Perceptual Tendencies Research Articles

Effects of phonemic variability and language dominance on Canadian French-English bilinguals’ perception of French vowels in various phonological contexts

Phonemic variability can cause productions within a category of one language to be mapped onto multiple categories in a different language [Escudero (2009)]. For example, French productions of /ε/ are labeled both as /e/ and /ε/ by monolingual English listeners, likely due to spectral variability in production of French /ε/ [Strange et al. (2009)]. The present study examines how phonemic variability in Canadian French (CF) affects the perceptual tendencies of bilingual Canadian French-English listeners with varying levels of language dominance. Vowel productions by monolingual CF speakers were used in a modified identification task [Law (2011)]. The vowels were word-final in several phonological contexts (preceded by labial, coronal, and back consonants; followed by labial and coronal consonants) in real and nonwords embedded in carrier phrases. A subset of these vowels /e-ε-i-y/ was analyzed for duration, vocalic midpoint, and formant trajectories to examine the relationship between phonemic variation (as a function of phonological environment) and the perception results by bilinguals dominant in either CF or Canadian English (CE). We predict that the performance of CE-dominant listeners will vary in terms of speed and accuracy based on how similar each token is to CE vowel category expectations.

A processing advantage associated with analytic perceptual tendencies: European Americans outperform Asians on multiple object tracking

Analytic visual processing and holistic visual processing have been conceptualized in terms of attention to focal objects vs. the background. We expand the study of perceptual biases associated with these attentional patterns using the multiple object tracking task, which measures people's ability to track multiple moving target objects amidst otherwise identical distractors. We test two competing hypotheses: (1) Asians' more frequent eye saccades will enable them to quickly cycle through the multiple target objects before the objects move too far away, giving them another perceptual advantage; and (2) European Americans' tendency to focus attention on the focal objects while inhibiting attention to less important objects might facilitate tracking of multiple moving objects. We find that European Americans significantly outperform Asians on multiple object tracking. The research expands the conceptualization of analytic processing and holistic processing to include selective attention as a key component, a facet that has not been previously identified.

Voicing Nature in John Luther Adams's The Place Where You Go to Listen

John Luther Adams's The Place Where You Go to Listen (2006), a permanent sound-and-light installation at the Museum of the North in Fairbanks, Alaska, resonates strongly with the geography and ecology of the composer's place of residence. The audiovisual experience is generated through a computer programme that translates real-time data streams from geophysical events into sound and colour signals. The Place functions as an artistic mirror, absorbing data from natural phenomena and reflecting it back to the listener in a deliberately allusive way. As a result, those present are invited to raise their awareness to the ‘unheard vibrations’ of the natural world.Upon entering the installation, the listener perceives an ongoing, harmonically dense hum. Through immersion, he or she notices change in both the location from which sounds project and the properties of audio and visual signals. Drawing on information theory, this article investigates the process whereby Adams renders scientific data into an audiovisual presentation as well as the role the composer and audience play in attributing meaning to this environmentally driven work. By examining the communicative layers of the installation and exploring the perceptual tendencies of the listener, we can better understand how The Place raises environmental awareness.

Brain activation during audiovisual exposure anticipates future perception of ambiguous speech

In modern perceptual neuroscience, the focus of interest has shifted from a restriction to individual modalities to an acknowledgement of the importance of multisensory processing. One particularly well-known example of cross-modal interaction is the McGurk illusion. It has been shown that this illusion can be modified, such that it creates an auditory perceptual bias that lasts beyond the duration of audiovisual stimulation, a process referred to as cross-modal recalibration (Bertelson et al., 2003). Recently, we have suggested that this perceptual bias is stored in auditory cortex, by demonstrating the feasibility of retrieving the subjective perceptual interpretation of recalibrated ambiguous phonemes from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) measurements in these regions (Kilian-Hütten et al., 2011). However, this does not explain which brain areas integrate the information from the two senses and represent the origin of the auditory perceptual bias. Here we analyzed fMRI data from audiovisual recalibration blocks, utilizing behavioral data from perceptual classifications of ambiguous auditory phonemes that followed these blocks later in time. Adhering to this logic, we could identify a network of brain areas (bilateral inferior parietal lobe [IPL], inferior frontal sulcus [IFS], and posterior middle temporal gyrus [MTG]), whose activation during audiovisual exposure anticipated auditory perceptual tendencies later in time. We propose a model in which a higher-order network, including IPL and IFS, accommodates audiovisual integrative learning processes, which are responsible for the installation of a perceptual bias in auditory regions. This bias then determines constructive perceptual processing.

