Perceptual Research Articles

Carl Jung: a life on the edge of reality with hypnagogia, hyperphantasia, and hallucinations.

Whether the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875-1961) became psychotic after his mid-thirties is much debated. His recently published Black Books, a seven-volume journal, reveal new insights into this debate. Based on a phenomenological analysis of his self-reports in these books and in other writings, we here identify several types of anomalous perceptual experiences: hypnagogic-hypnopompic experiences, hyperphantasia, hallucinations, personifications, and sensed presence. We argue that these experiences were not indicative of a psychotic disorder, but rather stemmed from extremely vivid mental imagery, or hyperphantasia, a condition Jung's contemporaries and later biographers were unable to take into account because it had not yet been conceptualised. Recently, the degree of vividness of mental imagery and its potential to become indistinguishable from regular sense perception has been the subject of extensive studies. Unknowingly, Jung may have foreshadowed this line of research with his psychoanalytic concept of reality equivalence, i.e., the substitution of an external world for an inner mental reality that he encountered in individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia. There is a need for future research to investigate the possible role of hyperphantasia in psychotic experiences, but to Jung, psychosis was 'a failure to contain and comprehend' the content of one's experiences in the context of one's own life, whereas he himself did manage to put the content of his perceptual experiences into context, to find meaning in them, and to share them with others - to great acknowledgement and acclaim.

Aftereffects, High-Levelism and Gestalt Properties

AbstractAccording to high-levelism, one can perceptually be aware of high-level properties such as natural kind properties. Against high-levelism, the Gestalt proposal suggests that instead of high-level properties, one can have a perceptual experience as of Gestalt properties, i.e., determinables of determinate low-level properties. When one looks at a bird, the high-levelist argues that one can perceive the property of being a bird, and the proponent of the Gestalt proposal argues that one first perceives the property of having the bird Gestalt (shared by all and only birds) and only post-perceptually recognizes that it is a bird. In the present study, to resolve the dispute between high-levelism and the Gestalt proposal, I aim to test their abilities to explain the attribution of multiple perceptible properties to the same object by making use of various empirical studies on high-level aftereffects. I conclude that the Gestalt proposal fails the test and hence shall not be a viable alternative to high-levelism.

Cognitive task analysis-driven intelligent steering wheel interaction design

With the increasing levels of intelligence and automation, the relationship between humans and vehicles has evolved from a utilitarian perspective to a partnership. Among the crucial factors for enhancing user experiences are the analysis of driving tasks, the construction of user needs models, and the design of intelligent interfaces. Based on this background, this paper proposes a cognitive task analysis model using intelligent steering wheel information interaction design as the vehicle. The model aims to extract key design elements to assist designers in making design decisions, thereby improving the human-machine cooperation performance of intelligent automobiles and enhancing user perceptual experiences. Firstly, within the context of human-machine cooperation systems, a cognitive task analysis method integrating the SRK model is proposed. By analyzing the behavioral decision characteristics between the vehicle and the user, a framework for the human-machine interface (HMI) logic of the steering wheel and a dynamic layout prototype are established. Secondly, the design of the steering wheel’s HMI interaction is based on an analysis of users’ affective needs and rational physiological characteristics. This paper integrates the analysis of users’ affective needs to identify design elements that align with a high level of user satisfaction. Lastly, the design methodology model is applied to a navigation scenario, resulting in the creation of a steering wheel HMI prototype within a human-machine cooperation system. The prototype is then subjected to a combined subjective and objective experimental analysis, thereby validating the superiority of the steering wheel HMI’s detection indicators over those of the central control HMI and establishing the design pattern for the steering wheel HMI.

Conducting head-mounted eye-tracking research with young children with autism and children with increased likelihood of later autism diagnosis

