A subset of retinal ganglion cells expresses melanopsin, a photo-pigment with absorption spectrum peaking at 480 nm (i.e., blue light). These cells can directly respond to light even without classic photoreceptor rods and cones, and are named intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs)

Brand, Andreas

Chkonia, Eka

Herzog, Michael H.

Iannantuoni, Luisa

Kilz, Karin

Kunchulia, Marina

Mohr, Christine

Roinishvili, Maya

Shaqiri, Albulena

Sierro, Sierro

Willemin, Julie

Perception

Previous research has suggested that own body size estimates are biased towards an average reference body (Cornelissen, Bester, Cairns, Tove´e Cornelissen, 2015). The role of personal body size in body size perception of others is still unclear. In this study, we tested healthy females varying in body mass index (BMI) to investigate whether personal body size influenced accuracy of body size estimation and sensitivity to weight changes of others. We generated four biometric female avatars with BMIs of 15, 25, 35, and 45 and altered the weight of the avatars (5, 10, 15, and 20 BMI change) based on a statistical body model. In several psychophysical experiments, we presented the stimuli on a stereoscopic, large-screen immersive display. For each avatar series, participants memorized what the original body looked like and then responded for each of the presented bodies whether it was the same as the one memorized. Our results show that there was no influence of personal BMI on the accuracy of body size estimation of the avatars. Interestingly however, participants were more sensitive to weight changes of an avatar close in BMI to their own, suggesting that own body size influences perception of others’ weight

Thaler, A.

Geuss, M.

Mölbert, S.

Streuber, S.

Giel, K.

Black, M.

Mohler, B.

MPG.PuRe

Sensitivity to Weight Changes of Others Depends on Personal Body Size

The cortical representation of figure and ground still seems to be a partly solved puzzle. Based on psychophysically mapped contrast sensitivity fields within closed boundaries, it has been suggested earlier that symmetry related surface representations might be relevant in addition to co-linear activation along the path of a contour (Kovacs and Julesz, 1994). Here we test the classic illusory figures (Kanizsa triangles) with a test probe that appears near the illusory edge. The task is to

decide  whether  the  probe  appears  inside  or  outside  of  the  illusory  triangle. Assuming  an equilateral triangle, and that the illusory edge spans a straight path between the inducers, our results are surprisingly asymmetrical for inside and outside test probes. While there is no difficulty to judge outside targets, probes appearing on the alleged contour, or inside the assumed triangle are very clearly judged to be outside for up to a distance that is about 3\% of the illusory contour length. The bent illusory contours seem to be more curved for diagonal than for horizontal or vertical edges. We interpret these results as a new indication for the necessity to couple medialness structure (Aparajeya and Fol Leymarie, 2016) with lateral propagation of contour completion

Gintner, Timea

Aparajeya, Prashant

Leymarie, Frederic Fol

Kovacs, Ilona

Goldsmiths Research Online

Curvy is the new straight: Kanizsa triangles

Young adults typically display a processing advantage for the left side of space (‘‘pseudoneglect’’),

whereas older adults display no strongly lateralised bias, or indeed a preference towards the right

(Benwell et al., 2014; Schmitz &#38; Peigneux, 2011). For young adults, we have recently reported that

5 commonly-used spatial attention tasks (line bisection, landmark, greyscales, gratingscales and

lateralised visual detection) all provide stable intra-task measures of bias over time, however no

strong inter-task correlations were found (Learmonth et al., 2015). At present there is no

systematic evidence for intra- and inter-task consistency in older adults. To investigate this, we

tested 22 older adults (mean age ¼ 70.44) on these five tasks, on two different days. Preliminary

results show that three of the five tasks (line bisection, landmark and grayscales) seem to provide

stable measures over testing sessions, indicating that they measure a consistent property of the

spatial attention network. However, as per our previous finding in young adults, there seem to be

no significant between-task correlations. Moreover, in contrast to the leftward biases reported in

young adults, this elderly age group showed no significant lateral biases on any of the tasks