Empathy, Intimacy, Attention, and Meditation: An Introduction

Empathy, Intimacy, Attention, and Meditation:An Introduction Sandra Costen Kunz On October 31, 2008, at the American Academy of Religion's annual meeting, the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies sponsored a well-attended afternoon session titled "Cognitive Science, Religious Practices, and Human Development: Buddhist and Christian Perspectives." This issue of Buddhist-Christian Studies contains three of the papers presented: Wesley J. Wildman's "Cognitive Error and Contemplative Practices: The Cultivation of Discernment in Mind and Heart," Noreen Herzfeld's "'Your Cell Will Teach You Everything': Old Wisdom, Modern Science, and the Art of Attention," and Robert Aitken's "'Who Hears?' A Zen Buddhist Perspective." Each paper addresses in some way the connections between meditation and accurate perception. Wildman traces how cognitive errors rooted in innate perceptual biases give rise to mistaken beliefs and self-defeating behaviors. He highlights various ways religious practices both promote and ameliorate common cognitive errors. He claims some meditation practices are particularly effective in amelioration. While Wildman's paper gives detailed attention to various types of cognitive errors and ways to curb them, Herzfeld's and Aitken's papers have, in some ways, a broader focus. Both include material that suggests that meditation can clear, sharpen, and steady the overall perceptual lens though which humans interpret and construct all of their relationships. (Most contemporary neuroscience assumes that "what" is perceived is the relationship between the perceiver and the "object" of perception.) Herzfeld cites research suggesting that "empathy" is one socially beneficial characteristic of the "focused, close attention" developed by the solitary meditation practices of the Christian Desert Fathers. Aitken claims that Zen practice develops the attentiveness needed to perceive the "intimacy" between the perceiver and what is perceived. I suspect that the neurophysiology of attention behind Herzfeld's "empathy" and Aitken's "intimacy" is profoundly similar. Aitken, comparing Zen's emphasis on experiencing intimacy with Tibetan Buddhism's emphasis on developing compassion, points out that "Compassion by etymology is 'suffering with others'—the realization of social intimacy." "Compassion" is derived from Latin, while Herzfeld's [End Page 55] "empathy" is derived from Greek. Both express the "suffering with others" Aitken identifies with social intimacy. I will first review the ways each paper connects attention-based perception with meditation, and then consider more carefully the common ground shared by Herzfeld's "empathy" and Aitken's "intimacy," suggesting it may lie (in part) in ways socially activist Christian and Zen traditions have drawn upon the cosmological assumptions embedded in the core texts of Zen and Christian traditions. I will close by proposing a topic for further study based on Wildman's claim that religious traditions have fostered a wider variety of meditation practices that have broader benefits than secular meditation programs that teach "nonreligious" adaptations of religious practices. A Review of the Three Papers Wildman teaches theology, philosophy, and religion and directs a PhD program in science, philosophy, and religion. His paper reviews seven types of cognitive errors grounded in neurologically based "cognitive and perceptual tendencies." While in life-threatening situations these tendencies can aid survival, they do so at the cost of day-to-day "mistaken beliefs" and "self-defeating behavior." Drawing on Thomas Gilovich's typology, Wildman reviews three types of errors based in pattern recognition skills gone awry, three types based in "social and motivational" factors, and then adds a seventh type: "self-defeating behaviors." He next reviews five potentials for detecting and ameliorating such errors and explores how three "techniques for mitigating cognitive error"—meditation practices, psychotherapy, and rigorous intellectual training—draw on these five potentials. Citing Jean Kristeller's multidomain model of meditation effects, Wildman notes the "significant empirical evidence" in "relevant research studies" that various meditation practices can mitigate a variety of cognitive errors. He reviews research that suggests that neuroplasticity (the potential for structural brain change that affects function) is a lifelong possibility, including studies by Richard Davidson, Antoine Lutz, and others involved in the Mind and Life Institute's efforts to demonstrate the brain-changing effects of Buddhist meditation. Wildman cautions: "The longitudinal studies of meditation needed to settle the question of whether meditation produces neurologically detectable changes in brain structure or function are only just now under way." But...

