| 2006, volume 2, issue 1
Special issue: Trends and styles in visual masking Guest Editors: Ingrid Scharlau, Ulrich Ansorge, and Bruno Breitmeyer
| | volume 2 issue 1, pages 1-5 | | Trends and styles in visual masking | | | | Ingrid Scharlau, Ulrich Ansorge, and Bruno G. Breitmeyer | | 1Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany 2Department of Psychology, University of Houston, Houston, USA | | volume 2 issue 1, pages 7-19 | | Low-level motor inhibition in children:Evidence from the negative compatibility effect | | | | Friederike Schlaghecken and Ruth Sisman | | Department of Psychology, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK | | The masked prime task was used to investigate low-level inhibitory motor control processes in two groups of children (7-8 years and 11-12 years) and in older adolescents/young adults (16-23 years). Masked prime stimuli, presented below the level of conscious awareness, systematically affected reaction times (RTs) to subsequent supraliminal target stimuli: RTs were longer when prime and target were mapped to the same response than when they were mapped to different responses. This negative compatibility effect did not differ significantly between age groups, consistent with the hypothesis that the underlying low-level inhibition processes are already fully developed in children as young as seven years of age. In contrast, performance differences between response repetition and response alternation trials were significantly larger in children, consistent with the hypothesis that higher-level control processes are less effective in children. Results provide converging evidence that whereas the latter processes are mediated by late-maturing (prefrontal cortical) areas, the former processes are mediated by earlier-maturing (possibly subcortical) structures.
Keywords: Masked priming, inhibition, development | 3 Sandra I. van Aalderen-Smeets Robert Oostenveld, and Jens Schwarzbach Investigating neurophysiological correlates of metacontrast masking with magnetoencephalography [download pdf] , [abstract (show/hide)] | | | volume 2 issue 1, pages 21-35 | | Investigating neurophysiological correlates of metacontrast masking with magnetoencephalography | | | | Sandra I. van Aalderen-Smeets Robert Oostenveld, and Jens Schwarzbach | | 1 FC Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Nijmegen, the Netherlands 2 Faculty of Psychology, Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Maastricht University, the Netherlands | | Early components of visual evoked potentials (VEP) in EEG seem to be unaffected by target visibility in visual masking studies. Bridgeman's reanalysis of Jeffreys and Musselwhite's (1986) data suggests that a later visual component in the VEP, around 250 ms reflects the perceptual effect of masking. We challenge this view on the ground that temporal interactions between targets and masks unrelated to stimulus visibility could account for Bridgeman's observation of a U-shaped time course in VEP amplitudes for this later component. In an MEG experiment of metacontrast masking with variable stimulus onset asynchrony, we introduce a proper control, a pseudo mask. In contrast to an effective mask, the pseudomask should produce neither behavioral masking nor amplitude modulations of late VEPs. Our results show that effective masks produced a strong U-shaped perceptual effect of target visibility while performance remained virtually perfect when a pseudomask was used. The visual components around 250 ms after target onset did not show a distinction between mask and pseudomask conditions. The results indicate that these visual evoked potentials do not reveal neurophysiological correlates of stimulus visibility but rather reflect dynamic interactions between superimposed potentials elicited by stimuli in close temporal proximity. However, we observed a postperceptual component around 340 ms after target onset, located over temporal-parietal cortex, which shows a clear effect of visibility. Based on P300 ERP literature, this finding could indicate that working memory related processes contribute to metacontrast masking.
Keywords: Metacontrast masking, MEG, object visibility, working memory | | volume 2 issue 1, pages 37-45 | | Priming from novel masked stimuli depends on target set size | | | | Andrea Kiesel, Wilfried Kunde, Carsten Pohl, and Joachim Hoffmann | | 1 Department of Psychology, Julius-Maximilians University of Würzburg, Germany 2 Department of Psychology, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany | | When objects denoted by target words are classified as belonging to a certain category (e.g., to be either small or large) responding is faster when the target word is preceded by a masked prime word belonging to the same rather than a different category. Recently, there has been some controversy on whether such masked priming effects are confined to primes that are practised as targets as well, or whether they transfer to other novel prime words. We report data which show that the transfer of unconscious priming to unpractised stimuli depends on the size of the target set. Priming does transfer to novel (unpractised) primes with a large target set (40 different target words), whereas no transfer to novel primes occurs with a small target set (4 different target words). We conclude that the size and structure of the target set crucially determine the way participants handle a task and thus, determine how unconscious stimuli are processed.
