Indicators of perception: I. Subliminal perception, subception, unconscious perception: An analysis in terms of psychophysical indicator methodology.

"A review of the literature pertaining to unconscious processes in perception was undertaken since preceding reviews had not taken into account current developments in psychophysical indicator methodology, which, it was felt, might clarify issues in this area, especially since they concern the two types of indicators most widely used. It is concluded that most of the substantive contributions of the experiments reviewed cannot be demonstrated to be related to perceptual variables, and this is probably where their importance lies." 198 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Meditative prayer, hope, adult attachment, and forgiveness: A proposed model.

The present study tested a theoretical model of the relationship between meditative prayer and interpersonal forgiveness with hope and adult attachment as mediator variables. Results supported the proposed multiple mediation model as determined by multiple measures of model fit with the data. Significant direct effects were observed between meditative prayer and hope, hope and adult attachment, and adult attachment and forgiveness. A significant total indirect effect was found between meditative prayer and forgiveness. A significant specific indirect effect was also observed between meditative prayer and adult attachment with hope as the mediator, and between hope and forgiveness with adult attachment as a mediator. The concept of affect regulation is proposed as a possible unifying mechanism of the variables in the proposed model and implications are discussed in terms of existing literature and promoting interpersonal forgiveness in counseling. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

A new look at children’s understanding of mind and emotion: The case of prayer.

Multiple methods were used to examine children’s awareness of connections between emotion and prayer. Four-, 6-, and 8-year-olds and adults (N = 100) predicted whether people would pray when feeling different emotions, explained why characters in different situations decided to pray, and predicted whether characters’ emotions would change after praying. Four- and 6-year-olds exclusively judged that positive emotions motivate prayer, whereas 8-year-olds and adults most often predicted that negative emotions would cause people to pray and that praying could improve emotions. There was also a significant increase between 4 and 8 years in explaining prayer as motivated by need for assistance, for thanksgiving, and for conversation, as well as for explaining postprayer emotions in relation to God or prayer. Religious background predicted individual differences in reasoning only for 4-year-olds. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Chasing vs. stalking: Interrupting the perception of animacy.

Visual experience involves not only physical features such as color and shape, but also higher-level properties such as animacy and goal-directedness. Perceiving animacy is an inherently dynamic experience, in part because agents' goal-directed behavior may be frequently in flux—unlike many of their physical properties. How does the visual system maintain and update representations of agents' animate and goal-directed behavior over time and motion? The present study explored this question in the context of a particularly salient form of perceived animacy: chasing, in which one shape (the “wolf”) pursues another shape (the “sheep”). Here the participants themselves controlled the movement of the sheep, and the perception of chasing was assessed in terms of their ability to avoid being caught by the wolf—which looked identical to many moving distractors, and so could be identified only by its motion. The wolf's pursuit was frequently interrupted by periods in which it was static, jiggling in place, or moving randomly (amidst distractors that behaved similarly). Only the latter condition greatly impaired the detection of chasing—and only when the random motion was grouped into temporally extended chunks. These results reveal (1) how the detection of chasing is determined by the character and temporal grouping (rather than just the brute amount) of “pursuit” over time; and (2) how these temporal dynamics can lead the visual system to either construct or actively reject interpretations of chasing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction to the special issue on object perception and scene analysis.

Work in psychophysics, neuroscience, and visual perception has led to significant recent advances in our understanding of the human visual system. The articles in this special issue represent diverse approaches to the study of visual perception and highlight some of these recent advances, as applied to issues involved in understanding object perception and scene analysis. The special issue grew out of a workshop on object and scene perception held in September 1990 at the University of Leuven. The intent of the original workshop and of the collection of articles in this issue is to bring together the work of researchers using widely differing techniques and theoretical frameworks, and to apply recent results to the issues surrounding object and scene perception. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Subliminal perception or perception of partial cues.

3 studies are reported aimed at assessing whether perception without awareness involves response to a below-the-threshold stimulus or whether the stimulus, though below the reportable threshold, is nevertheless perceived and S responds to minimal cues. The results favor the latter explanation. There is an intensive theoretical discussion. (28 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Enhancing marital enrichment through spirituality: Efficacy data for prayer focused relationship enhancement.

We examined 393 African American married couples assigned to (a) a culturally sensitive version of a widely disseminated relationship enhancement program (CS-PREP); (b) a similar version of the same program that also included a focus on prayer (PFP condition); or (c) an information-only control condition in which couples received a self-help version of the same program. Husbands averaged 40.5 years of age and wives averaged 38.9 years. We found a significant interaction between intervention and time of assessment, reflecting group differences in linear trends for the three conditions, with the two intervention conditions performing better than the control condition, and PFP producing superior outcomes to CS-PREP only for wives at post and marginally better results at 12-month follow-up. Results support continued exploration of the adjunctive use of prayer in the context of relationship enhancement programs where appropriate to make them more culturally sensitive. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recalibrating the auditory system: A speed-accuracy analysis of intensity perception.