Independent Age Cues for Infancy and Older Age in One Face: Evidence for Rivalry in Age Perception

Participants estimated the ages of infants, teens, and adults in their 20s and 60s, using averaged facial images, as well as digitally transformed images of two different age groups. Since a blended face has intermediate features of the component faces, age of the combined faces was hypothesized to be perceived as the mean age of the component faces. However, the perceived age was underestimated when the transformed face included an infant, but overestimated when the face included a person in their 60s. From this one may infer the faces of infants and adults in their 60s have strong age cues. The estimated ages for blended images of infants and adults in their 60s showed a clear bipolar distribution, with one peak at 5-9 years and the other at 50-54 years. Analysis of individual variation showed that the different response to infants-60s faces was related to variations in sensitivity to 60s faces, not to a general perceptual tendency or confused responses to ambiguous appearing faces. Thus, cues for infancy and older age are qualitatively independent and can co-exist in one face, yielding a rivalry in age perception.

Perception of coarticulated speech with contrastively enhanced spectrotemporal patterns

High-level contrastive mechanisms cause perception of auditory events to be influenced by spectral and temporal properties of surrounding acoustic context, and may play a role in perceptual compensation for coarticulation in human speech. However, it is unknown whether auditory contrast is incorporated optimally to compensate for different speakers, languages and situations or whether amplification of the processes involved would provide additional benefit, for example, in the perception of hypoarticulated speech, under adverse listening conditions, or in an incompletely acquired language. This study examines effects of artificial contrastive modification of spectrotemporal trajectories on the intelligibility of connected speech in noise by native and non-native listeners. Adopting methods known to improve automatic classification of speech sounds, we model contrast-providing context as an averaged estimated vocal tract function (LPC-derived log area ratio coefficient vector) over a Gaussian-weighted temporal window. Local coefficient values are adjusted from this context based on previously observed contrastive perceptual tendencies, and the intelligibility of the resulting speech is compared with that of unmodified trajectories across listener language backgrounds. Results are discussed with respect to implementation and applicability of general auditory processes.

Baby arithmetic: one object plus one tone

Recent studies using a violation-of-expectation task suggest that preverbal infants are capable of recognizing basic arithmetical operations involving visual objects. There is still debate, however, over whether their performance is based on any expectation of the arithmetical operations, or on a general perceptual tendency to prefer visually familiar and complex displays. Here we provide new evidence that 5-month-old infants recognize basic arithmetic operations across sensory modalities. Using a violation-of-expectation task that eliminated the possibility of the familiarity and complexity preference, 5-month-old infants were presented alternatively with two types of arithmetical events: the expected, correct outcomes of operations (1 object+1 tone=2 objects and 1 object+2 tones=3 objects) and the unexpected, incorrect ones (1 object+2 tones=2 objects and 1 object+1 tone=3 objects). Results showed that subjects looked significantly longer at the unexpected events than at the expected events, suggesting that infants are able to recognize basic arithmetic operations across sensory modalities.

Perceptual constancy in judgments of egocentric distance: prevailing binocular information

Binocular cues were considered the prevailing information on specifying depth since the beginning of vision research. In the present study, two perceptual responses, the classical verbal report and a more recent method, open-loop walking, were used to assess the role of binocular information for egocentric distance perception. In two cue conditions environments, full- and reduced-cue, observers judged and walked egocentric distances of stimuli presented at eye-level, under binocular or monocular viewing. Results indicated perceptual constancy for open-loop walking and binocular responses, as well as poor performances under strong degradation on visual information (reduced-cue under monocular viewing), thus presenting evidence to support the fundamental role of binocular information on perception of egocentric distances. Besides that, visually directed actions could be adequate measures of perceived distance, with a better reliability than verbal report, since they were quite free of intrusion of inferential processes and perceptual tendencies. In addition, reduced head movements, side-to-side as well as back and forth deflexion movements, could have contributed to a near perfect coupling between binocular disparity information and open-loop walking responses.

Practitioners’ impressions of patients with Parkinson's disease: the social ecology of the expressive mask

The expressive mask of Parkinson's disease, a reduced spontaneity, intensity, and fluidity of facial, bodily, and vocal expression, jeopardizes interpersonal interaction and quality of life. Observers have difficulty perceiving the “real” person behind the mask, leading to failed communication and misunderstanding. A social ecological explanation of this difficulty is that observers have learned in their daily social lives, and quite appropriately so, that expressive behavior reveals meaningful information about character. The premise of this study was that health practitioners, especially novices, would bring into the clinic their everyday perceptual tendencies related to deciphering character. The study examined novice and expert practitioners’ impressions of the personality of patients with Parkinson's disease who were videotaped during a healthcare interview. It was found that practitioners, especially novices, appeared to be overly sensitive to expressive masking when forming impressions about patient extraversion. They incorrectly perceived patients with more masking to be less extraverted than patients with less masking. Novice practitioners were particularly inaccurate in their impressions of neuroticism compared to experts. Novices incorrectly perceived patients with more masking as being more neurotic, whereas experts tended to be sensitive to valid cues of neuroticism. Practitioners’ impressions of patient conscientiousness were not sensitive to masking and were highly accurate.