Keywords: Masked priming, novel stimuli, action trigger account | 5 Blandyna Skalska, Piotr Jaśkowski, and Rob H. J. van der Lubbe The role of direct parameter specification and attentional capture in near-threshold priming of motor reactions [download pdf] , [abstract (show/hide)] | | | volume 2 issue 1, pages 47-59 | | The role of direct parameter specification and attentional capture in near-threshold priming of motor reactions | | | | Blandyna Skalska, Piotr Jaśkowski, and Rob H. J. van der Lubbe | | 1 Department of Cognitive Psychology, University of Finance and Management Warszawa, Poland 2 Department of Cognitive Psychology, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands | | The priming of motor responses can be induced by preceding visual stimuli that have been made invisible by metacontrast masking ('primes'). According to the concept of direct parameter specification( DPS;Neumann,1990),strong similarity between prime and target results in the processing operations that are to be applied to the target being also induced by the prime. As targets have to be attended to, this also implies that attention is captured by the location of a prime, thereby facilitating motor priming effects. This hypothetical effect may be viewed as a form of top-down attentional capture. In some subliminal priming experiments (e.g. Jaśkowski, Skalska, & Verleger, 2003), however, attentional capture may have been unrelated to target identity, as stimuli with unique features (singletons) are known to induce bottom-up attentional capture. Three experiments were performed that largely confirmed the view that the results of these earlier experiments were due to top-down attentional capture, in line with DPS. However, the priming effect was also evoked by a singleton irrelevant to the participants' task, although this effect was weaker than in case of strong similarity between prime and target. Priming effects remained when singletons were absent from one side of the visual field, suggesting that the presence of singletons is not a requirement for the observation of motor priming effects.
Keywords: Subliminal priming, direct parameter specification,visuo-spatialattention | 6 Ulrich Ansorge and Manfred Heumann Shifts of visuospatial attention to invisible (metacontrast-masked) singletons: Clues from reaction times and event-related potential [download pdf] , [abstract (show/hide)] | | | volume 2 issue 1, pages 61-76 | | Shifts of visuospatial attention to invisible (metacontrast-masked) singletons: Clues from reaction times and event-related potential | | | | Ulrich Ansorge and Manfred Heumann | | Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany | | In the current study, we tested whether a masked and, thus, invisible singleton-cue captures atten-tion in a stimulus-driven manner or in a top-down contingent manner. The manual RT (Reaction Time) capture effect with the invisible singleton--cue decreased substantially when a match between the singleton-cue and the top-down controlled set of searched-for target features was also decreased. By contrast, with the PCN (Posterior Contralateral Negativity), an electrophysiological measure of the capture of visuospatial attention by the invisible singleton-cue, no significant decrement was observed. Taken together, the results support the assumption that an invisible singleton-cue can capture attention in a stimulus-driven manner, and that different delays in the deallocation of attention (i.e., attention is deallocated more efficiently from acue that does not match the top-down controlled set than from a cue that does match the same set) account for the weaker manual RT capture effect with a set- -nonmatching invisible singleton-cue.
Keywords: Choice reaction time, ERP, vision, attention | 7 Michael H. Herzog, Elisabeth Lesemann, and Christian W. Eurich Spatial interactions determine temporal feature integration as revealed by unmasking [download pdf] , [abstract (show/hide)] | | | volume 2 issue 1, pages 77-85 | | Spatial interactions determine temporal feature integration as revealed by unmasking | | | | Michael H. Herzog, Elisabeth Lesemann, and Christian W. Eurich | | 1 Ècole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland 2 Institut für Kognitionswissenschaft, Universität Osnabrück, Germany 3 Institut für Theoretische Neurophysik, Universität Bremen, Germany | | Feature integration is one of the most fundamental problems in neuroscience. In a recent contribution, we showed that a trailing grating can diminish the masking effects one vernier exerts on another, preceding vernier. Here, we show that this temporal unmasking depends on neural spatial interactions related to the trailing grating. Hence, our paradigm allows us to study the spatio-temporal interactions underlying feature integration.