Recalibration in loudness perception refers to an adaptation-like change in relative responsiveness to auditory signals of different sound frequencies. Listening to relatively weak tones at one frequency and stronger tones at another makes the latter appear softer. The authors showed recalibration not only in magnitude estimates of loudness but also in simple response times (RTs) and choice RTs. RTs depend on sound intensity and may serve as surrogates for loudness. Most important, the speeded classification paradigm also provided measures of errors. RTs and errors can serve jointly to distinguish changes in sensitivity from changes in response criterion. The changes in choice RT under different recalibrating conditions were not accompanied by changes in error rates predicted by the speed-accuracy trade-off. These results lend support to the hypothesis that loudness recalibration does not result from shifting decisional criteria but instead reflects a change in the underlying representation of auditory intensity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Preconscious perception: A re-examination of the Poetzel phenomenon.

Based on the format of a previous investigation (see 33: 9534) this study investigated the Poetzel phenomenon, but with certain features of the original design, felt to contribute artifacts to the results, altered. Ss were exposed to tachistoscopically-presented stimuli which were then evaluated as to their presence in daydream associations the following day. To check whether the content of the associations were related to the experimentally-presented stimuli or not, this study added a control group, not exposed to the experimental stimuli, but asked to day dream and associate freely. To be validly related to the experimental stimuli, the associations of the group exposed to the stimuli should be significantly different from that in the control group; they were not. The Poetzel hypothesis was not felt to be supported. From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4HL97J. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

National trends in prayer use as a coping mechanism for health concerns: Changes from 2002 to 2007.

The objective of this research was to analyze national trends in the use of prayer to cope with health concerns. Data are from the Alternative Medicine Supplement of the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) 2002 (N = 30,080) and 2007 (N = 22,306). We categorized prayer use into 3 groups: never prayed, prayed in the past 12 months, and did not pray in the past 12 months. Chi-square tests and multinomial logistic regressions were performed to analyze prayer use over time. All analyses adjusted for the complex sample design of the NHIS and were conducted in SAS-callable SUDAAN. Recent use (within 12 months) of prayer for health concerns significantly increased from 43% in 2002 to 49% in 2007. After adjusting for demographic, socioeconomic status, health status, and lifestyle behaviors, prayer use was more likely in 2007 than 2002 (adjusted odds ratio = 1.21, 95% CI [1.14, 1.28]). Across time, individuals reporting dental pain were more likely to use prayer to cope compared with those with no pain. The adjusted odds ratios were 1.2 (95% CI [1.09, 1.33]) in 2002 and 1.16 (95% CI [1.03, 1.3]) in 2007. Other predictors of prayer, including gender, race, psychological distress, changing health status, and functional limitations, remained consistent across both time periods. Overall, prayer use for health concerns increased between 2001 and 2007. The escalating positive association between pain and prayer use for health concerns over time suggests that it is critical for mental and physical health treatment providers to be aware of the prevalence of this coping resource. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

A critical test of the overlap hypothesis for odor mixture perception.

The overlap hypothesis of mixture perception is based on the observation that mixtures of perceptually similar odorants tend to smell different from their components (configural), whereas mixtures of dissimilar odorants smell like their components (elemental). Because input patterns of perceptually similar odorants tend to overlap more than dissimilar ones, it has been hypothesized that component pattern overlap can predict a mixture's perceptual quality, with high overlap predicting a configural response and low overlap an elemental response. The authors used 7 pairs of odorants chosen for different degrees of overlap in their monomolecular 2-deoxyglucose activation patterns to test the theory in a go/no-go behavioral assay that measured generalization from binary mixtures to components. The authors show that individual component odorant input patterns are not sufficient to predict mixture quality, falsifying the overlap hypothesis. An important finding is that different odorant pairs with similar glomerular overlap showed opposite behavioral–perceptual responses, suggesting nonlinear effects at the receptor or glomerular level or the critical involvement of higher order areas. Thus, the authors posit that imaging the mixtures themselves may provide additional information needed to reliably predict mixture quality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Countertransference as a prototype: The development of a measure.

Countertransference is a concept that is widely acknowledged, but there exists little definitional consensus, making research in the area difficult. The authors adopted a prototype theory (E. H. Rosch, 1973a, 1973b; see C. B. Mervis & E. Rosch, 1981, for a review) to examine this construct because it conceptually fits well with constructs that elude explicit definition. In Study 1, 45 experienced psychologists highly agreed with the prototypicality of 104 different examples of countertransference providing support for the presence of a prototype. In Study 2, the usage of this prototype in a sample of 35 trainees was related to ability to perceive countertransference in a case example drawn from the literature and positively correlated with self-reports of their experiences of countertransference but not with their self-reported ability to manage countertransference once it was manifest. Implications for training and research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Bogus concerns about the false prototype enhancement effect.

