Stimulus Objects Research Articles

Cetacean responses to violation of expectation paradigm in a free-swim context.

The investigation of individual responses to unexpected stimuli or outcomes provides insights into basic cognitive processes, such as mental representations, emotional states of surprise, and detections of anomalies. Three experiments using a violation of expectation paradigm were conducted with 12 belugas and 17 bottlenose dolphins in managed care to test two classes of stimuli (humans and objects) in manipulated sequences of familiar and unfamiliar humans (Study 1, trainers and strangers), familiar and unfamiliar objects (Study 2, typical enrichment devices and new objects), and finally objects and humans (Study 3). Gaze durations were assessed for each condition in a given study during free-swim contexts. The results supported previous findings that visual stimuli, regardless of class, were stimulating and intriguing for both belugas and bottlenose dolphins. Belugas were more likely to gaze longer at human and object stimuli and tended to gaze longer at unexpected experiences than control or expected experiences. Bottlenose dolphins showed similar trends except when objects were involved. Individual variability was present for both species with some individuals showing stronger patterns of responses for expected experiences than others. After 2years of intermittent experiments, belugas and bottlenose dolphins in managed care maintained their curiosity about visual stimuli, for which they received no primary reinforcement. Investigating responses to unexpected stimuli with animals in managed care may provide insight into how these animals respond to biologically relevant conditions, such as boat presence, predators, and unfamiliar conspecifics.

ANALYSIS OF STUDENT PERCEPTIONS ON THE USE OF ONLINE LEARNING APPLICATIONS USING THE RASCH MODEL IN PHYSICS LEARNING

SMAN 1 Tapa initially used the Zoom and Google Meet applications, but there were still many students who were late for learning due to their difficult circumstances in getting internet coverage, so the teachers decided to change the application by using Classroom and Whatsapp to minimize student delays in learning. This study aims to describe students' perceptions of the use of online learning applications using Rasch modeling in physics learning. This research method is descriptive qualitative. The results of this study indicate that students' perceptions based on absorption indicators of object stimuli from outside the individual, students prefer online learning using Classroom and Whatsapp applications. Based on the indicators of understanding or understanding of the object, students understand and understand physics learning. Based on the indicators of individual evaluation of the object, students are enthusiastic and motivated in learning physics. Thus, it can be concluded that students' perceptions of online learning using the classroom and whatsapp applications can help and facilitate students in the learning process during the pandemic in class XI IPA 1.

The Machines Take Over: A Comparison of Various Supervised Learning Approaches for Automated Scoring of Divergent Thinking Tasks

ABSTRACTTraditionally, researchers employ human raters for scoring responses to creative thinking tasks. Apart from the associated costs this approach entails two potential risks. First, human raters can be subjective in their scoring behavior (inter‐rater‐variance). Second, individual raters are prone to inconsistent scoring patterns (intra‐rater‐variance). In light of these issues, we present an approach for automated scoring of Divergent Thinking (DT) Tasks. We implemented a pipeline aiming to generate accurate rating predictions for DT responses using text mining and machine learning methods. Based on two existing data sets from two different laboratories, we constructed several prediction models incorporating features representing meta information of the response or features engineered from the response’s word embeddings that were obtained using pre‐trained GloVe and Word2Vec word vector spaces. Out of these features, word embeddings and features derived from them proved to be particularly effective. Overall, longer responses tended to achieve higher ratings as well as responses that were semantically distant from the stimulus object. In our comparison of three state‐of‐the‐art machine learning algorithms, Random Forest and XGBoost tended to slightly outperform the Support Vector Regression.

Body Processing in Children and Adolescents with Traumatic Brain Injury: An Exploratory Study.

Dysfunctions in body processing have been documented in adults with brain damage, while limited information is available for children. This study aimed to investigate body processing in children and adolescents with traumatic brain injury (TBI) (N = 33), compared to peers with typical development. Two well-known computerized body-representation paradigms, namely Visual Body Recognition and Visuo-spatial Imagery, were administered. Through the first paradigm, the body inversion and composite illusion effects were tested with a matching to sample task as measures of configural and holistic processing of others’ bodies, respectively. The second paradigm investigated with a laterality judgement task the ability to perform first-person and object-based mental spatial transformations of own body and external objects, respectively. Body stimuli did not convey any emotional contents or symbolic meanings. Patients with TBI had difficulties with mental transformations of both body and object stimuli, displaying deficits in motor and visual imagery abilities, not limited to body processing. Therefore, cognitive rehabilitation of body processing in TBI might benefit from the inclusion of both general training on visuo-spatial abilities and specific exercises aimed at boosting visual body perception and motor imagery.

