Variations in perceptual and cognitive demands (load) play a major role in determining the efficiency of selective attention. According to load theory (Lavie, Hirst, Fockert, & Viding, 2004) these factors (a) improve or hamper selectivity by altering the way resources (e.g., processing capacity) are allocated, and (b) tap resources rather than…

Edge-region grouping (ERG) is proposed as a unifying and previously unrecognized class of relational information that influences figure-ground organization and perceived depth across an edge. ERG occurs when the edge between two regions is differentially grouped with one region based on classic principles of similarity grouping. The ERG hypothesis…

Everyone has probably experienced chronostasis, an illusion of time that can cause a clock's second hand to appear to stand still during an eye movement. Though the illusion was initially thought to reflect a mechanism for preserving perceptual continuity during eye movements, an alternative hypothesis has been advanced that overestimation of time…

This article presents data and theory concerning the fundamental question of how the brain achieves a balance between integrating and separating perceptual information over time. This theory was tested in the domain of word reading by examining brain responses to briefly presented words that were either new or immediate repetitions. Critically,…

Although the averageness hypothesis of facial attractiveness proposes that the attractiveness of faces is mostly a consequence of their averageness, 1 study has shown that caricaturing highly attractive faces makes them mathematically less average but more attractive. Here the authors systematically test the averageness hypothesis in 5 experiments…

A model was proposed as an alternative to current models for categorical perception, which refers to the apparent responding to stimuli only in absolute terms. The model proposed that a single (common) factor causes both a peak in the discrimination function and a categorical dichotomy and thus the correlation between the two. (Editor/RK)

Attempts to settle the question of whether reading units are ever larger than letters and considers the variables expected to influence the size of the reading unit. (Author/RK)

A series of experiments tested a recent suggestion that vertical symmetry of a stimulus display can serve as a visual diagnostic for responding "same" in a letter-matching task. The data of chief interest were same reaction times to vertically symmetric (e.g., AA) and asymmetric (e.g., LL) displays, each composed of two side-by-side uppercase…