Inhomogeneity of visual space, discontinuity of perceptual time and cultural imprinting as exemplified with experiments on visual attention, aesthetic appreciation and temporal processing

Eines der wichtigsten Argumente für einen kognitivistischen Zugang zur Psychologie ist, dass sich die Psychologie nicht grundlegend von der Physik zu unterscheiden scheint; mentale Phänomene sind offenbar unmittelbar auf physikalische Realität bezogen. Beginnend mit der Psychophysik seit dem neunzehnten Jahrhunderts haben Experimente gezeigt, dass dieser Denkansatz nicht nur mit großen Vorteilen, sondern auch mit einigen Fallstricken verbunden sein kann. Auf der Basis des zugrundeliegenden Konzepts, dass mentale Phänomene physikalischen Ereignissen unmittelbar zugeordnet werden können, wird automatisch angenommen, dass die zeitliche Verarbeitung von sensorischen Informationen kontinuierlich sei, wie es das Zeitkonzept in der klassischen Physik nahelegt. Dieses Konzept widerspricht der Möglichkeit einer diskreten zeitlichen Informationsverarbeitung, wie sie in der Tat gilt. Des weiteren wird davon ausgegangen, dass Informationsverarbeitung in einem homogenen visuellen Wahrnehmungsraum eingebettet ist; dies ist jedoch nicht der Fall. Es wird dargestellt, dass mit einfachen sensorischen Reizen oder komplexen ästhetischen Stimuli und deren experimenteller Manipulation ein brauchbares empirisches Paradigma für ein besseres Verständnis von kognitiven Mechanismen bereitsteht, das auf diskrete zeitliche Verarbeitung und einen inhomogenen visuellen Wahrnehmungsraum hinweist. In mehreren Experimenten wird gezeigt, daß die Modulation der Aufmerksamkeit im Gesichtsfeld nicht homogen ist; Reaktionszeitexperimente mit spezifischen Modifikationen stützen die Hypothese, dass funktionell zwei Aufmerksamkeitssysteme im Gesichtsfeld eingebettet sind. Weitere unterstützende Beobachtungen über die Inhomogenität des Gesichtsfeldes kommen aus Experimenten zur ästhetischen Wahrnehmung westlicher und östlicher Kunstwerke. Diese Forschung bestätigt überdies das allgemeine Konzept von anthropologischen Universalien sowie kulturellen oder individuellen Spezifika bei der ästhetischen Wahrnehmung. Im Hinblick auf die zeitliche Wahrnehmung weisen Histogramme der Reaktionszeit auf diskrete zeitliche Informationsverarbeitung hin, was sich auch aus Beobachtungen der zeitlichen Ordnungsschwelle herleiten läßt. Bei der Untersuchung verzögerter Reaktionen wird gezeigt, dass eine präzise zeitliche Kontrolle erst nach einem längeren Intervall erreicht wird. Zusammenfassend kann man aus den verschiedenen Experimenten herleiten, dass mentale Prozesse im räumlichen und zeitlichen Bereich zwar offenkundig nicht direkt zugänglich sind, doch sollte dies nicht als eine undurchdringliche Barriere angesehen werden, um Mechanismen mentaler Prozesse zu entschlüsseln. Mit den klar definierten physikalischen Stimuli und der genauen Beachtung von Stationaritätsbedingungen bei Messungen kann diskrete zeitliche Verarbeitung und Inhomogenität des visuellen Wahrnehmungsraums gezeigt werden.One of the most compelling arguments for a cognitivist approach to psychology is that psychology does not seem to be fundamentally different from physics; mental phenomena appear to be directly related to physical reality. Experimental evidence beginning in the nineteenth century with psychophysics has shown that this approach can offer great benefits, but can suffer from some pitfalls as well. On the basis of the underlying concept that mental phenomena match directly physical events, it is automatically assumed that temporal processing of sensory information is continuous as it is assumed in classical physics neglecting the possibility of discrete temporal information processing, which in fact is the case. Furthermore, it is assumed that information processing is embedded in a homogeneous perceptual visual space; this is not the case. It is shown that the use of simple sensory stimuli or complex aesthetic stimuli and their experimental manipulation provide a useful empirical paradigm for a better understanding of the cognitive mechanisms, i.e., indicating discrete temporal processing and an inhomogeneous perceptual visual space. A number of experiments show that attentional modulation is not homogeneous in the visual field; observations using the reaction time paradigm with specific modifications support the hypothesis that two attention systems are functionally embedded in the visual field. Further supportive findings about the inhomogeneity of the visual field come from experiments on the aesthetic perception of Western and Eastern artworks. This research also confirms in addition the general concept of anthropological universals and cultural or individual specifics in aesthetic appreciation. With regard to temporal perception, reaction time distributions suggest discrete time sampling which can also be derived from observations on temporal order threshold. When testing delayed reactions after stimulus presentation, it is shown that precise temporal control is reached only after a rather long interval. It can be concluded on the basis of the different experiments that even though mental processes in the space and time domain are obviously not directly accessible, this should not be considered as an impenetrable barrier to unravel the mechanism of mental processes. Employing well-defined physical stimuli and strictly observing stationarity conditions in measurements indicate discreteness in temporal processing and inhomogeneity of visual space

