Angus Gellatly

• Oxford Brookes University

Two experiments investigate how absolute and relative spatial cues influence perceptual comparisons between visual short-term memory (VSTM) and current vision. The core question concerned the role of task demands in this process. Two tasks were given across two experiments, differing in the extent they required object-level comparisons. Experiment...

A major role for visual short-term memory (VSTM) is to mediate perceptual comparisons of visual information across successive glances and brief temporal interruptions. Research that has focused on the comparison process has noted a marked tendency for performance to be better when participants are required to report a difference between the display...

Object substitution masking (OSM) occurs when the perceptibility of a brief target is reduced by a trailing surround mask typically composed of four dots. Camp et al. (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 41, 940-957, 2015) found that crowding a target by adding adjacent flankers, in addition to OSM, had a more dele...

This paper presents a study of selected iconic gestures with a view to determining their effects on RT in a task-relevant and a task-irrelevant context. In two experiments, participants were presented with a coloured shape on a computer screen, a spoken statement referring to the presented shape, and a gesture that was task irrelevant. The findings...

In object substitution masking (OSM) a surrounding mask (typically comprising of 4 dots) onsets with a target but lingers after offset; under such conditions, the ability to perceive the target can be significantly reduced. OSM was originally claimed to occur only when a target was not the focus of attention, for instance, when embedded in an array...

Object substitution masking (OSM) is used in behavioral and imaging studies to investigate processes associated with the formation of a conscious percept. Reportedly, OSM occurs only when visual attention is diffusely spread over a search display or focused away from the target location. Indeed, the presumed role of spatial attention is central to...

A wealth of evidence now shows that human and animal observers display greater sensitivity to objects that move toward them than to objects that remain static or move away. Increased sensitivity in humans is often evidenced by reaction times that increase in rank order from looming, to receding, to static targets. However, it is not clear whether t...

We investigated the influence of dimensional set on report of object feature information using an immediate memory probe task. Participants viewed displays containing up to 36 coloured geometric shapes which were presented for several hundred milliseconds before one item was abruptly occluded by a probe. A cue presented simultaneously with the prob...

Object-substitution masking (OSM) occurs when a mask, such as four dots that surround a brief target item, onsets simultaneously with the target and offsets a short time after the target, rather than simultaneously with it. OSM is a reduction in accuracy of reporting the target with the temporally trailing mask, compared with the simultaneously off...

Typical studies of object substitution masking (OSM) employ a briefly presented search array. The target item is indicated by a cue/mask that surrounds but does not overlap the target and, compared to a common offset control condition, report of the target is reduced when the mask remains present after target offset. Given how little observers are...

Cognitive processes enable us to experience the world around us: to recognise a friendly face in a crowd, to communicate our passions, to recall memories from the past. When these processes stop working, it can turn friends into strangers, render speech impossible, and make history a confusion of truth and lies. Cognitive Psychology, Second Edition...

One of the processes determining object substitution masking (OSM) is thought to be the spatial competition between independent object file representations of the target and mask (e.g., Kahan & Lichtman, 2006). In a series of experiments, we further examined how OSM is influenced by this spatial competition by manipulating the overlap between the s...

At any given moment, our awareness of what we 'see' before us seems to be rather limited. If, for instance, a display containing multiple objects is shown (red or green disks), when one object is suddenly covered at random, observers are often little better than chance in reporting about its colour (Wolfe, Reinecke, & Brawn, Visual Cognition, 14, 7...

Discrimination among randomised dot patterns which varied in the number of dots used, was shown to be better with duplicated than with single presentations. This finding is in line with previous work using unisensory and bisensory multiple inputs. The present experiment also showed that where Ss make successive judgements of the same display, and t...

In numerous experiments, using a variety of techniques and tasks, observers have responded more rapidly to a target that was a new onset visual object than to a target created by transformation of an already present object. New objects are said to "capture" attention in that they are processed with higher priority than old objects. When new and old...

Object substitution masking (OSM) is typically studied using a brief search display. The target item may be indicated by a cue/mask surrounding but not overlapping it. Report of the target is reduced when mask offset trails target offset rather than being simultaneous with it. We report 5 experiments investigating whether OSM can be obtained if the...

The object updating hypothesis of object substitution masking proposes that the phenomenon arises when the visual system fails to individuate target and mask at the level of object token representations. This hypothesis is tested in two experiments using modifications of the dot mask paradigm developed by Lleras and Moore (2003). Target-mask indivi...

Object substitution masking (OSM) is observed when a brief target surrounded with a mask is presented among distracter stimuli and cannot be identified when it and the distracters disappear but the mask remains in view. We probed whether OSM also occurs without a local mask object when the distracters remain after target offset. We also varied the...