The perception of minimal structures: performance on open and closed versions of visually presented Euclidean travelling salesperson problems.

The planar Euclidean version of the travelling salesperson problem (TSP) requires finding a tour of minimal length through a two-dimensional set of nodes. Despite the computational intractability of the TSP, people can produce rapid, near-optimal solutions to visually presented versions of such problems. To explain this, MacGregor et al (1999, Perception 28 1417-1428) have suggested that people use a global-to-local process, based on a perceptual tendency to organise stimuli into convex figures. We review the evidence for this idea and propose an alternative, local-to-global hypothesis, based on the detection of least distances between the nodes in an array. We present the results of an experiment in which we examined the relationships between three objective measures and performance measures of optimality and response uncertainty in tasks requiring participants to construct a closed tour or an open path. The data are not well accounted for by a process based on the convex hull. In contrast, results are generally consistent with a locally focused process based initially on the detection of nearest-neighbour clusters. Individual differences are interpreted in terms of a hierarchical process of constructing solutions, and the findings are related to a more general analysis of the role of nearest neighbours in the perception of structure and motion.

Visual perception as constructions of object relations An account from the analysis of a “visual” woman

The focus of this paper is on how the visual perception of an analysand reflects central inner object relations. The article raises the question of how to understand the analysand's visual perception. Is it merely projections of content? Of form? Or is it ingrained in the whole personality, and in that respect revealing a mode of functioning which spreads out to cognitive as well as emotional areas? In the analysand's visual constructions, figure- ground perception seems to be closely related to the process of separation and individuation. The shadow perception seems to be related to loss. As products of mentalisation, these perceptual tendencies seem to bind the affect at the level of imagery, which is a higher level of psychic transformation than somatic or motor activity, but lower than verbalisation.

Nasalization of Vowels in Nasal Environments in Babbling: Evidence for Frame Dominance

An emerging concept for the characterization of the form of babbling and early speech is ‘frame dominance’: most of the variance arises from a frame provided by open-close mandibular oscillation. In contrast, the tongue – the most versatile articulator in adults – plays only a minor role in intersegmental and even intersyllabic changes. The contribution of another articulator – the soft palate – to time-domain changes in babbling was evaluated in an acoustic analysis of 433 consonant-vowel-consonant sequences produced by 3 infants. Strong nasal effects on vowels in symmetrical consonantal environment were observed in the form of a lower frequency first formant region in low vowels and a lower frequency second formant region in front vowels. These results, the first of which also occurs in adults, were complemented by perceptual tendencies for transcribers to transcribe more mid vowels relative to low vowels and more central vowels relative to front vowels in nasal environments. Thus the soft palate is like the tongue in making only minor contributions to time-domain changes in babbling, and this is considered to be additional evidence for the frame dominance conception.

Looking for a worldview: Perceptual practice in an ecological age.

Abstract Perceptual tendencies conditioned by western values emphasize object identification. This implies separatist modes of perception and consciousness which, from an ecopsychological perspective, are at the root of the ecological crisis. Alternatively, I suggest developing a way of seeing that encourages the perception of relationships. I also propose a new psychology of vision which acknowledges that vision changes. Neurophysiological research suggests that alterations in visual system structure and function require attention. This implies refocusing our attention on relationships in order to facilitate a relational worldview. Ultimately, I am proposing a hermeneutics of perception, in which mindful participation in the act of perceiving changes our worldview.