Exploring the Positive User Experience Possibilities Based on Product Emotion Theory: A Beverage Unmanned Retail Terminal Case.

Since the last century, user experience has been regarded as a key concept in the process of product and service design. With the development of positive psychology, the transformation from negative to positive user experience has also taken place in the field of user experience; it emphasizes exploring the future possibility of positive user experience rather than just solving existing problems. Based on the research and analysis of existing literature, this study makes it clear that positive user experience research should be based on the “positive experience,” and arousing a positive emotion is conducive to improving positive user experience. On this basis, the product emotion theory is applied to the analysis process of “positive experience.” Through word frequency screening, thematic analysis, and correlation calculation, the relationship between product stimulus (object, activity, and identity) and user concern (goal, attitude, and standard) based on positive “user comments” is constructed, and positive user experience is understood from multiple levels. Based on the comment score, the positive user experience interval is divided in order to clarify the improvement direction. Finally, taking the “Angel Orange” unmanned retail terminal as an example, this study carried out an empirical analysis. As an exploratory study, this study can provide some insights into the quantitative research process of positive user experience design that evokes positive emotions from a user’s “positive experience” story.

Electrophysiological correlates of proportion congruency manipulation in a temporal flanker task.

Response conflict evoked by a distractor stimulus object in interference tasks is associated with longer reaction times and a pronounced ERP component referred to as the fronto-central N2. Increasing the proportion congruency (PC, i.e., the proportion of trials in which target and distractor are associated with the same response) is assumed to enhance distractor-evoked conflict via defocusing of attention. Findings concerning the effect of the PC on the N2 in Eriksen flanker task experiments have been inconsistent, however, lending little support to the notion that the N2 reflects a conflict monitoring process. Here, we analyze the N2 in a temporal flanker task, in which the distractor stimuli, presented in advance of the target, elicit pronounced activation of the associated responses (as inferred from the lateralized readiness potential) when the PC is high. Consistent with result pattern obtained in other tasks involving successive presentation of the distractor and the target, conflict trials in a high-PC condition evoked a particularly large N2. These findings accord with the assumption that the N2 reflects either conflict monitoring or conflict-induced regulatory measures (i.e., reactive control). In light of the discrepancy of results obtained under conditions of simultaneous and successive distractor-target presentation, we speculate that the N2 is pronounced in situations that offer strong hints for classifying dominating response activation as incorrect, possibly reflecting particular control to counter this activation. Additional properties of the temporal flanker task, related to ERP investigations, are discussed.

Self-prioritization with unisensory and multisensory stimuli in a matching task

A shape-label matching task is commonly used to examine the self-advantage in motor reaction-time responses (the Self-Prioritization Effect; SPE). In the present study, auditory labels were introduced, and, for the first time, responses to unisensory auditory, unisensory visual, and multisensory object-label stimuli were compared across block-type (i.e., trials blocked by sensory modality type, and intermixed trials of unisensory and multisensory stimuli). Auditory stimulus intensity was presented at either 50 dB (Group 1) or 70 dB (Group 2). The participants in Group 2 also completed a multisensory detection task, making simple speeded motor responses to the shape and sound stimuli and their multisensory combinations. In the matching task, the SPE was diminished in intermixed trials, and in responses to the unisensory auditory stimuli as compared with the multisensory (visual shape+auditory label) stimuli. In contrast, the SPE did not differ in responses to the unisensory visual and multisensory (auditory object+visual label) stimuli. The matching task was associated with multisensory ‘costs’ rather than gains, but response times to self- versus stranger-associated stimuli were differentially affected by the type of multisensory stimulus (auditory object+visual label or visual shape+auditory label). The SPE was thus modulated both by block-type and the combination of object and label stimulus modalities. There was no SPE in the detection task. Taken together, these findings suggest that the SPE with unisensory and multisensory stimuli is modulated by both stimulus- and task-related parameters within the matching task. The SPE does not transfer to a significant motor speed gain when the self-associations are not task-relevant.