Keywords: Spatio-temporal integration, unmasking, visual system | | volume 2 issue 1, pages 87-97 | | Perceptual latency priming and illusory linemotion: Facilitation by gradients of attention? | | | | Ingrid Scharlau and Gernot Horstmann | | Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany | | The phenomena of illusory line motion and perceptual latency priming are both assumed to reflect a facilitation of perceptual latency.The explanation of illusory line motion presupposes that attention is distributed in a gradient fashion whereas this is not a necessary part of the explanation of perceptual latency priming. Two experiments test whether an attentional gradient is present in perceptual latency priming. Evidence for a gradient was found within 2.5° of visual angle around the attended location, but not at a distance of 5° and more.
Keywords: Priming, attention, metacontrast, perceptual latency | | 2006, volume 2, issue 2-3
Special issue: Music performance Guest Editors: William F. Thompson, Simone Dalla Bella, and Peter E. Keller
| | volume 2 issue 2-3, pages 99-102 | | William Forde Thompson, Simone Dalla Bella, and Peter E. Keller | | 1 University of Toronto at Mississauga, Toronto, Canada 2 Department of Cognitive Psychology, University of Finance and Management, Warsaw, Poland 3 Department of Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany | | volume 2 issue 2-3, pages 103-112 | | Music performance anxiety: New insights from young musicians | | | | Dianna T. Kenny and Margaret S. Osborne | | Australian Centre for Applied Research in Music Performance, Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney | | Music performance anxiety (MPA) is a relatively neglected psychological phenomenon that rarely appears in mainstream psychological journals or textbooks. To date, this field of inquiry has focused primarily on professional and amateur adult musicians or college level music students. With the exception of a small number of recent additions to the literature, there have been few studies examining the experience of MPA in younger musicians. In this paper, we review our work on MPA in general, and summarize our recent work with young musicians. We argue that the experience of MPA may begin early in a musical career and that the characteristics of this experience are qualitatively similar to those experienced by adult musicians. There are therefore compelling reasons to address MPA early and to take a strong preventive focus on a condition that to date shows persistence over time and only modest response to available treatments.
Keywords: music performance anxiety, young musicians, assessment, cognition | | volume 2 issue 2-3, pages 113-130 | | Practicing perfection: How concert soloists prepare for performance | | | | Roger Chaffin and Topher Logan | | University of Connecticut | | Musical performances by concert soloists in the Western classical tradition are normally memorized. For memory to work reliably under the pressures of the concert stage, the performance must be practiced until it is thoroughly automatic. At the same time, the performance must be fresh and spontaneous in order to communicate emotionally with the audience. The resolution of this apparent contradiction is provided by longitudinal case studies of concert soloists preparing new works for performance. Like expert memorists in other domains, experienced musicians use highly practiced retrieval schemes to accomplish their extraordinary feats of memory. Performers have a mental map of the piece in mind as they perform that tells them where they are and what comes next - a series of landmarks, hierarchically organized by the sections and subsections of the music. The musician attends to these performance cues in order to ensure that the performance unfolds as planned. Performance cues are established by thinking about a particular feature of the music during practice so that it later comes to mind automatically. Performance cues help the soloist consciously monitor and control the rapid, automatic actions of playing, while adjusting to the needs of the moment. During practice, the musician attends mostly to basic performance cues representing critical technical features (e.g., fingerings),andinterpretive performance cues, representing phrasings, and changes in dynamics, tempo, and timbre. During performance, the musician hopes to attend mainly to expressive performance cues representing the musical feelings to be conveyed to the audience (e.g. excitement). We illustrate this analysis with a typical case study of a concert pianist learning J.S. Bach's Italian Concerto (Presto).