BackgroundOver the past years, researchers have been using head-mounted eye-tracking systems to study young children’s gaze behaviors in everyday activities through which children learn about the world. This method has great potential to further our understanding of how millisecond-level gaze behaviors create multisensory experiences and fluctuate around social environments. While this line of work can yield insight into early perceptual experiences and potential learning mechanisms, the majority of the work is exclusively conducted with typically-developing children. Sensory sensitivities, social-communication difficulties, and challenging behaviors (e.g., disruption, elopement) are common among children with developmental disorders, and they may represent potential methodological challenges for collecting high-quality data.ResultsIn this paper, we describe our research practices of using head-mounted eye trackers with 41 autistic children and 17 children with increased likelihood of later autism diagnosis without auditory or visual impairments, including those who are minimally or nonspeaking and/or have intellectual disabilities. The success rate in gathering data among children with autism was 92.68%. 3 of 41 children failed to complete the play-session, resulting in an 86.36% success rate among 1–4-year-olds and a 100.00% success rate among 5–8-year-olds. 1 of 17 children with increased likelihood of later autism diagnosis failed to complete the play-session, resulting in a success rate of 94.11%. There were numerous “challenging” behaviors relevant to the method. The most common challenging behaviors included taking the eye-tracking device off, elopement, and becoming distressed. Overall, among children with autism, 88.8% of 1–4-year-olds and 29.4% of 5–8-year-olds exhibited at least one challenging behavior.ConclusionsResearch capitalizing on this methodology has the potential to reveal early, socially-mediated gaze behaviors that are relevant for autism screening, diagnosis, and intervention purposes. We hope that our efforts in documenting our study methodology will help researchers and clinicians effectively study early naturally-occuring gaze behaviors of children during non-experimental contexts across the spectrum and other developmental disabilities using head-mounted eye-tracking. Ultimately, such applications may increase the generalizability of results, better reflect the diversity of individual characteristics, and offer new ways in which this method can contribute to the field.

Editorial

Enter any contemporary art museum, gallery, or biennale in 2024 and chances are that the live arts will be center “stage.” While theater, dance, music, and performance art were historically presented in visual arts contexts as fringe or one-off events, since the turn of the twenty-first century—and gaining momentum over the past decade—there has been a growing tendency to “exhibit” live art. As choreographers, directors, and composers who have built their careers in the visual art world—which is significantly more monied than the performing arts world—take home major prizes and awards, leading museums are inaugurating spaces designed exclusively to house installation and performance. But architectural spaces are also ideological spaces with tacit value systems that influence conventions of performance and spectatorship, as well as perceptual experience. What happens when live arts are transplanted into the modernist project of the white cube, characterized as it is by its putative neutrality, objectivity, universality, disembodiment, and erasure of context (see O'Doherty [1976] 1999)? Today's eventized museum showcases works of art characterized by durationality (they are circumscribed by time), corporeality (they feature live, gesturing bodies), and relationality (they foreground the intersubjective exchange) that engender new modes of what Nicolas Bourriaud (2002) called “relational aesthetics.” In so doing, these works challenge traditional definitions of the “collection,” the “archive,” the “museum,” and even “contemporary art.”

Social evaluative implications of sensory adaptation to human voices.

People form social evaluations of others following brief exposure to their voices, and these impressions are calibrated based on recent perceptual experience. Participants adapted to voices with fundamental frequency (f o; the acoustic correlate of perceptual pitch) manipulated to be gender-typical (i.e. masculine men and feminine women) or gender-atypical (i.e. feminine men and masculine women) before evaluating unaltered test voices within the same sex. Adaptation resulted in contrastive aftereffects. Listening to gender-atypical voices caused female voices to sound more feminine and attractive (Study 1) and male voices to sound more masculine and attractive (Study 2). Studies 3a and 3b tested whether adaptation occurred on a conceptual or perceptual level, respectively. In Study 3a, perceivers adapted to gender-typical or gender-atypical voices for both men and women (i.e. adaptors pitch manipulated in opposite directions for men and women) before evaluating unaltered test voices. Findings showed weak evidence that evaluations differed between conditions. In Study 3b, perceivers adapted to masculinized or feminized voices for both men and women (i.e. adaptors pitch manipulated in the same direction for men and women) before evaluating unaltered test voices. In the feminized condition, participants rated male targets as more masculine and attractive. Conversely, in the masculinized condition, participants rated female targets as more feminine and attractive. Voices appear to be evaluated according to gender norms that are updated based on perceptual experience as well as conceptual knowledge.

화이트헤드(A. N. Whitehead)의 ‘상징활동’에서의 자아-발달과 정신적 자각의 교육적 의미

The purpose of this study is to analyze the meaning of self-development and mental awakening in A. N. Whitehead's ‘Symbolism’ and to explore its educational implications. Whitehead calls symbolism including direct recognition(ie, causal efficacy, presentational immediacy) and symbolic reference. According to him, symbolism through direct recognition is infallible, but errors arise from symbolic reference that connects two types of perceptual experiences to symbols and meanings.
 He argues that self-development and mental awakening occur in symbolic reference and criticizes two errors in education based on this. One is the education of inert ideas, which is caused by the lack of self-development in knowledge education, and the other is that there is an error in the claim that the purpose of knowledge education is to sharpen the mind. The cause of the claim is due to putting knowledge ahead of mental awakening.
 Therefore, this study analyzed Whitehead's theory of symbolism and explained self-development and mental awakening. The concept of self-development and mental awakening in symbolism analyzed in this study can be used as a theoretical basis for the constrution of subjective learning focusing on the interest and curiosity of learners.