Distinct Dynamics of Theta and Gamma Rhythmicity during Social Interaction Suggest Differential Mode of Action in the Medial Amygdala of Sprague Dawley Rats and C57BL/6J Mice

The medial nucleus of the amygdala (MeA) is known to regulate social behavior. This brain area is functionally positioned in a crossroads between sensory information processing and behavioral modulation. On the one hand, it receives direct chemosensory input from the accessory olfactory bulb. On the other hand, it orchestrates various behavioral outputs via brain-wide projections under the regulation of multiple neuromodulatory systems. Previously, we showed that adult male Sprague Dawley (SD) rats and C57BL/6J mice, the most widely used rodent models in neuroscience research, differ in their dynamics of motivation to interact with a novel same-sex conspecific and that this difference correlates with the level of c-Fos expression in the MeA. Here we used chronically implanted electrodes to compare rhythmic local field potential signals recorded from these animals during free and restricted social interactions. We found a significant induction of rhythmicity in the theta (4–12 Hz) and gamma (30–80 Hz) bands during both free and restricted social interaction in both rats and mice. However, the induction of gamma rhythmicity, thought to reflect activity of local neuronal networks, was significantly higher in rats than mice. Nevertheless, in contrast to rats, mice exhibited induction of rhythmicity, in both the theta and gamma bands, in synchrony with investigation of social, but not object stimuli. These results suggest that during interaction with a novel same-sex conspecific, the MeA of C57BL/6J mice is mostly involved in sensory information processing while in SD rats it is mainly active in modulating the social motivation state of the animal.

No faces, just body movements—Effects of perceived emotional valence of body kinetics and psychological factors on interpersonal distance behavior within an immersive virtual environment

In an immersive virtual environment, it was investigated how the perception of body kinetics contributes to social distance behavior when the facial expression and other physical properties of a social interaction partner cannot be perceived. Based on point light displays, both the subject and the social interaction partner were depicted as stick figures, both moving simultaneously in the same space. In addition, the effects of relevant psychological factors of the perceiver on social distance behavior were examined. The results were consistent with those from studies with facial expressions or realistic full-body interactants. A greater distance was maintained from characters with emotionally negative expressions of body kinetics. Stationary objects stimuli, which were also included in the study, were mostly passed closer than neutral agents. However, the results are not entirely clear and require further investigation. Depressive symptom burden and factors mainly related to anxiety and avoidance showed effects on social distance in an IVE. The CID, a test often used to assess the interpersonal distance at which a person is comfortable, correlated with that overt behavior. In summary, the results of the study provide experimental evidence that the perception of body kinetics has a similarly significant influence on the regulation of social distance as, for example, facial affect. Implementing this study in real life would be incredibly complex, if not impossible. It is interesting to see that the comparatively simple method used in this study to create and operate an immersive virtual environment turned out to be suitable for studying at least simple types of social behavior based on body movements.

The salience of competing nonsocial objects reduces gaze toward social stimuli, but not the eyes, more in typically developing than autistic boys.

Decreased attention to social information is considered an early emerging symptom of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), although the underlying causes remain controversial. Here we explored the impact of nonsocial object salience on reduced attention to social stimuli in male ASD compared with typically developing (TD) children. Correlations with blood concentrations of neuropeptides linked with social cognition were also investigated. Eye-tracking was performed in 102 preschool-aged boys (50 ASD, 52 TD) using a paradigm with social (faces) versus nonsocial (objects) stimuli presented in pairs in two conditions where nonsocial stimulus salience was varied. Basal oxytocin (OXT) and vasopressin concentrations were measured in blood. Compared with TD boys those with ASD viewed social stimuli less only when they were paired with low-salience nonsocial objects. Additionally, boys with ASD spent less time than TD ones viewing facial features, particularly the eyes. In TD boys, OXT concentrations and cognitive development scores were positively associated with time spent viewing the eye region, whereas for boys with ASD associations with time spent viewing faces were negative. Reduced gaze toward social stimuli in ASD relative to TD individuals may therefore be influenced by how salient the paired nonsocial objects are for the latter. On the other hand, reduced interest in the eyes of faces in boys with ASD is not influenced by how salient competing nonsocial stimuli are. Basal OXT concentrations and cognitive development scores are predictive of time spent viewing social stimuli in TD boys (eyes) and those with ASD (faces) but in the opposite direction. LAY SUMMARY: Children with autism exhibit reduced attention to social paired with nonsocial stimuli compared to typically developing children. Using eye-tracking we show this difference is due to typically developing rather than autistic boys being more influenced by how interesting competing nonsocial objects are. On the other hand, reduced time looking at the eyes in autistic relative to typically developing boys is unaffected by nonsocial object salience. Time spent viewing social stimuli is associated with cognitive development and blood levels of oxytocin.