Inhomogeneity of visual space, discontinuity of perceptual time and cultural imprinting as exemplified with experiments on visual attention, aesthetic appreciation and temporal processing

Eines der wichtigsten Argumente für einen kognitivistischen Zugang zur Psychologie ist, dass sich die Psychologie nicht grundlegend von der Physik zu unterscheiden scheint; mentale Phänomene sind offenbar unmittelbar auf physikalische Realität bezogen. Beginnend mit der Psychophysik seit dem neunzehnten Jahrhunderts haben Experimente gezeigt, dass dieser Denkansatz nicht nur mit großen Vorteilen, sondern auch mit einigen Fallstricken verbunden sein kann. Auf der Basis des zugrundeliegenden Konzepts, dass mentale Phänomene physikalischen Ereignissen unmittelbar zugeordnet werden können, wird automatisch angenommen, dass die zeitliche Verarbeitung von sensorischen Informationen kontinuierlich sei, wie es das Zeitkonzept in der klassischen Physik nahelegt. Dieses Konzept widerspricht der Möglichkeit einer diskreten zeitlichen Informationsverarbeitung, wie sie in der Tat gilt. Des weiteren wird davon ausgegangen, dass Informationsverarbeitung in einem homogenen visuellen Wahrnehmungsraum eingebettet ist; dies ist jedoch nicht der Fall. Es wird dargestellt, dass mit einfachen sensorischen Reizen oder komplexen ästhetischen Stimuli und deren experimenteller Manipulation ein brauchbares empirisches Paradigma für ein besseres Verständnis von kognitiven Mechanismen bereitsteht, das auf diskrete zeitliche Verarbeitung und einen inhomogenen visuellen Wahrnehmungsraum hinweist. In mehreren Experimenten wird gezeigt, daß die Modulation der Aufmerksamkeit im Gesichtsfeld nicht homogen ist; Reaktionszeitexperimente mit spezifischen Modifikationen stützen die Hypothese, dass funktionell zwei Aufmerksamkeitssysteme im Gesichtsfeld eingebettet sind. Weitere unterstützende Beobachtungen über die Inhomogenität des Gesichtsfeldes kommen aus Experimenten zur ästhetischen Wahrnehmung westlicher und östlicher Kunstwerke. Diese Forschung bestätigt überdies das allgemeine Konzept von anthropologischen Universalien sowie kulturellen oder individuellen Spezifika bei der ästhetischen Wahrnehmung. Im Hinblick auf die zeitliche Wahrnehmung weisen Histogramme der Reaktionszeit auf diskrete zeitliche Informationsverarbeitung hin, was sich auch aus Beobachtungen der zeitlichen Ordnungsschwelle herleiten läßt. Bei der Untersuchung verzögerter Reaktionen wird gezeigt, dass eine präzise zeitliche Kontrolle erst nach einem längeren Intervall erreicht wird. Zusammenfassend kann man aus den verschiedenen Experimenten herleiten, dass mentale Prozesse im räumlichen und zeitlichen Bereich zwar offenkundig nicht direkt zugänglich sind, doch sollte dies nicht als eine undurchdringliche Barriere angesehen werden, um Mechanismen mentaler Prozesse zu entschlüsseln. Mit den klar definierten physikalischen Stimuli und der genauen Beachtung von Stationaritätsbedingungen bei Messungen kann diskrete zeitliche Verarbeitung und Inhomogenität des visuellen Wahrnehmungsraums gezeigt werden.One of the most compelling arguments for a cognitivist approach to psychology is that psychology does not seem to be fundamentally different from physics; mental phenomena appear to be directly related to physical reality. Experimental evidence beginning in the nineteenth century with psychophysics has shown that this approach can offer great benefits, but can suffer from some pitfalls as well. On the basis of the underlying concept that mental phenomena match directly physical events, it is automatically assumed that temporal processing of sensory information is continuous as it is assumed in classical physics neglecting the possibility of discrete temporal information processing, which in fact is the case. Furthermore, it is assumed that information processing is embedded in a homogeneous perceptual visual space; this is not the case. It is shown that the use of simple sensory stimuli or complex aesthetic stimuli and their experimental manipulation provide a useful empirical paradigm for a better understanding of the cognitive mechanisms, i.e., indicating discrete temporal processing and an inhomogeneous perceptual visual space. A number of experiments show that attentional modulation is not homogeneous in the visual field; observations using the reaction time paradigm with specific modifications support the hypothesis that two attention systems are functionally embedded in the visual field. Further supportive findings about the inhomogeneity of the visual field come from experiments on the aesthetic perception of Western and Eastern artworks. This research also confirms in addition the general concept of anthropological universals and cultural or individual specifics in aesthetic appreciation. With regard to temporal perception, reaction time distributions suggest discrete time sampling which can also be derived from observations on temporal order threshold. When testing delayed reactions after stimulus presentation, it is shown that precise temporal control is reached only after a rather long interval. It can be concluded on the basis of the different experiments that even though mental processes in the space and time domain are obviously not directly accessible, this should not be considered as an impenetrable barrier to unravel the mechanism of mental processes. Employing well-defined physical stimuli and strictly observing stationarity conditions in measurements indicate discreteness in temporal processing and inhomogeneity of visual space

