When the bottom halves of two faces differ, people's behavioral judgment of the identical top halves of those faces is impaired: they report that the top halves are different, and/or take more time than usual to provide a response. This behavioral measure is known as the composite face effect (CFE) and has traditionally been taken as evidence that…

Segmentation of target odorants from background odorants is a fundamental computational requirement for the olfactory system and is thought to be behaviorally mediated by olfactory habituation memory. Data from our laboratory have shown that odor-specific adaptation in piriform neurons, mediated at least partially by synaptic adaptation between…

Impressions of force are commonplace in the visual perception of objects interacting. It is proposed that these impressions have their source in haptically mediated experiences of exertion of force in actions on objects. Visual impressions of force in interactions between objects occur by a kind of generalization of the proprioceptive impression…

The idea of visual complexity, the history of its measurement, and its implications for behavior are reviewed, starting with structuralism and Gestalt psychology at the beginning of the 20th century and ending with visual complexity theory, perceptual learning theory, and neural circuit theory at the beginning of the 21st. Evidence is drawn from…

Describes Milgram's experiments in which individuals (assigned the role of "teacher") obeyed instructions to administer what they thought were severe electric shocks to "learners," and reports criticisms of the findings. Concludes that the experiments were sound and that they demonstrate that morality is situation-related…

Studies have suggested attention-free semantic processing of natural scenes in which concurrent tasks leave category detection unimpaired (e.g., F. Li, R. VanRullen, C. Koch, & P. Perona, 2002). Could this ability reflect detection of disjunctive feature sets rather than high-level binding? Participants detected an animal target in a rapid serial…