factors in speech communication by older adults.

Investigating the relationship between subjective perception and unconscious feature integration.

Visual features need to be temporally integrated to detect motion signals and solve the many ill-posed problems of vision. It has previously been shown that such integration occurs in windows of unconscious processing of up to 450 milliseconds. However, whether features are integrated should be governed by perceptually meaningful mechanisms. Here, we expand on previous findings suggesting that subjective perception and integration may be linked. Specifically, different observers were found to group elements differently and to exhibit corresponding feature integration behavior. If the former were to influence the latter, perception would appear to not only be the outcome of integration but to potentially also be part of it. To test any such linkages more systematically, we here examined the role of one of the key perceptual grouping cues, color similarity, in the Sequential Metacontrast Paradigm (SQM). In the SQM, participants are presented with two streams of lines that are expanding from the center outwards. If several lines in the attended motion stream are offset, offsets integrate unconsciously and mandatorily for periods of up to 450 milliseconds. Across three experiments, we presented lines of varied colors. Our results reveal that individuals who perceive differently colored lines as "popping out" from the motion stream do not exhibit mandatory integration but that individuals who perceive such lines as part of an integrated motion stream do show offset integration behavior across the entire stream. These results attest to the proposed linkage between subjective perception and integration behavior in the SQM.

On the relative weight of pitch and durational cues in the perception of accentuation by French listeners.

Accentuation is encoded by both durational and pitch cues in French. While previous research agrees that the sole presence of pitch cues is sufficient to encode accentuation in French, the role of durational cues is less clear. In four cue-weighting accent perception experiments, we examined the role of pitch and durational cues in French listeners' perception of accentuation. French listeners were tested on acoustic continua ranging from an unaccented first syllable [depla'se] "moved" to an accented first syllable ['de] [pla'se] "a dice placed." The continua were obtained by manipulating pitch and durational cues either separately or conjointly. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants identified each step of the continuum by choosing between two possible segmentations while in Experiments 3 and 4, participants performed an AX discrimination task on two adjacent steps. Results indicate that participants' performance was better when pitch cues were varied compared to when durational cues were varied in both the identification and discrimination tasks. In addition, while participants always benefited from the additional presence of pitch cues, participants did not consistently benefit from the additional presence of durational cues. Together, these results suggest that pitch cues are a better marker of French accentuation than durational cues.

From Avatars to Agents: Self-Related Cues Through Embodiment and Personalization Affect Body Perception in Virtual Reality.

Our work investigates the influence of self-related cues in the design of virtual humans on body perception in virtual reality. In a $2\times 2$ mixed design, 64 participants faced photorealistic virtual humans either as a motion-synchronized embodied avatar or as an autonomous moving agent, appearing subsequently with a personalized and generic texture. Our results unveil that self-related cues through embodiment and personalization yield an individual and complemented increase in participants' sense of embodiment and self-identification towards the virtual human. Different body weight modification and estimation tasks further showed an impact of both factors on participants' body weight perception. Additional analyses revealed that the participant's body mass index predicted body weight estimations in all conditions and that participants' self-esteem and body shape concerns correlated with different body weight perception results. Hence, we have demonstrated the occurrence of double standards through induced self-related cues in virtual human perception, especially through embodiment.

Effect of self-movement on visually directed throwing: Implications for distance perception

ABSTRACT This study investigated how running on a treadmill influences the accuracy of throwing a ball to a hoop. Based upon previous research carried out in an open field that demonstrates that targets are perceived further away when running on a treadmill compared to when standing, we examined if this effect persisted in a visually directed throwing task. Fourteen athletes with normal or corrected vision participated. In Experiment 1, participants made indirect distance estimates of targets at 6 m, showing larger estimates while running. In Experiment 2, participants performed a throwing task, aiming to throw balls into a hoop while running or standing on a treadmill. The results showed that running on a treadmill influenced distance estimation, leading to larger throws. These findings suggest that the perception of distance is a process that relies on perceptual cues and sensorimotor feedback.

Category-dependent contribution of dog facial and bodily cues in human perception of dog emotions

The increasing popularity of human-dog interaction in our society calls for fuller understanding of humans’ ability to appraise dogs’ affective states, yet most research only focuses on recognizing dog facial expressions of primary/basic emotions. While the face is the dominant human emotional expression channel, bodily cues are also informative indicators of dog emotional states. In this online study, with dynamic and naturalistic videos depicting a common range of dog primary (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise) and secondary emotions (appeasement, frustration, pain, positive anticipation, separation-distress), we compared human performance from 447 participants in categorizing dog facial expressions (with a visible dog face only) and bodily expressions (with a visible dog face and body). The analysis revealed when averaging across all tested emotions, bodily expression tended to attract higher categorization accuracy than facial expression. However, the two expression channels demonstrated category-dependent modification of dog emotion categorization accuracy (e.g., higher accuracy in recognizing facial expressions of anger and surprise, but bodily expressions of happiness and fear) and bias (e.g., mistaking fear facial expression as happiness, but fear bodily expression as sadness). Furthermore, the impact of owner experience on recognizing dog emotions was also modulated by the expression channel and emotion category (e.g., prolonged experience with dogs tended to improve performance in recognizing the fear facial expression, and the appeasement bodily expression). Taken together, these results suggest that different channels of emotional expression by dogs may transmit category-specific diagnostic emotional cues, which aid human appraisal of their affective states.