Aesthetic Experiences Across Cultures: Neural Correlates When Viewing Traditional Eastern or Western Landscape Paintings

Compared with traditional Western landscape paintings, Chinese traditional landscape paintings usually apply a reversed-geometric perspective and concentrate more on contextual information. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we discovered an intracultural bias in the aesthetic appreciation of Western and Eastern traditional landscape paintings in European and Chinese participants. When viewing Western and Eastern landscape paintings in an fMRI scanner, participants showed stronger brain activation to artistic expressions from their own culture. Europeans showed greater activation in visual and sensory-motor brain areas, regions in the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), and hippocampus when viewing Western compared to Eastern landscape paintings. Chinese participants exhibited greater neural activity in the medial and inferior occipital cortex and regions of the superior parietal lobule in response to Eastern compared to Western landscape paintings. On the behavioral level, the aesthetic judgments also differed between Western and Chinese participants when viewing landscape paintings from different cultures; Western participants showed for instance higher valence values when viewing Western landscapes, while Chinese participants did not show this effect when viewing Chinese landscapes. In general, our findings offer differentiated support for a cultural modulation at the behavioral level and in the neural architecture for high-level aesthetic appreciation

Attentional modulation of speed-change perception in the perifoveal and near- peripheral visual field

The ability to perceive changes in motion, such as rapid changes of speed, has important ecological significance. We show that exogenous and endogenous attention have different effects on speed-change perception and operate differently in different regions of the visual field. Using a spatial-cueing paradigm, with either exogenous or endogenous cues followed by drifting Gabor patches of changing speed that appear at the cued or uncued location, we measured participants' thresholds for localizing both acceleration and deceleration of the Gabor patches in different regions (5 degrees and 10 degrees) of the visual field. The results revealed a larger exogenous cueing effect, indexed by a lower threshold for the cued relative to the uncued conditions, at 5 degrees for perceiving acceleration and at 10 degrees for perceiving deceleration. Endogenous attention, in contrast, improved performance equally at both eccentricities. We conclude that exogenous and endogenous spatial orienting constitute two independent attentional systems, with distinct modulation patterns on speed change perception in the visual field. While exogenous attentional modulation is eccentricity-dependent, endogenous attention acts homogeneously in perifoveal and near-peripheral regions of the visual field