Maerker, Gesine

Learmonth, Gemma

Harvey, Monika

Enlighten: Publications

Spatial Attention Measures in Healthy Aging

Previous research has shown that humans share numerous cognitive processes when they interact, such as representations of tasks, goals, intentions, and space. However, little is known about the perceptual representation of complementary actions, in particular actions in an interaction that are often observed together. We examined behavioral correlates of potentially shared neural representations for human actions that are visually dissimilar, but contingent from accumulated previous observations in spatiotemporal proximity. Namely, we measured visual adaptation aftereffects in 25 participants for perceiving the actions Throwing and Giving after prolonged exposure to the actions Catching and Taking, and vice versa, in a completely crossed design. We found significant adaptation aftereffects for all tested actions (p<0.001) as well as for the complementary actions. For the complementary actions, the overall adaptation aftereffect for the disambiguation of Catching from Taking was significant after prolonged exposure (adaptation) to Throwing and Giving (p<0.001), as well as for the disambiguation of Throwing from Giving when Catching and Taking were used as adaptors (p¼0.002). These results support the hypothesis that processes involved in the recognition of complementary actions might employ a shared neural representation

Chang, D.

Fedorov, L.

Giese, M.

Bülthoff, H.

de la Rosa, S.

How your actions are coupled with mine: Adaptation aftereffects indicate shared representation of complementary actions

Iosif, Oana Alina

Smulders, Fren

de Weerd, Peter

van de Ven, Vincent

Maastricht University Research Portal

Theta Oscillations Are Associated to Time Representations in Visual Memory

The ability of people with Parkinson’s (PwP) to discriminate upright and inverted facial expressions

is evaluated using a temporal two-interval forced-choice paradigm. Stimuli are black and white images of neutral, happy, angry, disgusted, fearful, sad and surprised expressions. Inverted stimuli are the two expressions that participants are most and least sensitive to. A range of intensities of expressions (0–100%) are created by morphing between neutral and expressive images. The

neutral image (0%) is presented in one interval and the expressive image (varies –100%) in the other. Observers indicate the interval that contained the image that was most expressive. For all upright expressions and all participants, performance increases from chance to 100% correct as intensity of expression increases. Fitted functions describing performance of happy and disgust are

shifted to the left of others. This suggests that PwP are most sensitive to expressions of happiness and disgust. PwP and control participants show a small reduction in sensitivity for the expression they are most sensitive to when it is inverted (Face Inversion Effect). For PwP there is a considerable Face Inversion Effect for the expression they are least sensitive to. This suggests

that configural face processing is disrupted in Parkinson’s disease

Delicato, Louise

Wincenciak, Joanna

Burn, David

Sunderland University Institutional Repository

Evidence for a face inversion effect in people with Parkinson’s

The integration of multiple sensory cues pertaining to the same object is essential for precise and accurate perception. An optimal strategy is to weight these cues proportional to their reliability. Moreover, as reliability of sensory information may rapidly change, the perceptual weight assigned to each cue must also change dynamically. Recent studies showed that human observers apply this principle when integrating low-level unisensory and multisensory signals, but evidence for highlevel perception remains scarce. Here we asked if human observers dynamically reweight high-level visual cues during face recognition. We therefore had subjects (n¼6) identify one of two previously learned synthetic facial identities using form and motion, and varied form reliability (i.e., by making faces ‘‘older’’) on a trial-to-trial level. For each subject, we fitted psychometric functions to the proportion of identity choices in each condition. As predicted by optimal cue integration, the empirical combined variance did not differ from the optimal combined variance (p>0.2, t-test). Importantly, the reduced form reliability (p<0.01) led to a reweighting of the form cue (p<0.01). Our data thus suggest that humans not only integrate but also dynamically reweight high-level visual cues, such as facial form and motion, to yield a coherent percept of a facial identity

Dobs, K.

Reddy, L.