Early Event-Related Potential During Figure and Object Perception of Abacus Mental Calculation Training Children: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

The aim of this study was to discuss the effect of abacus mental calculation (AMC) on the early processing of children’s perception on numbers and objects. We designed a randomized controlled trial, and a total of 28 subjects were randomly distributed into two groups of equal numbers, namely, one group that received AMC training (training group) and the other group that did not receive training (non-training group). The subjects were asked to determine the figures and objects shown on the computer screen and were recorded on the computer. The event-related potential (ERP) component (N1, N170, P1, and P2) of different brain areas between the two subject groups was compared. Compared with the non-training group, the training group’s P1 in the occipital region showed a larger amplitude and a longer potential period. For N1, the training group showed a longer potential period. Additionally, for N170, the training group showed a smaller amplitude. Finally, the observation of P2 showed a smaller amplitude in the training group and a longer potential period in the condition of object stimulus. Overall, the activated degree of the occipital region of children who received AMC training was enhanced, while the activated degree of the central region of the forehead and temporal occipital region was slightly down. Meanwhile, the potential periods of all components were extended. Therefore, long-term AMC training can change children’s cortical function activities.

The role of ventral stream areas for viewpoint-invariant object recognition

Object constancy is one of the most crucial mechanisms of the human visual system enabling viewpoint invariant object recognition. However, the neuronal foundations of object constancy are widely unknown. Research has shown that the ventral visual stream is involved in processing of various kinds of object stimuli and that several regions along the ventral stream are possibly sensitive to the orientation of an object in space. To systematically address the question of viewpoint sensitive object perception, we conducted a study with stroke patients as well as an fMRI experiment with healthy participants applying object stimuli in several spatial orientations, for example in typical and atypical viewing conditions. In the fMRI experiment, we found stronger BOLD signals and above-chance classification accuracies for objects presented in atypical viewing conditions in fusiform face sensitive and lateral occipito-temporal object preferring areas. In the behavioral patient study, we observed that lesions of the right fusiform gyrus were associated with lower performance in object recognition for atypical views. The complementary results from both experiments emphasize the contributions of fusiform and lateral-occipital areas to visual object constancy and indicate that visual object constancy is particularly enabled through increased neuronal activity and specific activation patterns for objects in demanding viewing conditions.

Mechanisms of False Alarm in Response to Fear Stimulus: An Event-Related Potential Study.

Background and ObjectiveThere is a paucity of research that has explored “False Alarm” mechanisms. In order to remedy this deficiency in knowledge, the present study used event-related potential (ERP) technology to reveal the mechanisms underlying False Alarm in response to fear stimuli.MethodsThis study selected snakes as experimental materials and the “oddball paradigm” was used to simulate the conditions of False Alarm. The mechanism underlying False Alarm was revealed by comparing cognitive processing similarities and differences between real snakes and toy snakes.ResultsEvent-related potential findings demonstrated that there was no significant difference between N1 and P2 components induced by real and toy snakes in the early processing stage. Compared with toy snakes, real snakes induced smaller N2 amplitude, larger P3 amplitude, and a shorter P3 latency at the late processing stage. The results of brain topographic mapping analysis showed that the brain regions activated by a real or toy snake were basically the same within the time windows of 110–150 and 220–270 ms, respectively. In the time window of 300–360 and 400–500 ms, the degree of brain regions activation with a real snake was significantly greater than that induced by a toy snake.ConclusionFalse Alarm is caused by the brain’s inability to distinguish, in the early stage of cognitive processing, stimulus objects with similar appearances. When the brain is able to distinguish the differences between different stimulus objects in the late stage of cognitive processing, False Alarm disappears.