Franconeri and Simons (2003) reported that simulated looming objects (marked by a size increase) captured attention, whereas simulated receding objects (marked by a size decrease) did not. This finding has been challenged with the demonstration that receding objects can capture attention when they move in three-dimensional depth. In the present stu...

The perceptibility of a flickering central bar can be dramatically reduced by the presence of two flanking bars presented in counterphase. This phenomenon, known as the 'standing wave illusion', has been suggested to involve local edge interactions (Macknik et al, 2000 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 97 7556-7560). High-l...

The resent paper reviews three phases in the literature on cognition and colour, and also Luria's (1976) observations of the effects that literacy and/or schooling have on colour naming and colour categorization. It is argued that Luria's own interpretation of his findings is partiafly flawed by inconsistency, and by ethnocentric presuppositions co...

Cole, Gellatly, and Blurton have shown that targets presented adjacent to geometric corners are detected more efficiently than targets presented adjacent to straight edges. In six experiments, we examined how this corner enhancement effect is modulated by corner-of-object representations (i.e., corners that define an object's shape) and local base-...

Object substitution masking (OSM) is said to occur when a perceptual object is hypothesized that is mismatched by subsequent sensory evidence, leading to a new hypothesized object being substituted for the first. For example, when a brief target is accompanied by a longer lasting display of nonoverlapping mask elements, reporting of target features...

About the book: Cognitive processes enable us to experience the world around us: to recognise familiar faces, to communicate to one another through speech and writing, to feel emotion as we recall memories from the past. Cognitive Psychology provides a dynamic and exciting insight into this illuminating subject, leading us through such topics as at...

The human visual system is particularly sensitive to abrupt onset of new objects that appear in the visual field. Onsets have been shown to capture attention even when other transients simultaneously occur. This has led some authors to argue for the special role that object onset plays in attentional capture. However, evidence from the change detec...

Reaction time (RT) to abrupt-onset stimuli has been widely used for more than a century to measure the duration of perceptuo-cognitive and motor processes [Donders, 1868/1969 Attention and Performance II (1969 Acta Psychologica 30 412-431)]. A complicating factor with the RT method is that of response withholding, or response inhibition (RI). The o...

Theories, Technologies, Instrumentalities of Color is the outcome of a workshop, held in Leuven, Belgium, in May 2000. The editors bring together contributions from philosophy, history, classics, psychology, and anthropology to discuss the production of theories, technologies and instrumentalities - the phenomeno-technical ecology - of color. Appro...

There now exists considerable evidence to suggest that the appearance of a new object in the visual field captures visual attention. One of the consequences of this attentional capture is that the object initiates a redistribution of attentional resources across visual space. This is classically observed in the precuing paradigm in which the onset...

Reports an error in the original article by A. Gellatly and G. Cole ( Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2000, Vol. 26 [3], 889–899). On page 892, erroneous data were inserted in Table 1. Additionally, on p. 895, an incorrect version of Figure 3 was shown. The corrected table and figure are provided in this errata...

Reports an error in the original article by A. Gellatly and G. Cole ( Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance , 2000, Vol. 26 [3], 889–899). On page 892, erroneous data were inserted in Table 1. Additionally, on p. 895, an incorrect version of Figure 3 was shown. The corrected table and figure are provided in this errat...

In 4 experiments, the authors investigated accuracy of detecting a target among nontargets. In some experiments, the target was a second-order square of stationary lines on a background of downward-moving lines, and nontargets were second-order squares of upward-moving lines. In other experiments, target and nontarget squares and background were sh...

In 4 experiments, the authors investigated accuracy of detecting a target among nontargets. In some experiments, the target was a second-order square of stationary lines on a background of downward-moving lines, and nontargets were second-order squares of upward-moving lines. In other experiments, target and nontarget squares and background were sh...

Two experiments investigated the effect of environmental context (EC) and word type manipulations on explicit and implicit measures of memory. In Exp 1 ( n = 146), an odour cue was or was not present at study and test. In Exp 2 ( n = 163), EC cues were manipulated by having study and test phases in same and different rooms. Comparisons were made in...

S. Yantis and A. P. Hillstrom (1994) have claimed that abrupt onset of a new visual object captures attention even when the new object is equiluminant with its background, implying that attention is captured at the level of object descriptions rather than at the level of luminance change detection. S. Yantis and A. P. Hillstrom's experiments contai...

In two experiments we investigated environmental context (EC) reinstatement effects on conceptual and perceptual implicit memory and on explicit memory. Participants completed an incidental study phase, where they judged words for pleasantness, and subsequently performed two memory tests in the same or in a different room. In Experiment 1, a facili...

Perception and cognition can be understood either as conscious experience, thought, and behaviour or as bodily functions executed at the level of information processing. Whether or not they are cognitively penetrable depends on the level referred to. Selective attention is the mechanism by which cognition affects perception, theory influences obser...

to establish whether there is a sub-group of patients suffering from senile dementia, Alzheimer-type (SDAT), who have ceased to undergo normal experience of pain. two single case studies are briefly described and a small-scale national survey by questionnaire is reported. combining the original two cases with those garnered from the survey yielded...

