Current models of normal reading behavior emphasize not only the recognition and processing of the word being fixated (n) but also processing of the upcoming parafoveal word (n + 1). Gaze contingent displays employing the boundary paradigm often mask words in order to understand how much and what type of processing is completed on the parafoveal…

Visual search efficiency improves by presenting (previewing) one set of distractors before the target and remaining distractor items (D. G. Watson & G. W. Humphreys, 1997). Previous work has shown that this preview benefit is abolished if the old items change their shape when the new items are added (e.g., D. G. Watson & G. W. Humphreys,…

Prior research on visual priming suggests that during nonconscious processing attention can be directed to single stimulus dimensions such as form or color. In the current experiment, nonconscious priming was compared to conscious priming by employing masking techniques that render primes invisible (masked) or visible (unmasked) to the observers.…

Three experiments investigated whether spatial and nonspatial components of visual attention would be influenced by changes in (healthy, young) subjects' level of alertness and whether such effects on separable components would occur independently of each other. The experiments used a no-cue/alerting-cue design with varying cue-target stimulus…

Many current theories of false memories propose that, when we retrieve a memory, we are not reactivating a veridical, fixed representation of a past event, but are rather reactivating incomplete fragments that may be accurate or distorted and may have arisen from other events. By presenting the two phases of the misinformation paradigm in…

The magnocellular (M) pathway hypothesis proposes that impaired visual motion perception observed in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) might be mediated by atypical functioning of the subcortical M pathway, as this pathway provides the bulk of visual input to cortical motion detectors. To test this hypothesis, we measured luminance…

We explored infants' ability to recognize the canonical colors of daily objects, including two color-specific objects (human face and fruit) and a non-color-specific object (flower), by using a preferential looking technique. A total of 58 infants between 5 and 8 months of age were tested with a stimulus composed of two color pictures of an object…

We report a series of experiments designed to assess the effect of audiovisual semantic congruency on the identification of visually-presented pictures. Participants made unspeeded identification responses concerning a series of briefly-presented, and then rapidly-masked, pictures. A naturalistic sound was sometimes presented together with the…

Mental imagery is thought to share properties with perception. To what extent does the process of imagining a scene share neural circuits and computational mechanisms with actually perceiving the same scene? Here, we investigated whether mental imagery of motion in a particular direction recruits neural circuits tuned to the same direction of…

Within the motor system, cortical areas such as the primary motor cortex (M1) and the ventral premotor cortex (PMv), are thought to be activated during the observation of actions performed by others. However, it is not known how the connections between these areas become active during action observation or whether these connections are modulated…

The present study aimed to extend the findings of recombinative generalization research in alphabetical reading and spelling to the context of musical reading. One participant was taught to respond discriminatively to six two-note sequences, choosing the corresponding notation on the staff in the presence of each sequence. When novel three- and…

An under-addressed question regarding the usage of small devices is how information gathering from such devices is limited or changed relative to a full-size display? This study explores how factual recall from a text interacts with display size and other text characteristics. In this experiment, participants read several expository texts on…

Color and intensity coding provide perceptual cues to segregate categories of objects within a visual display, allowing operators to search more efficiently for needed information. Even within a perceptually distinct subset of display elements, however, it may often be useful to prioritize items representing urgent or task-critical information.…

Faces and objects of expertise compete for early perceptual processes and holistic processing resources (Gauthier, Curran, Curby, & Collins, 2003). Here, we examined the nature of interference on holistic face processing in working memory by comparing how various types of loads affect selective attention to parts of face composites. In dual…

English and German readers have been shown to mark a position to the left of the true centre as the subjective midpoint in word bisection. This effect resembles a well-known phenomenon observed with the bisection of solid lines (pseudoneglect), although this behavioural similarity does not imply a common origin. The purpose of the present study…