Neurocognitive mechanisms of mental imagery-based disgust learning

Disgust imagery represents a potential pathological mechanism for disgust-related disorders. However, it remains controversial as to whether disgust can be conditioned with disgust-evoking mental imagery serving as the unconditioned stimulus (US). Therefore, we examined this using a conditioned learning paradigm in combination with event-related potential (ERP) analysis in 35 healthy college students. The results indicated that the initial neutral face (conditioned stimulus, CS+) became more disgust-evoking, unpleasant, and arousing after pairing with disgust-evoking imagery (disgust CS+), compared to pairing with neutral (neutral CS+) and no (CS−) imagery. Moreover, we observed that mental imagery-based disgust conditioning was resistant to extinction. While the disgust CS + evoked larger P3 and late positive potential amplitudes than CS− during acquisition, no significant differences were found between disgust CS+ and neutral CS+, indicating a dissociation between self-reported and neurophysiological responses. Future studies may additionally acquire facial EMG as an implicit index of conditioned disgust. This study provides the first neurobiological evidence that associative disgust learning can occur without aversive physical stimuli, with implications for understanding how disgust-related disorders may manifest or deteriorate without external perceptual aversive experiences, such as in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Material Sense: Perceptual Experience in Stone and Mineral Selection for Tool-Making

Enactivism advocates for the dynamic character of human perception, regarding it as a multidirectional network comprising human presence and self-awareness within the world (eg., with materials, with objects, with and within locations). Thus, perception is not created by mental representations alone but by human presence and sensorimotor action and interaction in the world. This study emphasizes the vital role of perception and perceptual experience as enactive in human ontological perspectives concerning choosing and collecting stones and minerals. It will also suggest that the enactive perceptual experience of the environment occurs in its absence through memory and material relationships.

Immersing oneself into one’s past: subjective presence can be part of the experience of episodic remembering

A common view about the phenomenology of episodic remembering has it that when we remember a perceptual experience, we can relive or re-experience many of its features, but not its characteristic presence. In this paper, we challenge this common view. We first say that presence in perception divides into temporal and locative presence, with locative having two sides, an objective and a subjective one. While we agree with the common view that temporal and objective locative presence cannot be relived in remembering, we argue that subjective locative presence – the feeling of being immersed in a certain scene – can be so. Our argument for this claim starts by determining independently the underpinning mechanisms of subjective locative presence in quasi-perceptual imagination. These mechanisms are self-projection, imaginative pretence, and attentional focus. We then proceed to establish that they have been found to underpin conscious states of episodic remembering too. We conclude that episodic remembering can bring us to relive the subjective locative presence characteristic of a perceptual experience, and that the common view is mistaken. Our view – ‘mnemonic immersivism’ – has important consequences regarding the relationships between memory and imagination and the phenomenology of episodic remembering.

The Sound of Sustainability. Biomaterials and new sensory frontiers

Sound is an inescapable part of perceptual experience and, interacting with other senses contributes to the synesthetic experience. The article investigates the possibilities that Design research can offer from the consistent use of new materials in terms of sensory enhancement and the construction of a memory identity. The sensoaesthetic qualities of these open up new worlds of senses. New biomaterials, in addition to guiding the development of a new sensitivity and towards the acceptance of the material’s sincere identity, can help to communicate a new ethical consciousness, transforming sustainability into responsibility, i.e. into a dimension involving not only the objective aspects of matter but also the subjective ones based on pleasantness. The ultimate goal is the construction of a sensory polyphony. A new field of exploration that is recounted here through a design experience developed at Saperi&Co. for the realisation of drumsticks made from discarded peanut shells.