Computation and semiotic practice as compositional process

In sound computation, computational processes are brought into the acoustic domain by a set of formalized instructions for controlling parameters in synthesis engines and compositional algorithms. From the acoustic events, listeners often extract patterns or “musical objects” in their perception to the extent that certain associations are made external to the computational process. Perceived, musical objects rapidly become immutable, and that immutability may be considered a compositional problem. The problem is how to approach a compositional project for bringing new insights into play while, on one side, using the existing representational system such as symbolic language in computation, and on the other side, facing listeners' perceptual tendency to make external associations. For composers, the problem requires technical solutions as well as an ability to articulate the philosophical issues. This problem also exists in semiotics , a general study of signs, when one has to borrow language from existing linguistic systems in order to express a new thought without being trapped within the immutability of given linguistic sources. Semiotic practice is a discipline which emphasizes the function of semiotics to generate necessary discourse to examine the linguistic system in use and its logocentric tendency—the tendency towards known signs. We define semiotic practice as a signifying process in which meaning may be generated during that particular process under study; thus, meaning in semiotic practice is temporal context-dependent as a function of signifiers. The compositional problems involving sound computation for generating cases to support semiotic practice inquires about two tasks: 1. (1) how to design software which enables acoustic events to be observed as processes rather than observing sounds only as familiar objects or transformations featuring the recognition of objects, and 2. (2) how to compose a piece of music so mutability of signs can be observed. To meet these problems, this paper examines perspectives on systems and cognition from multiple views such as semiotics, computation theories, and synergetics. We also discuss software designed for composition in terms of semiotic practice.

Song Perception in the Song Sparrow: Importance of Different Parts of the Song in Song Type Classification

AbstractSong sparrow (Melospiza melodia) males have repertoires of 6 to 12 song types, each song consisting of four or five contrasting phrases. Song types vary both within individuals (a singer varies successive renditions of a type within a singing bout) and between individuals (neighbors sing slightly different versions of a type), and in both cases this variation is concentrated in the later parts of the song. We speculated that type variation in the later parts of the song might be correlated with a perceptual tendency to classify song types primarily on the basis of the earlier parts of the song. We tested this hypothesis using a laboratory conditioning technique, supplemented by a field playback experiment. In the lab, song sparrows and white crowned sparrows were trained to discriminate between two distinct song types. In test sessions, they were presented with hybrid songs synthesized from varying proportions of the two training song types. For most birds and most song pairs, song classification was influenced by all parts of the song, with the beginning elements being most important. The field playback experiment used song type matching as the response measure. Each subject was presented a hybrid stimulus song consisting of the first half of one of his song types and the second half of another of his song types. Subjects replied with both ‘front matches’ and ‘back matches’ (60% were front matches).

Tokenism Reconsidered: Male Nurses and Female Physicians in a Hospital Setting

This paper examines haw gender as a status characteristic interacts with the effects of tokenism in two occupations. Data were gathered by observation and interviewing at two hospitals, each having both male nurses and female physicians. On the basis of expectation states theory, we hypothesized that the occupational advancement of males would be aided, rather than hindered, by the perceptual tendencies arising from tokenism. Our findings indicate gender does interact with tokenism, resulting in more positive outcomes for men and more negative outcomes for women. However, we found that in any particular situation the importance of tokenism, and its interactions with gender, will vary depending on several organizational and occupational factors we identify.

Tokenism Reconsidered: Male Nurses and Female Physicians in a Hospital Setting

This paper examines how gender as a status characteristic interacts with the effects of tokenism in two occupations. Data were gathered by observation and interviewing at two hospitals, each having both male nurses and female physicians. On the basis of expectation states theory, we hypothesized that the occupational advancement of males would be aided, rather than hindered, by the perceptual tendencies arising from tokenism. Our findings indicate gender does interact with tokenism, resulting in more positive outcomes for men and more negative outcomes for women. However, we found that in any particular situation the importance of tokenism, and its interactions with gender, will vary depending on several organizational and occupational factors ze identify. Although occupational segregation by sex is still widespread in the United States, there has been an increase in the number of women in tradition

Systematic Changes in Perceptual Reactance Induced by Physical Fitness Training

The effect of life-change events on perceptual augmentation-reduction was studied in 72 subjects (40 men, 32 women). In three experiments the kinesthetic figural aftereffect was measured prior to and after either a physical fitness program, a course in yoga, or training in Transcendental Meditation. Each program lasted a minimum of 8 wk. Subjects completing fitness training, all of whom were initially classified as augmenters, became reducers by the end of their program. Subjects enrolled in yoga and meditation courses remained relatively stable in their perceptual tendencies.

Scalar perceptions of distance in a multiobject binocular display

Even in the absence of the usual cues to egocentric distance, a single visual object tends to be seen at an “egocentric reference distance” as a combined result of a perceptual tendency and the residual oculomotor cues. It has previously been shown that two objects, separated in depth by relative cues, tend to be seen with the far object located near this reference distance and the near object displaced toward the observer. The present research demonstrates that a similar perceptual positioning of a depth configuration will also occur despite the presence of several intermediate objects in the interval between the near and far objects. The possibility that fixation patterns may be important to this phenomenon is discussed.