Aesthetic Experiences Across Cultures: Neural Correlates When Viewing Traditional Eastern or Western Landscape Paintings

Compared with traditional Western landscape paintings, Chinese traditional landscape paintings usually apply a reversed-geometric perspective and concentrate more on contextual information. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we discovered an intracultural bias in the aesthetic appreciation of Western and Eastern traditional landscape paintings in European and Chinese participants. When viewing Western and Eastern landscape paintings in an fMRI scanner, participants showed stronger brain activation to artistic expressions from their own culture. Europeans showed greater activation in visual and sensory-motor brain areas, regions in the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), and hippocampus when viewing Western compared to Eastern landscape paintings. Chinese participants exhibited greater neural activity in the medial and inferior occipital cortex and regions of the superior parietal lobule in response to Eastern compared to Western landscape paintings. On the behavioral level, the aesthetic judgments also differed between Western and Chinese participants when viewing landscape paintings from different cultures; Western participants showed for instance higher valence values when viewing Western landscapes, while Chinese participants did not show this effect when viewing Chinese landscapes. In general, our findings offer differentiated support for a cultural modulation at the behavioral level and in the neural architecture for high-level aesthetic appreciation

Does cue processing modulate inhibition of return in a detection task?

While the abrupt onset of a peripheral visual cue usually leads to speeded responses to following targets at the cued relative to other positions, responses are slowed if targets lag behind the cue by more than similar to 200 ms. This response delay is termed inhibition of return (IOR) and has been considered as a mechanism to orient behavior toward novel areas. IOR has been found in both detection and discrimination tasks with later onset in discrimination tasks, probably due to a higher processing demand. Here we examined whether the processing demand of cues can modulate IOR in the detection task. The task to the peripheral cues, either color or gap cues, was passive viewing in one session (single task) and discrimination in another session (dual task). The results showed that the time course of IOR was resistant to the cue processing, while the magnitude of IOR was increased when the processing load became larger in the dual task relative to the single task. These results indicate that IOR in target detection is both reflexive in that its temporal dynamics remain invariant, and flexible in that its magnitude is modulated by task requirement.</p

Aesthetic Preferences for Eastern and Western Traditional Visual Art: Identity Matters

Western and Chinese artists have different traditions in representing the world in their paintings. While Western artists start since the Renaissance to represent the world with a central perspective and focus on salient objects in a scene, Chinese artists concentrate on context information in their paintings, mainly before the mid 19th century. We investigated whether the different typical representations influence the aesthetic preference for traditional Chinese and Western paintings in the different cultural groups. Traditional Chinese and Western paintings were presented randomly for an aesthetic evaluation to Chinese and Western participants. Both Chinese and Western paintings included two categories: landscapes and people in different scenes. Results showed a significant interaction between the source of the painting and the cultural group. For Chinese and Western paintings, a reversed pattern of aesthetic preference was observed: while Chinese participants gave higher aesthetic scores to traditional Chinese paintings than to Western paintings, Western participants tended to give higher aesthetic scores to traditional Western paintings than to Chinese paintings. We interpret this observation as indicator that personal identity is supported and enriched within cultural belongingness. Another important finding was that landscapes were more preferable than people in a scene across different cultural groups indicating a universal principle of preferences for landscapes. Thus, our results suggest that, on the one hand, the way that artists represent the world in their paintings influences the way that culturally embedded viewers perceive and appreciate paintings, but on the other hand, independent of the cultural background, anthropological universals are disclosed by the preference of landscapes

Aesthetic Preferences for Eastern and Western Traditional Visual Art: Identity Matters