Mechanisms of skillful interaction: sensorimotor enactivism & mechanistic explanation

ABSTRACT The mechanistic model depicts scientific explanations as involving the discovery of multi-level, organized components that constitute a target phenomenon. Meanwhile, sensorimotor enactivism purports to offer a scientifically informed account of perceptual experience as a skill-laden interactive relationship, constitutively involving both perceiver and world, rather than as an agent-bound representation of the world. Insofar as sensorimotor enactivism identifies an empirically tractable phenomenon – skillful agent-world interaction – and mechanistic explanation establishes the subpersonal components of this phenomenon, the two approaches allow for a fruitful division of labor in investigating perceptual experience. On closer inspection, however, two challenges arise. First, the “representation challenge” arises because promising attempts to set out implementational details of our sensorimotor interaction with the world implicate cognitive representations, creating tension with sensorimotor enactivism’s nonrepresentational commitments. Second, the “reconstitution challenge” arises when mechanistic explanation not only uncovers the components of some established phenomenon but plays a role in “reconstituting” this phenomenon. This means that, through investigating mechanisms, perceptual experience may be reconceived such that its constituents are wholly organism-bound. We explore both challenges to the compatibility of mechanism and sensorimotor enactivism and examine possible solutions. The result is a clearer understanding of the tensions and opportunities for learning between the frameworks.

Defending (perceptual) attitudes

AbstractIn this paper, I defend a tripartite metaphysics of intentional mental states, according to which mental states are divided into subject, content, and attitude, against recent attempts at eliminating the attitude component (e.g., Montague, Oxford studies in philosophy of mind, 2022, 2, Oxford University Press). I suggest that a metaphysics composed of only subject and content cannot account for (a) multisensory perceptual experiences and (b) phenomenological differences between episodes of perception and imagination. Finally, I suggest that some of the motivations behind the rejection of the attitude component can be accommodated within the tripartite framework.

Why Perceptual Experiences cannot be Probabilistic

Abstract Perceptual Confidence is the thesis that perceptual experiences can be probabilistic. This thesis has been defended and criticised based on a variety of phenomenological, epistemological, and explanatory arguments. One gap in these arguments is that they neglect the question of whether perceptual experiences satisfy the formal conditions that define the notion of probability to which Perceptual Confidence is committed. Here, we focus on this underexplored question and argue that perceptual experiences do not satisfy such conditions. But if they do not, then ascriptions of perceptual confidence are undefined; and so, Perceptual Confidence cannot be true.

Exploring the relationship between library reading space height and user perception: A physiological and subjective analysis

As a central functional aspect, the design of library reading spaces should consider users' perceptual experiences to optimize their psychological responses. However, the current literature lacks a rational analysis and definitive guidelines regarding the interior height design of reading rooms. This study focuses on physiological data supplemented by subjective evaluations to explore potential correlations between library reading space height and user perceptions. Specifically, we employed Virtual Reality (VR) to create four experimental scenarios, investigating reading space heights within a laboratory setting while capturing corresponding electroencephalogram (EEG), galvanic skin response (GSR), and subjective assessment data. Correlation analysis of EEG signals and height variations across the four scenarios revealed that the exposure sequence influenced participants' physiological experiences, particularly in the frontal lobe. Fitting curves illustrated changes in α and βH as heights varied, influenced by scene disparities. Correlational analysis between physiological and survey data established a connection between psychological perceptions and α waves. Findings indicate that height variations impact both physiological and psychological aspects. For a reading room space of 12.600 m × 22.500 m, maintaining psychological and physiological comfort requires a minimum height of 2.600 m. This research contributes a unique perspective by constructing a framework for investigating library reading spaces, offering novel insights for optimizing their design.

A novel model of divergent predictive perception.

Predictive processing theories state that our subjective experience of reality is shaped by a balance of expectations based on previous knowledge about the world (i.e. priors) and confidence in sensory input from the environment. Divergent experiences (e.g. hallucinations and synaesthesia) are likely to occur when there is an imbalance between one's reliance on priors and sensory input. In a novel theoretical model, inspired by both predictive processing and psychological principles, we propose that predictable divergent experiences are associated with natural or environmentally induced prior/sensory imbalances: inappropriately strong or inflexible (i.e. maladaptive) high-level priors (beliefs) combined with low sensory confidence can result in reality discrimination issues, a characteristic of psychosis; maladaptive low-level priors (sensory expectations) combined with high sensory confidence can result in atypical sensory sensitivities and persistent divergent percepts, a characteristic of synaesthesia. Crucially, we propose that whether different divergent experiences manifest with dominantly sensory (e.g. hallucinations) or nonsensory characteristics (e.g. delusions) depends on mental imagery ability, which is a spectrum from aphantasia (absent or weak imagery) to hyperphantasia (extremely vivid imagery). We theorize that imagery is critically involved in shaping the sensory richness of divergent perceptual experience. In sum, to predict a range of divergent perceptual experiences in both clinical and general populations, three factors must be accounted for: a maladaptive use of priors, individual level of confidence in sensory input, and mental imagery ability. These ideas can be expressed formally using nonparametric regression modeling. We provide evidence for our theory from previous work and deliver predictions for future research.