Keywords: music performance, expert memory, skill learning | | volume 2 issue 2-3, pages 131-143 | | The KTH synthesis of singing | | | | Department of Speech, Music and Hearing, School of Computer Science and Communication, KTH, Stockholm | | This is an overview of the work with synthesizing singing that has been carried out at the Speech Music Hearing Department, KTH since 1977. The origin of the work, a hardware synthesis machine, is described and some aspects of the control program, a modified version of a text-to-speech conversion system are reviewed. Three applications are described in which the synthesis system has paved the way for investigations of specific aspects of the singing voice. One concerns the perceptual relevance of the center frequency of the singer's formant, one deals with characteristics of an ugly voice, and one regards intonation. The article is accompanied by 18 sound examples, several of which were not published before. Finally, limitations and advantages of singing synthesis are discussed.
Keywords: singing voice, formants, voice source, music performance, analysis-by-synthesis | | volume 2 issue 2-3, pages 145-161 | | Overview of the KTH rule system for musical performance | | | | Anders Friberg, Roberto Bresin, and Johan Sundberg | | Department of Speech, Music and Hearing, KTH, Stockholm | | The KTH rule system models performance principles used by musicians when performing a musical score, within the realm of Western classical, jazz and popular music. An overview is given of the major rules involving phrasing, micro-level timing, metrical patterns and grooves, articulation, tonal tension, intonation, ensemble timing, and performance noise. By using selections of rules and rule quantities, semantic descriptions such as emotional expressions can be modeled. A recent real-time implementation provides the means for controlling the expressive character of the music. The communicative purpose and meaning of the resulting performance variations are discussed as well as limitations and future improvements.
Keywords: Music performance modeling, rule system, expression | | volume 2 issue 2-3, pages 163-181 | | Rate limits of sensorimotor synchronization | | | | Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT | | Empirical evidence for upper and lower rate li-mits of sensorimotor synchronization (typically, finger tapping with anauditory or visual event sequence) is reviewed. If biomechanical constraints are avoided, the upper rate limit can be as high as 8-10 Hz (sequence event inter-onset intervals of 100-125 ms) with auditory stimuli, but has been found to be less than 2.5 Hz (> 400 ms) with simple visual stimuli (flashesof light). The upper rate limit for auditory stimuli varies with task difficulty and musical experience; that for visual stimuli requires further investigation. The lower rate limit, according to one definition,tend stobe at about 0.56 Hz (1800 ms), regardless of modality. Attentional, perceptual, and sensorimotor explanations of these limits are considered. Rate limits of sensorimotor synchronization place important constraints on musical ensemble performance and other forms of rhythmic coordination.
Keywords: synchronization, tapping, timing, rhythm, rate limits | | volume 2 issue 2-3, pages 183-198 | | Coordination of perception and action in music performance | | | | Department of Psychology and Institute for Music Research, University of Texas at San Antonio | | This review summarizes recent research on the way in which music performance may rely on the perception of sounds that accompany actions (termed auditory feedback). Alterations of auditory feedback can profoundly disrupt performance, though not all alterations cause disruption and different alterations generate different types of disruption. Recent results have revealed a basic distinction between the role of feedback contents (musical pitch) and the degree to which feedback onsets are synchronized with actions. These results further suggest a theoretical framework for the coordination of actions with feedback in which perception and action share a common representation of sequence structure.
Keywords: music performance, sequence production, auditory feedback | | volume 2 issue 2-3, pages 199-206 | | Music-reading deficiencies and the brain | | | | Sylvie Hébert and Lola L. Cuddy | | 1 École d’orthophonie et d’audiologie, Université de Montréal 2 Department of Psychology, Queen’s University | | This paper reviews the literature on brain damage and music-reading for the past 25 years. Acquired patterns of selective loss and sparing are described, including both the association and dissociation of music and text reading, and association and dissociation among components of music reading. As well, we suggest that developmental music - reading deficiencies may be isolated in a form analogous to developmental dyslexia for text or congenital amusia for auditory music processing. Finally, we propose that the results of brain damage studies can contribute to the development of a model of normal music reading.