Western and Chinese artists have different traditions in representing the world in their paintings. While Western artists start since the Renaissance to represent the world with a central perspective and focus on salient objects in a scene, Chinese artists concentrate on context information in their paintings, mainly before the mid-nineteenth century. We investigated whether the different typical representations influence the aesthetic preference for traditional Chinese and Western paintings in the different cultural groups. Traditional Chinese and Western paintings were presented randomly for an aesthetic evaluation to Chinese and Western subjects. Both Chinese and Western paintings included two categories: landscapes and people in different scenes. Results showed a significant interaction between the source of the painting and the cultural group. For Chinese and Western paintings, a reversed pattern of aesthetic preference was observed: while Chinese subjects gave higher aesthetic scores to traditional Chinese paintings than to Western paintings, subjects from Western countries tended to give lower aesthetic scores to traditional Chinese paintings than to Western paintings. We interpret this observation as indicator that personal identity is supported and enriched within cultural belongingness. Another important finding was that landscapes were more preferable than people in a scene across different cultural groups indicating a universal principle of preferences for landscapes. Thus, our results suggest on the one hand that the way how artists represent the world in their paintings influence the way how culturally embedded viewers perceive and appreciate paintings, but that on the other hand independent of the cultural background anthropological universals are disclosed by the preference of landscapes

Synchronization as a biological psychological and social mechanism to create common time A theoretical frame and a single case study

&nbsp; Synchronizing neural processes, mental activities, and social interactions is considered to be fundamental for the creation of temporal order on the personal and interpersonal level. Several different types of synchronization are distinguished, and for each of them examples are given: self-organized synchronizations on the neural level giving rise to pre-semantically defined time windows of some tens of milliseconds and of approximately 3 s; time windows that are created by synchronizing different neural representations, as for instance in aesthetic appreciations or moral judgments; and synchronization of biological rhythms with geophysical cycles, like the circadian clock with the 24-hr rhythm of day and night. For the latter type of synchronization, an experiment is described that shows the importance of social interactions for sharing or avoiding common time. In a group study with four subjects being completely isolated together for 3 weeks from the external world, social interactions resulted both in intra- and interindividual circadian synchronization and desynchronization. A unique phenomenon in circadian regulation is described, the &quot;beat phenomenon,&quot;which has been made visible by the interaction of two circadian rhythms with different frequencies in one body. The separation of the two physiological rhythms was the consequence of social interactions, that is, by the desire of a subject to share and to escape common time during different phases of the long-term experiment. The theoretical arguments on synchronization are summarized with the general statement: &quot;Nothing in cognitive science makes sense except in the light of time windows.&quot;The hypothesis is forwarded that time windows that express discrete timing mechanisms in behavioral control and on the level of conscious experiences are the necessary bases to create cognitive order, and it is suggested that time windows are implemented by neural oscillations in different frequency domains.</p

Seeing without knowing: Operational principles along the early visual pathway

Single cases may lead to unexpected hypotheses in psychology. We retrospectively analyzed single case studies that suggested organizational principles along the early visual pathway, which have remained unanswered until now. First case: In spite of the inhomogeneity of sensitivity, paradoxically the visual field on the subjective level appears to be homogeneous; constancy of brightness of supra-threshold stimuli throughout the visual field is claimed to be responsible for homogeneity; specific summation properties of retinal ganglion cells are hypothesized to guarantee this effect. Second case: With a brain-injured patient having suffered a partial visual field loss it can be shown that color induction is a retinal phenomenon; lateral inhibitory processes at the level of amacrine cells are hypothesized as neural network. Third case: In a patient having suffered a bilateral occipital lobe infarction, some functional recovery has been demonstrated; divergence and convergence of projection in the ascending neural pathway are suggested as a structural basis for recovery. Slowed down binocular rivalry discloses a sequential mechanism in the construction of a visual percept. Fourth case: The pre-wired projection of the retina to the visual cortex in spite of a severe squint of one eye is confirmed, but paradoxically some local neuroplasticity is also suggested. Fifth case: Using habituation of local sensitivity in the visual field and its resetting by interhemispheric interactions as an experimental paradigm, it is suggested that spatial attention is controlled at the midbrain level. Sixth case: Observations on residual vision or blindsight support the hypothesis that the visual cortex is the one and only structure responsible for visual perception on a conscious level. The unifying principle of these retrospective analyses is that subjective visual phenomena can lead to unexpected but testable hypotheses of neural processing on the structural and functional level in the early visual pathway.</p