Dynamic reweighting of facial form and motion cues during face recognition

Studies have demonstrated the potential visuo-cognitive benefits of action video gaming, e.g. reduced attentional blink (Green & Bavelier, 2003), although such effects are controversial (e.g. Murphy & Spencer, 2009). It is unclear whether visual-attentional benefits, if present, hold when attention is restricted and directed locally, in the presence of potentially conflicting global information. Here, we investigated the role of action video game experience on locally-directed visual attention by testing video-gamers (n = 18), and non-video-gamers (n = 18) on an RSVP sequence composed of congruent and incongruent Navon figures.  Participants were asked to selectively attend to local aspects of the stimuli only and identify the first target and the presence of a second target. Attentional blink (AB) was quantified as the impairment in detection of a second target. Results indicated a pronounced attentional blink in both groups, with no significant difference in the magnitude of AB between groups. This is in contrast to a significant advantage for video-gamers versus non-gamers if attention is instead globally-directed (Wong et al., unpublished data).  The findings suggest that visual-attentional advantages as traditionally reported for extensive video-gaming experience does not extend to a restricted local system that may tap into a slower parvocellular (P)-pathway

Ting, TCM

Wong, NHL

Chang, HFD

HKU Scholars Hub

Locally-directed visual attention as assessed by the attentional blink: Does video game experience really matter?

Zdravkovic, S

Havelka, J

Mohr, C

Jonauskaite, D

Deal, N

White Rose Research Online

This is a repository copy of Testing for Multidimensional Color-Emotion Semantic Space.White Rose Research Online URL for this paper:http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/115975/Version: Accepted VersionArticle:Zdravkovic, S, Havelka, J orcid.org/0000-0002-7486-2135, Mohr, C et al. (2 more authors) (2016) Testing for Multidimensional Color-Emotion Semantic Space. Perception, 45 (Suppl2). 3P041. p. 210. ISSN 0301-0066 https://doi.org/10.1177/0301006616671273© The Author(s) 2016. This is an author produced version of a paper published in Perception. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. eprints@whiterose.ac.ukhttps://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/Reuse Unless indicated otherwise, fulltext items are protected by copyright with all rights reserved. The copyright exception in section 29 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 allows the making of a single copy solely for the purpose of non-commercial research or private study within the limits of fair dealing. The publisher or other rights-holder may allow further reproduction and re-use of this version - refer to the White Rose Research Online record for this item. Where records identify the publisher as the copyright holder, users can verify any specific terms of use on the publisher’s website. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing eprints@whiterose.ac.uk including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [3P041] Testing for Multidimensional Color‐Emotion Semantic Space  Suncica Zdravković,1 Jelena Havelka,2 Christine Mohr,3 Domicele Jonauskaite3 and Nele Deal3 1Department of Psychology, University of Novi Sad 2School of Psychology Faculty of Medicine and Health University of Leeds UK. 3Institute of Psychology University of Lausanne Switzerland  Attempts to associate particular color concepts and specific emotions were rare although a strong connection was always assumed. We tested for a potentially wide range of semantic connections between emotions and color terms by asking 106 Serbian native speakers (age 19–79) to associate 20 emotions to 12 color terms. This particular dataset is part of a multi‐national online survey, where participants are asked to indicate for each color term any number of associated emotions on 5‐level intensity scale. We found a significant interaction between the color terms and emotions (F(209,42)1⁄418.46, p<000), different color terms are associated with different emotions at different intensity. Also there is significant difference between the 12 color terms (F(11) 1⁄4 16.7, p < 000). Some color terms seem to evoke a single associated emotion (i.e. brown is just disgust) while some color terms cover a number of emotions and intensities (red scores high on 6 different positive and negative emotions; green and turquoise on 5 positive emotions). Factor emotion was also significant (F(19) 1⁄4 16.7, p < 000): anger, love, disgust, regret, fear and hate are associated to a single color; joy and pleasure are associated with 6 colors. Finally, we did not find particular emotion‐color associations for compassion, contempt, guilt or shame.   http://www.ub.edu/ecvp/sites/default/files/ECVP_AbstractsPerception_0.pdf  