Two experiments addressed the mechanism responsible for the false prototype effect, the phenomenon in which a prototype gradient can be obtained in the absence of learning. Previous demonstrations of this effect have occurred solely in a single-category paradigm in which transfer patterns are assigned or not to the learning category. We tested the hypothesis that any extraneous variable potentially responsible for this effect, such as compactness varying with pattern distortion (Zaki & Nosofsky, 2004), may be functional in the single-category paradigm but not when multiple categories are available at the time of transfer. In the present study, subjects received a bogus or a real category learning phase, followed by a transfer test that required assignment into 1 or 3 prototype categories. The results showed that a minimal prototype gradient was obtained in the bogus conditions, with performance approaching chance levels when classification into 3 categories was required. In contrast, a substantial prototype gradient effect was found following learning. We conclude that the prototype gradient typically obtained following multiple-category learning is primarily driven by real learning and that the false prototype effect is itself an artifact of the single-category paradigm. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender-based prototype formation in face recognition.

The role of gender categories in prototype formation during face recognition was investigated in 2 experiments. The participants were asked to learn individual faces and then to recognize them. During recognition, individual faces were mixed with faces, which were blended faces of same or different genders. The results of the 2 experiments showed that blended faces made with learned individual faces were recognized, even though they had never been seen before. In Experiment 1, this effect was stronger when faces belonged to the same gender category (same-sex blended faces), but it also emerged across gender categories (cross-sex blended faces). Experiment 2 further showed that this prototype effect was not affected by the presentation order for same-sex blended faces: The effect was equally strong when the faces were presented one after the other during learning or alternated with faces of the opposite gender. By contrast, the prototype effect across gender categories was highly sensitive to the temporal proximity of the faces blended into the blended faces and almost disappeared when other faces were intermixed. These results indicate that distinct neural populations code for female and male faces. However, the formation of a facial representation can also be mediated by both neural populations. The implications for face-space properties and face-encoding processes are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Working memory enhances visual perception: Evidence from signal detection analysis.

We show that perceptual sensitivity to visual stimuli can be modulated by matches between the contents of working memory (WM) and stimuli in the visual field. Observers were presented with an object cue (to hold in WM or to merely attend) and subsequently had to identify a brief target presented within a colored shape. The cue could be re-presented in the display, where it surrounded either the target (on valid trials) or a distractor (on invalid trials). Perceptual identification of the target, as indexed by A′, was enhanced on valid relative to invalid trials but only when the cue was kept in WM. There was minimal effect of the cue when it was merely attended and not kept in WM. Verbal cues were as effective as visual cues at modulating perceptual identification, and the effects were independent of the effects of target saliency. Matches to the contents of WM influenced perceptual sensitivity even under conditions that minimized competition for selecting the target. WM cues were also effective when targets were less likely to fall in a repeated WM stimulus than in other stimuli in the search display. There were no effects of WM on decisional criteria, in contrast to sensitivity. The findings suggest that reentrant feedback from WM can affect early stages of perceptual processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multiple mechanisms in the perception of face gender: Effect of sex-irrelevant features.

Effects of sex-relevant and sex-irrelevant facial features on the evaluation of facial gender were investigated. Participants rated masculinity of 48 male facial photographs and femininity of 48 female facial photographs. Eighty feature points were measured on each of the facial photographs. Using a generalized Procrustes analysis, facial shapes were converted into multidimensional vectors, with the average face as a starting point. Each vector was decomposed into a sex-relevant subvector and a sex-irrelevant subvector which were, respectively, parallel and orthogonal to the main male–female axis. Principal components analysis (PCA) was performed on the sex-irrelevant subvectors. One principal component was negatively correlated with both perceived masculinity and femininity, and another was correlated only with femininity, though both components were orthogonal to the male–female dimension (and thus by definition sex-irrelevant). These results indicate that evaluation of facial gender depends on sex-irrelevant as well as sex-relevant facial features. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Acquisition of categorical color perception: A perceptual learning approach to the linguistic relativity hypothesis.

Color perception can be categorical: Between-category discriminations are more accurate than equivalent within-category discrimination. The effects could be inherited, learned, or both. The authors provide evidence that supports the possibility of learned categorical perception (CP). Experiment 1 demonstrated that observers' color discrimination is flexible and improves through repeated practice. Experiment 2 demonstrated that category learning simulates effects of "natural" color categories on color discrimination. Experiment 3 investigated the time course of acquired CP. Experiment 4 found that CP effects are acquired through hue- and lightness-based category learning and obtained interesting data on the dimensional perception of color. The data are consistent with the possibility that language may shape color perception and suggest a plausible mechanism for the linguistic relativity hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Monocular distance perception in schizophrenics.

This study was designed to investigate the possibility of a dysfunction in monocular depth perception in schizophrenics. 50 schizophrenics and 50 normals were asked to align monocularly viewed patterned and unpatterned projected images with each of 5 monocularly viewed, minimally lighted rods. An analysis of variance indicated a difference significant beyond the 1% level in the alignment ability of the 2 groups and stimulus intensification of the images with color increased both groups' alignment ability. A trend analysis indicated a significant increase in the difference between the groups from p