Keywords: music reading, brain damage, music dyslexia | | volume 2 issue 2-3, pages 207-220 | | Focal dystonia in musicians: From phenomenology to therapy | | | | Hans-Christian Jabusch and Eckart Altenmüller | | University of Music and Drama, Institute of Music Physiology and Musicians’ Medicine, Hanover, Germany | | Background: Musician's dystonia is a task-specific movement disorder which manifests itself as a loss of voluntary motor control in extensively trained movements. In many cases, the disorder terminates the careers of affected musicians. Approximately 1% of all professional musicians are affected.Etiology and Pathophysiology: The pathophysiology of the disorder is still unclear. Findings include (a) reduced inhibition in different levels of the central nervous system, (b) maladaptive plasticity, e.g. in the somatosensory cortex and in the basal ganglia, and (c) alterations in sensorimotor processing. Epidemiological data demon-strated a higher risk for those musicians who play instruments requiring maximal fine-motorskills. For instruments where workload differs across hands, focal dystonia appears more often in the more intensely used hand. In psychological studies, musicians with dystonia had more perfectionist tendencies than healthy musicians. These findings streng then the assumption that behavioral factors may be involved in the etiology of musician's dystonia. Hereditary factors may play a greater role than previously assumed. Preliminary findings suggest a genetic contributiont o focal task-specific dystonia with phenotypic variations including musician's dystonia.Treatment: Treatment options for musician's dystonia include pharmacological interventions such as administration of Trihexyphenidyl or Botulinum Toxin-A as well as retraining programs and ergonomic changes in the instrument. A long-term follow-up study was performed in 144 patients with musician's dystonia. The outcome was revealed on average 8.4 years after onset of symptoms. Outcome was assessed by patients' subjective rating of cumulative treatmentresponse and response to individual therapies. Seventy-seven patients (54%) reported an alleviation of symptoms: 33% of the patients with Trihexyphenidyl, 49% with Botulinum Toxin, 50% with pedagogical retraining, 56% with unmonitored technical exercises, and 63% with ergonomic changes. In embouchure dystonia, only 15% of patients reported improvement.The results demonstrate that the situation of musicians with focal hand dystonia may be significantlyimproved. Positive results after retraining and unmonitored technical exercises underline the benefitof an active involvement of patients in the treatment process. Only exceptionally, however, can musicians with focal dystonia return to normal motor control using the currently available therapies.
Keywords: musicians’ cramp; focal dystonia, treatment, botulinum-toxin, trihexyphenidyl | | volume 2 issue 2-3, pages 221-231 | | Neural correlates of rhythmic expectancy | | | | Theodore P. Zanto, Joel S. Snyder, and Edward W. Large | | 1Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences, Florida Atlantic University 2 Department of Psychiatry, VA Boston Healthcare System/Harvard Medical School | | Temporal expectancy is thought to play a fundamental role in the perception of rhythm. This review summarizes recent studies that investigated rhythmic expectancy by recording neuroelectric activity with high temporal resolution during the presentation of rhythmic patterns. Prior event-related brain potential (ERP) studies have uncovered auditory evoked responses that reflect detection of onsets, offsets, sustains,and abrupt changes in acoustic properties such as frequency, intensity, and spectrum, in addition to indexing higher-order processes such as auditory sensory memory and the violation of expectancy. In our studies of rhythmic expectancy, we measured emitted responses - a type of ERP that occurs when an expected event is omitted from a regular series of stimulus events - in simple rhythms with temporal structures typical of music. Our observations suggest that middle-latency gamma band (20-60 Hz) activity (GBA) plays an essential role in auditory rhythm processing. Evoked (phase-locked) GBA occurs in the presence of physically presented auditory events and reflects the degree of accent. Induced (non-phase-locked) GBA reflects temporally precise expectancies for strongly and weakly accented events in sound patterns. Thus far, these findings support theories of rhythm perception that posit temporal expectancies generated by active neural processes.
