Abstract

To examine the interaction between global/local-processing and stimulus-response compatibilities, the present study systematically manipulated the compound letters in terms of stimulus-stimulus congruity, the response levels(global vs. local), and the conceptual(Experiment 1) or spatial(Experiment 2) stimuli-response compatibilities. The results of the study can be summarized as followings: (1) In general, the performances of the subjects were better when they were provided compatible(both of conceptual and spatial), global, and congruent stimuli than incompatible, local, and incongruent stimuli. (2) When the stimuli were incongruent, the subjects' performances were impaired more in the local level condition than in the global level condition. (3) Although the subjects' performance was generally better in the S-R compatible condition than in the S-R incompatible condition, subjects' reaction time was increased more in the S-R compatible condition than in the S-R incompatible condition when incongruent stimuli were provided. And (4) reaction time in the global level condition increased greatly in the spatial S-R incompatible condition, whereas reaction time in the local level condition were similar for both spatial S-R compatibility conditions. Finally, issues related to this study were discussed.

Abstract

The attentional pattern to emotional information in normal subjects (emotionally not disturbed subjects) was investigated. Particular attentional patterns to emotional information in normal population were found in several researches. But emotional effect in normal subjects was absent in most researches using emotional Stroop task. Many researchers (e.g., Mathews & MacLeod, 2002) supposed that the strong control of selective attention and task demand processing could easily intercept the input of irrelevant threat-related processing in the condition of direct competition between target-processing and irrelevant threat-related processing. In the present study, for leading a more strong input and processing of irrelevant emotion-related stimulus in normal participants, we primed the emotional stimulus before target stimulus in a modified Stroop task. Results have shown that in ISI of 90 ms, the priming of positive face slowed down color-naming latency and the priming of negative face accelerated it. Interestingly, this attentional pattern to negative information disappeared when emotional stimulus was presented for 60 ms and persist when emotional stimulus was presented for 30ms and masked immediately in same condition. In conclusion, normal subjects could automatically inhibit the emotional processing only when the perceptual code of negative stimulus was weak.

Abstract

Three experiments examined hypotheses regarding a quasi-homophony effect which depends upon phonological change rules(Komatsu & Kim, 2004). These are a processing load and a phonological code incompatibility hypothesis. In Experiment 1, the quasi-homophony effect was observed. In Experiment 2, the quasi-homophony effect was replicated when a secondary oral report required capacity for a spelling check process. In Experiment 3, quasi-homophone foils in an underlying form were presented as target words whereas they were presented in a surface form in Experiment 1 and 2. The same quasi-homophony effect was again observed despite of a reversed phonological relationship between category exemplars and a target word. Taken together, these results are consistent with the phonological code incompatibility hypothesis.

Abstract

Three experiments explored the effects of global and local processing on the distribution of spatial attention. In experiment 1, participants were asked to discriminate either a large or a small circle presented right after the display of the compound letter whose identity should be later reported. The result was that an attended level of the compound letter affected the size judgment of the target circle. Experiment 2 made participants detect the position of gap in a small circle to investigate whether spatial arrangement of compound letters would affect the specific location of spatial attention, with no convincing result. By presenting all the four small circles at once only one of which has the gap, experiment 3 showed that more spatial attention would be given to the vertex position of the compound letters than to the other positions. These results suggest that both global and local processing influence the size of spatial attention, and make shift local spatial attention to the informative area of the compound letter as well.

Abstract

A cue-conflict situation can be created in the typical Pulfrich setting when an opaque surface is placed just behind the physical path of the pendulum: the depth of the pendulum from the Pulfrich effect is in conflict with that from occlusion. From this experimental setting, most observers reported that the far path seems to shrink and the pendulum was perceived to move in front of the surface (Perception, 33, (2004) 1201-1213). In the present study, it is examined whether the additional relative stereo depth by local disparity, which is contradicted with depth from occlusion, could change the perceived path of the Pulfrich pendulum. In order to provide the local disparity information in the inner region of the surface, thereby providing the relative stereodepth between the pendulum and the surface, the width of the surface and the density of the texture attached on the surface were varied in the experiment 1 and experiment 2, respectively. A large individual difference on the perceived depth of the farthest point of the path was found. About 25-35% of the observers reported that in all conditions, the pendulum was perceived to rotate in front of the surface, which was predicted by the depth information from the occlusion. However, most observers perceived that the pendulum was more likely to rotate behind the surface as the width was narrower and the density of the random texture was increased. These results suggest that the efficiency of occlusion might be weakened by the conflicting relative stereodepth, and the relative stereo depth might be extracted before depth interpolation process from the local disparity.

Abstract

The present study used sorting tasks and multidimensional scaling method to obtain psychological dimensions of risk perception from risk related adjectives and risk objects. In study 1, we selected 50 risk related adjectives and had participants sort them four times. We chose a four dimension solution and interpreted them as ‘activation(or arousal) level’, ‘predictability of dread’, ‘severity of risk’, and ‘severity of psychological response.’ In study 2, we selected 40 representative risk objects and had participants sort them four times. In addition, each risk object was rated with the property scales from the four dimensions of adjectives of study 1. We chose a four dimension solution and interpreted them as ‘predictability of occurrence', ‘perceived severity’, ‘public vs. personal’, and ‘common vs. rare.’ The property ‘predictability of dread' fitted well with ‘predictability of occurrence' and the rest three properties fitted well with ‘perceived severity.’ In study 3, we tested the psychological plausibility of ‘predictability of occurrence' and ‘perceived severity’ by using odd one out tasks, and the results suggested that it was easier to distinguish risk objects by ‘perceived severity’ than by ‘predictability of occurrence.' Finally, implications were discussed.

Abstract