Spatial and Temporal Context Jointly Modulate the Sensory Response within the Ventral Visual Stream.

Both spatial and temporal context play an important role in visual perception and behavior. Humans can extract statistical regularities from both forms of context to help process the present and to construct expectations about the future. Numerous studies have found reduced neural responses to expected stimuli compared with unexpected stimuli, for both spatial and temporal regularities. However, it is largely unclear whether and how these forms of context interact. In the current fMRI study, 33 human volunteers were exposed to pairs of object stimuli that could be expected or surprising in terms of their spatial and temporal context. We found reliable independent contributions of both spatial and temporal context in modulating the neural response. Specifically, neural responses to stimuli in expected compared with unexpected contexts were suppressed throughout the ventral visual stream. These results suggest that both spatial and temporal context may aid sensory processing in a similar fashion, providing evidence on how different types of context jointly modulate perceptual processing.

Self-reported perceptual aberrations in psychosis map to event-related potentials and semantic appraisals of objects.

Psychotic disorders have been associated with visual deficits and deviant semantic processing, making it unclear whether object detection abnormalities in psychosis originate from low-level or higher-order visual processes. The current study investigated how high-level visual processing is affected in psychosis by presenting object stimuli with equivalent low-level visual features. Outpatients with affective and nonaffective psychotic disorders, first-degree biological relatives, and psychiatrically unaffected individuals (N = 130) completed the Fragmented Ambiguous Object Task (FAOT) to assess recognition of objects in ambiguous stimuli. During the task, we recorded electroencephalography, quantified event-related potential (ERP) components (P1, N1, negative closure [NCL], N400), and derived four spatiotemporal event-related potential factors using principal components analysis (PCA). In addition to traditional diagnoses, psychosis was characterized using a dimensional measure of individual differences in self-reported sensory experiences (perceptual absorption) calculated from scales that tap the psychotic domain of the hierarchical structure of psychopathology. Rates of detecting objects within fragmented stimuli failed to differ across diagnostic groups or significantly predict perceptual absorption (p = .057). PCA factors that reflected smaller N1 and larger NCL amplitudes were associated with detecting objects. Exploratory analyses revealed that higher perceptual absorption was associated with reductions in the N400 and a late positive PCA factor. Although early and midlatency brain responses modulate during object detection, late brain responses tied to semantic appraisal of objects are related to perceptual aberrations often reported by individuals with severe psychopathology. Dimensional measures of personality appear sensitive to variation in biological systems relevant to psychotic symptomatology and object perception. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Absence of covert face valuation in Autism

Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition defined on clinical criteria related to diminished social reciprocity and stereotyped behavior. An influential view explains autism as a social motivation disorder characterized by less attention paid to the social environment and less pleasure experienced with social rewards. However, experimental attempts to validate this theory, by testing the impact of social reward on behavioral choice and brain activity, has yielded mixed results, possibly due to variations in how explicit instructions were about task goals. Here, we specified the putative motivation deficit as an absence of spontaneous valuation in the social domain, unexplained by inattention and correctible by explicit instruction. Since such deficit cannot be assessed with behavioral measures, we used functional neuroimaging (fMRI) to readout covert subjective values, assigned to social and nonsocial stimuli (faces and objects), either explicitly asked to participants (during a likeability judgment task) or not (during age or size estimation tasks). Value-related neural activity observed for objects, or for faces under explicit instructions, was very similar in autistic and control participants, with an activation peak in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), known as a key node of the brain valuation system. The only difference observed in autistic participants was an absence of the spontaneous valuation normally triggered by faces, even when they were attended for age estimation. Our findings, therefore, suggest that in autism, social stimuli might fail to trigger the automatic activation of the brain valuation system.