Keywords: meter, temporal expectancy, auditory perception, gamma-band activity, electroencephalography, rhythm, perception, attention | | volume 2 issue 2-3, pages 233-237 | | "Musical Excellence: Strategies and techniques to enhance performance" BOOK REVIEW | | | | Australian Centre for Applied Research in Music Performance Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney | | volume 2 issue 4, pages 239-253 | | Heuristics and representational change in two-move matchstick arithmetic tasks | | | | Michael Öllinger, Gary Jones, and Günther Knoblich | | 1 Parmenides Center for the Study of Thinking, Munich, Germany 2 Psychology Department, Nottingham Trent University, Burton Street, Nottingham, NG1 4BU, UK 3 Psychology Department, Rutgers University, 101 Warren Street, Newark, NJ 07102 | | Insight problems are problems where the problem solver struggles to find a solution until * aha! * the solution suddenly appears. Two contemporary theories suggest that insight problems are difficult either because problem solvers begin with an incorrect representation of the problem, or that problem solvers apply inappropriate heuristics to the problem. The relative contributions of representational change and inappropriate heuristics on the process of insight problem solving was studied with a task that required the problem solver to move two matchsticks in order to transform an incorrect arithmetic statement into a correct one. Problem solvers (N = 120) worked on two different types of two-move matchstick arithmetic problems that both varied with respect to the effectiveness of heuristics and to the degree of a necessary representational change of the problem representation. A strong influence of representational change on solution rates was found whereas the influence of heuristics hadminimal effects on solution rates. That is, the difficulty of insight problems within the two-move matchstick arithmetic domain is governed by the degree of representational change required. A model is presented that details representational change as the necessary condition for ensuring that appropriate heuristics can be applied on the proper problem representation.
Keywords: insight, heuristics, representational change | | volume 2 issue 4, pages 255-267 | | Failure of the extended contingent attentional capture account in multimodal settings | | | | Rob H.J. Van der Lubbe and Jurjen Van der Helden | | 1 Cognitive Psychology and Ergonomics, Universiteit Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands 2 Dept. Of Psychonomics, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands | | Sudden changes in our environment like sound bursts or light flashes are thought to automatically attract our attention thereby affecting responses to subsequent targets, although an alternative view (the contingent attentional capture account) holds that stimuli only capture our attention when they match target features. In the current study, we examined whether an extended version of the latter view can explain exogenous cuing effects on speed and accuracy of performance to targets (uncued-cued) in multimodal settings, in which auditory and visual stimuli co-occur. To this end, we determined whether observed effects of visual and auditory cues, which were always intermixed, depend on top-down settings in "pure" blocks, in which only one target modality occurred, as compared to "mixed" blocks, in which targets were either visual or auditory. Results revealed that unimodal and crossmodal cuing effects depend on top-down settings. However, our findingswerenot in accordance with predictions derived from the extended contingent attentional capture account. Specifically,visual cues showed comparable effects for visual targets in pure and mixed blocks, but also a comparable effect for auditory targets in pure blocks, and most surprisingly, an opposite effect in mixed blocks. The latter result suggests that visual stimuli may distract attention from the auditory modality in case when the modality of the forthcoming target is unknown. The results additionally revealed that the Simon effect, the influence of correspondence or not between stimulus and response side, is modulated by exogenous cues in unimodal settings, but not in crossmodal settings. These findings accord with the view that attention plays an important role for the Simon effect, and additionally questions the directness of links between maps of visual and auditory space.
Keywords: insight, heuristics, representational change with spatial attention, multimodal, mixed-blocked | | volume 2 issue 4, pages 269-276 | | Exogenous and endogenous response priming with auditory stimuli | | | | Peter E. Keller and Iring Koch | | 1Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany 2RWTH Aachen University, Institute of Psychology, Aachen, Germany | | Exogenous and endogenous response priming were investigated by comparing performance on stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) and response-effect compatibility (REC) tasks using a repeated measures design. In the SRC task, participants made finger taps at high or low locations in response to centrally presented visual stimuli paired with high- or low-pitched tones. In the REC task, the tones were triggered by responses instead of being presented with the visual stimuli, and hence effects of REC on response times reflect the anticipation of forthcoming tones. Results indicated that response times were shorter with compatible mappings between tones and responses than with incompatible mappings in both tasks. Although these SRC and REC effects did not differ reliably in magnitude, they were uncorrelated across participants. Thus, although exogenous and endogenous response priming may be functionally equivalent at the level of the group, it is unclear whether this is the case at the level of the individual.
Keywords: priming, stimulus-response compatibility, response-effect compatibility, auditory perception, auditory imagery | | |