Psychological Research

Three experiments investigated interactions between auditory pitch and the numerical quantities represented by spoken English number words. In Experiment 1, participants heard a pair of sequential auditory numbers in the range zero to ten. They pressed a left-side or right-side key to indicate if the second number was lower or higher in numerical value. The vocal pitches of the two numbers either ascended or descended so that pitch change was congruent or incongruent with number change. The error rate was higher when pitch and number were incongruent relative to congruent trials. The distance effect on RT (i.e., slower responses for numerically near than far number pairs) occurred with pitch ascending but not descending. In Experiment 2, to determine if these effects depended on the left/right spatial mapping of responses, participants responded “yes” if the second number was higher and “no” if it was lower. Again, participants made more number comparison errors when number and pitch were incongruent, but there was no distance × pitch order effect. To pursue the latter, in Experiment 3, participants were tested with response buttons assigned left-smaller and right-larger (“normal” spatial mapping) or the reverse mapping. Participants who received normal mapping first presented a distance effect with pitch ascending but not descending as in Experiment 1, whereas participants who received reverse mapping first presented a distance effect with pitch descending but not ascending. We propose that the number and pitch dimensions of stimuli both activated spatial representations and that strategy shifts from quantity comparison to order processing were induced by spatial incongruities.

Perception and action have long been treated as relatively independent and serial processes. More recent views, however, consider perception and action as relying on a common set of processes and/or representations. The present paper will focus on a variety of specific (content-based) perception–action interactions that have been taken as support for such views. In particular, the following aspects will be considered: direction of influence (perception on action vs. action on perception), temporal type (concurrent vs. non-concurrent), functional relation (related/unrelated), and type of movements (biological vs. non-biological). Different extant models of the perception-action interface are discussed and a classification schema proposed that tries to explain when contrast and when assimilation effects will arise.

Emotional besetzte und neutrale Wörter wurden 16 gesunden Versuchspersonen mit langsam steigender Lichtintensität geboten. Durch ein Signal hatten sie den Moment der Wahrnehmung des ersten Lichtscheins anzugeben, durch ein zweites die ersten Umrisse; ein drittes gaben sie, wenn sie das Wort erraten konnten, und ein viertes, wenn es sicher lesbar war. EEG und EKG wurden während der ganzen Zeit abgeleitet. Schon im unterschwelligen Bereich ergaben sich signifikante Unterschiede zwischen emotionalen und neutralen Wörtern sowohl im EEG wie im EKG. Unter Berücksichtigung ähnlicher Befunde anderer Autoren wird hier eine absolute Schwelle postuliert. Die Schwelle bewußter Wahrnehmung (1. Signal) liegt höher und ist inkonstant. Während der Exposition emotional besetzter Wörter war die Alphawellenausprägung weit stärker als bei neutralen. Das EKG hingegen zeigte im Schwellenbereich und darüber keine Unterschiede mehr zwischen emotional und neutral. Es wird gefolgert, eine Hemmung der Wahrnehmung (im vorliegenden Falle Verdrängung) manifestiere sich im EEG durch verstärktes Auftreten von Alphawellen.

With the expanse of technology, people are constantly exposed to an abundance of information. Of vital importance is to understand how people assess the truthfulness of such information. One indicator of perceived truthfulness seems to be whether it is repeated. That is, people tend to perceive repeated information, regardless of its veracity, as more truthful than new information, also known as the illusory truth effect. In the present study, we examined whether such effect is also observed for opinions and whether the manner in which the information is encoded influenced the illusory truth effect. Across three experiments, participants (n = 552) were presented with a list of true information, misinformation, general opinion, and/or social–political opinion statements. First, participants were either instructed to indicate whether the presented statement was a fact or opinion based on its syntax structure (Exp. 1 & 2) or assign each statement to a topic category (Exp. 3). Subsequently, participants rated the truthfulness of various new and repeated statements. Results showed that repeated information, regardless of the type of information, received higher subjective truth ratings when participants simply encoded them by assigning each statement to a topic. However, when general and social–political opinions were encoded as an opinion, we found no evidence of such effect. Moreover, we found a reversed illusory truth effect for general opinion statements when only considering information that was encoded as an opinion. These findings suggest that how information is encoded plays a crucial role in evaluating truth.

When asked to indicate the starting position of a fast moving stimulus, observers do not indicate the actual starting position but a later position on the motion trajectory. This perceptual illusion is known as the “Fröhlich effect”. We present a neural model aimed at simulating this phenomenon based on feedforward and feedback connections. The basic simulation mechanisms seem to be compatible with the attentional and the motion extrapolation account. A comparison between simulated and empirical results showed that the model is capable of generating the same main effects as those found in the empirical data.

(Eaves et al., Psychological Research Psychologische Forschung, 2022) summary review, showing positive behavioural effects of AOMI interventions, is a welcome addition to the field. Several recent studies, however, have reported that AOMI may be no more beneficial than independent MI, and, for some tasks, may add no benefit beyond that obtained via physical practice. We discuss evidence to balance the narrative but support the pragmatic reasons why AOMI remains a suitable and appealing form of action simulation. We propose that further research interrogation of the discrete AOMI states through a more continuum-based approach could address some of the inconsistent data seen in AOMI research.

Wir haben die Arbeitshypothese aufgestellt, daß die Dauer des Bewegungsnachbildes von denselben Faktoren abhängt, welche die phänomenale Geschwindigkeit beeinflussen. Diese Hypothese wurde bestätigt; wir konnten uns die funktionellen Beziehungen zwischen der Dauer des Nachbildes und der Geschwindigkeit des Vorbildes für ein auf bestimmter Weise struktuiertes Feld voraussagen auf Grund der bekannten Wirkung des Feldes auf die gesehene Geschwindigkeit.

Two experiments were conducted to study the number biases of subjects in situations not involving the usual psychophysical stimuli. In Exp. I subjects were asked to generate numbers (within boundary conditions) they thought other people would produce under the same conditions. In Exp. II only a single lower boundary (e.g., 1,10 or 100) was employed and subjects generated a set of numbers larger than the boundary. Results suggested that definite number biases exist. Multiples of 1, 10, 100 and to a lesser extent 5, 50 and 500 dominate and are appropriate to the log cycle. That is, multiples of 1 occur most often in the cycle 1–10, multiples of 10 in the cycle 10–100, etc. The implications of these results are noted for several psychophysical theories.