Raising the Bar for Theories of Categorisation and Concept Learning: The Need to Resolve Five Basic Paradigmatic Tensions

ABSTRACT In the past two decades, human categorisation research has achieved significant progress via the rigorous and systematic study of concepts in terms of category structures and their families. The importance of these structure families stems from evidence suggesting that learning and categorisation performance are not only limited by low- and high-level generalisation mechanisms but by the inherent nature of the environmental and mental stimuli entertained by observers during the concept learning process. In this paper, we propose a new direction for concept learning and categorisation research based on several dual paradigmatic tensions that hinge on the inherent nature of the components of stimuli, limitations of the innate abilities of the observer to process such components, and the relationship between the two. The tensions range from the various possible properties and constraints of the dimensions underlying categories of object stimuli to various notions of supervised learning capable of significantly altering concept learnability. The substantial extant literature on concept learning research indicates that rigorous empirical investigations targeting these tensions are either non-existent or, at best, severely lacking despite their ecological significance. We shall argue that future theory building about concept learning should attempt to resolve these tensions and that without the proper empirical and theoretical focus on them, concept learning research will fail to achieve its ultimate goals anytime soon.

2D or not 2D? An fMRI study of how dogs visually process objects.

Given humans' habitual use of screens, they rarely consider potential differences when viewing two-dimensional (2D) stimuli and real-world versions of dimensional stimuli. Dogs also have access to many forms of screens and touchpads, with owners even subscribing to dog-directed content. Humans understand that 2D stimuli are representations of real-world objects, but do dogs? In canine cognition studies, 2D stimuli are almost always used to study what is normally 3D, like faces, and may assume that both 2D and 3D stimuli are represented in the brain the same way. Here, we used awake fMRI in 15 dogs to examine the neural mechanisms underlying dogs' perception of two- and three-dimensional objects after the dogs were trained on either two- or three-dimensional versions of the objects. Activation within reward processing regions and parietal cortex of the dog brain to 2D and 3D versions of objects was determined by their training experience, as dogs trained on one dimensionality showed greater differential activation within the dimension on which they were trained. These results show that dogs do not automatically generalize between two- and three-dimensional versions of object stimuli and suggest that future research consider the implicit assumptions when using pictures or videos.

Deconstructing the contribution of sensory cues in social approach.

Social interaction is a complex and highly conserved behavior that safeguards survival and reproductive success. Although considerable progress has been made regarding our understanding of same‐sex conspecific and non‐aggressive interactions, questions regarding the precise contribution of sensory cues in social approach and their specific neurobiological correlates remain open. Here, by designing a series of experiments with diverse social and object stimuli manipulations in custom‐made enclosures, we first sought to deconstruct key elements of social preference as assessed by the three‐chamber task. Our results highlight the importance of social olfactory cues in approach behavior. Subsequently, we interrogated whether a social odor would activate dopaminergic neurons of the Ventral Tegmental Area in the same way as a juvenile conspecific would. Employing in vivo recordings in freely behaving mice, we observed an increase of the firing only during the transition toward the juvenile mouse and not during the transition toward the object impregnated with social odor, suggesting that these two experiences are distinct and can be differentiated at the neuronal level. Moreover, using a four‐choice task, we further showed that mice prefer to explore complex social stimuli compared to isolated sensory cues. Our findings offer insights toward understanding how different sensory modalities contribute to the neurobiological basis of social behavior which can be essential when studying social deficits observed in autism‐, depression‐, anxiety‐, or schizophrenia‐related mouse models.

Social Attention Deficits in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Task Dependence of Objects vs. Faces Observation Bias.

Social attention deficits represent a central impairment of patients suffering from autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but the nature of such deficits remains controversial. We compared visual attention regarding social (faces) vs. non-social stimuli (objects), in an ecological diagnostic context, in 46 children and adolescents divided in two groups: ASD (N = 23) and typical neurodevelopment (TD) (N = 23), matched for chronological age and intellectual performance. Eye-tracking measures of visual scanning, while exploring and describing scenes from three different tasks from the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS), were analyzed: “Description of a Picture,” “Cartoons,” and “Telling a Story from a Book.” Our analyses revealed a three-way interaction between Group, Task, and Social vs. Object Stimuli. We found a striking main effect of group and a task dependence of attentional allocation: while the TD attended first and longer to faces, ASD participants became similar to TD when they were asked to look at pictures while telling a story. Our results suggest that social attention allocation is task dependent, raising the question whether spontaneous attention deficits can be rescued by guiding goal-directed actions.