The Perceived Fit Between Music and Movement: A Multisensory Account of Dance as a Novel Feature Type

Abstract Whether you are a sophisticated critic or an untrained spectator, when it comes to our experience of dance, we are generally able to appreciate the way a dancer’s bodily movements fit the music. Our experience of dance thus lends itself to a range of crossmodal judgments, that is, our perception of dance enables us to make claims that purport to be about how bodily movements which can be visually seen fit together with aspects of the music which can be heard or felt. But we are not determined to perceive every case of fit unproblematically. That it is possible one may fail to initially perceive a fit that others claim ought to be viewable suggests that there is a normative dimension to this phenomenon. In this article, I argue that we can explain the source of this normativity with a multisensory account of dance. More specifically, I argue that dance is a novel feature type, a feature of perceptual experience that is essentially multimodal. The basic perception of dance, which grounds more sophisticated forms of judgment concerning crossmodal fit downstream, is the actualization of a unique multisensory capacity that non-inferentially tracks a real, fundamental connection between music and movement.

Structuring embodied minds: attention and perceptual agency

Perception is, at least sometimes, something we do. This paper is concerned with how to account for perceptual agency (i.e., the active aspect of perception). Eilan divides accounts of perceptual agency up into two camps: enactivist theories hold that perceptual agency is accounted for by the involvement of bodily action, while mental theories hold that perceptual agency is accounted for by the involvement of mental action in perception. In Structuring Mind (2017), Sebastian Watzl aligns his ‘activity view’ with the mental action route and develops the view that the mental activity of attending infuses perceptual experience with agency. Moreover, Watzl claims that his view can accommodate enactivist intuitions, while rejecting their claims about embodiment.In this paper, we scrutinize the relevant notion of mental action involved in the mental action route. We analyze the involvement of the body in overt acts of attention (like sniffing and smelling) and argue that a constitutively embodied account of mental action provides a better analysis of overt attention than a conjunctive account in which overt attention involves a bodily and a (separate) mental action. Furthermore, we argue that the standard cases of covert attention (such as the Posner paradigm) involve the body in multiple ways.In closing, we discuss the relevance of our analysis for the debate on perceptual agency and the embodied mind thesis. We conclude that the embodied mental action route to theorizing perceptual agency provides the best analysis of perceptual agency but comes with significant commitments about the embodiment of attention.

Exploration of special children education based on AR technology

Augmented Reality (AR) is a nascent technical advancement that enables the seamless amalgamation of real-world and virtual-world data. The notion of materializing virtual information to enable its perception by human senses is a subject of significant scholarly interest, resulting in a perceptual experience that transcends the confines of conventional reality. Because of the popularity of augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and Internet support, distance learning systems with contextualized learning, gamified learning, and collaborative learning will empower all traditional classrooms or home education, rapidly adding massive learning resources. This research evaluates the current literatures related to AR as well as the influence and efficacy of AR on the education of special needs children, such as hearing impairment, intellectual disability, autism, emotional-behavioral disorders, etc. The purpose of this research is to uncover the benefits and challenges of AR, as well as recommendations and future directions, by studying pertinent situations.

A Method of Applying Virtual Reality Converged Remote Platform Based on Crawfish Optimization Algorithm to Improve ESN Network

INTRODCTION: Immersive teaching and learning methods based on virtual reality-integrated remote platforms not only allow foreign language learners to learn in a vivid and intuitive learning environment, but also provide good conditions for multi-channel perceptual experiences of foreign language learners in terms of sight, sound and touch.OBJECTIVES: To address the problems of insufficiently systematic analysis and quantification, poor robustness and low accuracy of analysis methods in current effect analysis methods.METHODS: This paper proposes an effect analysis method of virtual reality fusion remote platform based on crawfish optimization algorithm to improve echo state network. First, the effect analysis system is constructed by analyzing the process of virtual reality fusion remote platform and extracting the effect analysis influencing elements; then, the echo state network is improved by the crayfish optimization algorithm and the effect analysis model is constructed; finally, the high accuracy of the proposed method is verified by the analysis of simulation experiments.RESLUTS: The proposed method improves the accuracy of the virtual reality fusion remote platform effect analysis model, the analysis time is 0.002s, which meets the real-time requirements, and the number of optimization convergence iterations is 16, which is better than other algorithms.CONCLUSION: The problems of insufficiently systematic analytical quantification of effect analysis methods, poor robustness of analytical methods, and low accuracy have been solved.