Processing of prosodic cues of uncertainty in autistic and non-autistic adults: a study based on articulatory speech synthesis.

We investigated the prosodic perception of uncertainty cues in adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) compared to neurotypical adults (NTC). We used articulatory synthetic speech to express uncertainty in a human-machine scenario by varying the three acoustic cues pause, intonation, and hesitation. Twenty-eight adults with ASD and 28 NTC adults rated each answer for uncertainty, naturalness, and comprehensibility. Both groups reliably perceived different levels of uncertainty. Stimuli were rated as less uncertain by the ASD group, but not significantly. Only when we pooled the recipients' ratings for all three cues, did we find a significant group difference. In terms of reaction time, we observed longer reaction times in the ASD group compared to the neurotypical comparison group for the uncertainty level hesitation & strong intonation, but the differences were not significant after Bonferroni correction. Furthermore, our results showed a significant group difference between the correlation of uncertainty and naturalness, i.e. the correlation in the ASD group is significantly lower than in the NTC group. Obtained effect size estimates can inform sample size calculations in future studies for the reliable identification of group differences. In future work, we would like to further investigate the interaction of all three cues and uncertainty perception. It would be interesting to further vary the duration of the pause and also to use different types of fillers. From a developmental perspective, uncertainty perception should also be investigated in children and adolescents with ASD.

Temporal speech cue perception in listeners with cochlear implants depends on the time between those cues and previous sound energy.

Cochlear implants (CIs) provide precise temporal information that listeners use to understand speech. Other acoustic cues are not conveyed as precisely, making unambiguous temporal speech cues vital to a listener's ability to understand speech. Several speech sounds are differentiated by small differences in the timing of acoustic features. Previous studies have shown differences in the perception of these differences, depending on whether the speech sound was heard in a single word or embedded in a sentence. This study expands on previous research by exploring forward masking as a possible contributor to the mechanisms driving the effects observed when temporal cues were embedded in sentences. Listeners using CIs performed a phoneme categorization task on words from four continua that each varied mainly on a single temporal dimension. The differentiating phonemes were located at the beginning of the word in two continua and at the end of the word in two others. Silent intervals of 0, 25, 50, 75, and 100 ms between the preceding sentence and the target words were tested. Results showed an increasing effect on performance as the inter-stimulus interval duration decreased for the two word-initial phonemic contrasts, lending support to forward masking as an influence on speech understanding.

Taxonomic and functional diversity of foliage‐dwelling ants in conventional and organic agroecosystems in southern Brazil: A landscape perspective

Abstract In modern landscapes, understanding how land use and land cover, specifically agriculture, affect biodiversity and ecological functions is essential for conservation. According to Brazilian law, agroecosystems must include areas designated for biodiversity conservation called Legal Reserves. We evaluated the taxonomic and functional diversity of foliage‐dwelling ants in Legal Reserves of agroecosystems in the south of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. We aimed to understand how land use and land cover at different landscape scales affect the ant fauna. We sampled ant communities in organic and conventional agroecosystems using passive and active sampling methods (arboreal pitfall traps and active sample, respectively). For the analysis of functional diversity, we measured morphological attributes related to the ecological strategies of ants, such as perception of visual cues, foraging and resource acquisition. We characterized the landscape by visual interpretation of high‐resolution satellite imagery within a 100 m, 500 m and 1 km radius of the sampling areas. We did not identify any effects of cultivation systems on ant fauna. However, we found that landscape characteristics, such as the proportion of natural forest within 100 m, positively affected functional richness. Additionally, within 500 m, natural forest coverage, along with the proportion of cultivation, positively influenced ant incidence. We emphasize the function of Legal Reserves around farms, of serving as support to maintain the presence of ants and the diversity of ecological functions performed by these organisms. We also emphasize that new studies in the region should investigate how a higher homogenization of cultures and cultivation systems, including other phyto‐physiognomies, influence the myrmecofauna of these environments.

Temporal dynamics of coarticulatory cues to prediction.

The temporal dynamics of the perception of within-word coarticulatory cues remain a subject of ongoing debate in speech perception research. This behavioral gating study sheds light on the unfolding predictive use of anticipatory coarticulation in onset fricatives. Word onset fricatives (/f/ and /s/) were split into four gates (15, 35, 75 and 135 milliseconds). Listeners made a forced choice about the word they were listening to, based on the stimulus gates. The results showed fast predictive use of coarticulatory lip rounding during /s/ word onsets, as early as 15 ms from word onset. For /f/ onsets, coarticulatory backness and height began to be used predictively after 75 ms. These findings indicate that onset times of the occurrence and use of coarticulatory cues can be extremely fast and have a time course that differs depending on fricative type.