Everything is Foreseen, Yet Free will is Given (Mishna Avot 3:15)

Jan Theeuwes’ review of visual selection shines a useful spotlight on the role of selection history in determining subsequent deployments of attention. However, he blurs an important distinction between volition and top-down guidance of attention and he underplays the role of both of those factors in the control of attention

Priming of Pop-Out Does not Affect the Shooting Line Illusion

We combined a shooting-line illusion with a visual search pop-out task in an effort to determine whether priming of pop-out was due to acceleratcd processing of visual information in the primed dimension. While the priming effect and the line-motion percept were replicated, the visual search task showed no influence on the perceived direction of line motion. These results indicate that the priming effect does not accelerate early visual processing.National Institutes of Health-National Eye Institute (EY05087, 49620-93-1-0407

Global Precedence In Visual Search? Not So Fast: Evidence Instead For An Oblique Effect

The evidence from an earlier report of global precedence in visual search is reexamined, Two new experiments are reported. The results of the first experiment indicate that the confusability of oblique orientations (a class-2 oblique effect) rather than global precedence was responsible for the earlier results. The results of the second experiment show that the effect critically depends on the presence of heterogeneous distracters rather than on differences in raw processing speed for different spatial scales. The possible role of symmetry is discussed

Michigan’s Medical Marihuana Act—Parting the Haze

Article published in the Michigan State University School of Law Student Scholarship Collection

Does binding of synesthetic color to the evoking grapheme require attention?

The official published version can be accessed from the link below.The neural mechanisms involved in binding features such as shape and color are a matter of some debate. Does accurate binding rely on spatial attention functions of the parietal lobe or can it occur without attentional input? One extraordinary phenomenon that may shed light on this question is that of chromatic-graphemic synesthesia, a rare condition in which letter shapes evoke color perceptions. A popular suggestion is that synesthesia results from cross-activation between different functional regions (e.g., between shape and color areas of the ventral pathway). Under such conditions binding may not require parietal involvement and could occur preattentively. We tested this hypothesis in two synesthetes who perceived grayscale letters and digits in color. We found no evidence for preattentive binding using a visual search paradigm in which the target was a synesthetic inducer. In another experiment involving color judgments, we show that the congruency of target color and the synesthetic color of irrelevant digits modulates performance more when the digits are included within the attended region of space. We propose that the mechanisms giving rise to this type of synesthesia appear to follow at least some principles of normal binding, and even synesthetic binding seems to require attention.This work has been supported by a Veterans Administration Senior Research Career Scientist Award and NINDS grant #MH62331 to LCR and the Elizabeth Roboz Einstein fellowship in Neuroscience and Human Development to NS

Kill Zones and Their Use During the American Civil War: An Archaeological Review of The Battle of Pickett’s Mill

While not well known in the list of battles during the Atlanta Campaign late in the American Civil War, it is marked as an overwhelming Confederate victory in the face of looming defeat in the war itself. With the Union suffering nearly two thousand casualties, the tactics and strategies used by the Confederate army no doubt aided in their victory. During the battle, Union soldiers were drawn into a ravine where Confederate soldiers could easily fire down on them. The Union men followed the ravine up into a flat area where they were then fired on again with accurate rifle and cannon fire. This research will review the areas of concentrated fire by Confederate troops and whether these occurred out of circumstance, or if they had been planned in advanced as pre-designated areas of fire, otherwise known as “kill zones”. The archaeological data from previous research will be reviewed to determine concentrations of Confederate fired ammunition as well as lines of entrenchment to gather evidence of premeditated fields of fire to create a kill zone. This research will also review historical texts and accounts to determine if this was intentional and whether this strategy was used elsewhere in battles during the Civil War. It will also review that if these areas of concentrated fire were only by coincidence, then what were the mistakes made by the Union that lead to such a high number of casualties when they heavily outnumbered Confederate forces

Photo-Realistic Scenes with Cast Shadows Show No Above/Below Search Asymmetries for Illumination Direction

Visual search is extended from the domain of polygonal figures presented on a uniform field to photo-realistic scenes containing target objects in dense, naturalistic backgrounds. The target in a trial is a computer-rendered rock protruding in depth from a "wall" of rocks of roughly similar size but different shapes. Subjects responded "present" when one rock appeared closer than the rest, owing to occlusions or cast shadows, and "absent" when all rocks appeared to be at the same depth. Results showed that cast shadows can significantly decrease reaction times compared to scenes with no cast shadows, in which the target was revealed only by occlusions of rocks behind it. A control experiment showed that cast shadows can be utilized even for displays involving rocks of several achromatic surface colors (dark through light), in which the shadow cast by the target rock was not the darkest region in the scene. Finally, in contrast with reports of experiments by others involving polygonal figures, we found no evidence for an effect of illumination direction (above vs. below) on search times.Office of Naval Research (N00014-94-1-0597, N00014-95-1-0409

Tiger Tunes 1998

20th Annual Tiger Tuneshttps://scholarlycommons.obu.edu/tunes/1025/thumbnail.jp

Tiger Tunes 1997

19th Annual Tiger Tuneshttps://scholarlycommons.obu.edu/tunes/1024/thumbnail.jp

Photo-Realistic Scenes with Cast Shadows Show No Above/Below Search Asymmetries for Illumination Direction

Visual search is extended from the domain of polygonal figures presented on a uniform field to photo-realistic scenes containing target objects in dense, naturalistic backgrounds. The target in a trial is a computer-rendered rock protruding in depth from a "wall" of rocks of roughly similar size but different shapes. Subjects responded "present" when one rock appeared closer than the rest, owing to occlusions or cast shadows, and "absent" when all rocks appeared to be at the same depth. Results showed that cast shadows can significantly decrease reaction times compared to scenes with no cast shadows, in which the target was revealed only by occlusions of rocks behind it. A control experiment showed that cast shadows can be utilized even for displays involving rocks of several achromatic surface colors (dark through light), in which the shadow cast by the target rock was not the darkest region in the scene. Finally, in contrast with reports of experiments by others involving polygonal figures, we found no evidence for an effect of illumination direction (above vs. below) on search times.Office of Naval Research (N00014-94-1-0597, N00014-95-1-0409