In adult humans, conscious visual experience – including that of colour – is shaped by particular cultural practices, as evidenced in the cross-cultural literature. In addition, the practices of our own culture already inform attempts to assess the “natural” experience of newborns or other animals.

In three experiments subjects studied a list of words under incidental learning conditions. Their explicit memory was tested using free recall. Relearning to criterion was also measured in Experiment 3. Testing took place at intervals after the study period of either 1 hour or 48 hours, and in the same or in a different environment. In all experime...

In recent cognitive theorising there have been frequent attempts to represent children, and some other primates, as possessing theories about particular domains of knowledge or experience. The present paper presents a critique of the child-as-theoretician metaphor and points out that too often a suggestive analogy is treated as if it were an exact...

There have been many reports in the visual motion literature describing how patterns of contrast reversal in bar stimuli may yield rivalrous motions in opposing directions. One of these, usually termed first-order motion, is generally explained in terms of ‘short range’ matching of same polarity edges or of standard motion analysis of the distribut...

L. L. Jacoby and K. Whitehouse (1989) observed that false recognition of new test words was biased by the nature and duration of preceding context words. With very brief exposures to context words, participants were more likely to call a test item "old" when the prior context word was identical than when there was a mismatch. At longer durations, t...

Perception of sequential blanking displays was studied in a series of three experiments investigating factors that influence whether "shadow motion" or "item motion" is seen in a display. In addition to the duration of the blanking interval (BI) itself, three other such factors were identified: the eccentricity at which the display is viewed, the s...

In 5 experiments, Ss made timed lexical decisions to target words (or nonwords) preceded by primes that were semantically related or unrelated to them. Subsequently, a stem or fragement completion task was administered as an implicit memory test (e.g., complete bu for butter), followed by an explicit recognition test of memory for the previously se...

In 5 experiments, Ss made timed lexical decisions to target words (or nonwords) preceded by primes that were semantically related or unrelated to them. Subsequently, a stem or fragement completion task was administered as an implicit memory test (e.g., complete bu for butter), followed by an explicit recognition test of memory for the previously se...

Descriptions of action/cognition can be given at various different levels. For heuristic purposes, three levels are identified: the behavioural, the information-processing and the level of summarizing what an individual is capable of (competences). In cognitive psychology competences, principles, rules or strategies are commonly attributed to indiv...

The psychology of human inference making is a broad topic that embraces a tangle of difficult and interrelated issues, and that includes contributions from a variety of disciplines, including, in addition to psychology itself, linguistics, logic, philosophy, sociology, and anthropology. Some idea of the scope of the topic can be gained from Braine...

The present paper reports two experiments designed to investigate features of skilled performance at the game of Concentration. In the first experiment, five- seven- and 9-year-olds and students in their twenties and thirties played solo Concentration. All groups performed at the same level except for the five-year-olds, who seemed inclined to adop...

The notion of logical necessity is central to Piagetian theory because it is held that an understanding of the necessary nature of each is the criterion of true transitivity, deduction, and conservation. Cross-cultural and developmental studies of reasoning, as well as earlier studies of conservation, have posed enormous difficulties for the use of...

In this chapter we set out to argue that an analysis in terms of perceptual skill is required for the perception of both illusory contours and real contours. Although there is already a tradition of studying the perception of real edges as a matter of perceptual skill (Gibson, 1969), this does not appear to have been done previously for illusory co...

Subjects frequently produce matching responses to Wason's selection problem. Some authors have proposed that such responses are a result of information processing functions which are lateralised to the right hemisphere and that compete with left hemisphere verbal/logical processes for the control of overt responding. Support for this position has c...

An adequate account of the phenomena of illusory contours (ICs) will require an understanding of the genesis of such effects. There are two main techniques used to study perceptual genesis: the first is to slow down the relevant perceptual processes and to study them during perceptual learning; the second employs tachistoscopic exposures and backwa...

Subjects viewed the Kanizsa triangle under conditions of visual masking. Depending on the type of mask employed, the triangle could be perceived when the inducing discs were not phenomenally present, or the discs could be seen with the triangle not present. These findings suggest that no single set of mechanisms, physiological or cognitive, will su...

Meyer (Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1973, 99, 124–133) found that subjects were faster to determine whether or not a stimulus word was a member of either of two prespecified categories if the categories were close rather than distant in meaning. In this paper a reanalysis of the data casts doubt on Meyer's interpretation in terms of memory s...

In two experiments subjects were required to compare the meanings of either a word and a picture, or of two words. Different name levels, i.e. category versus superordinate names, had only a small effect on the time to compare a name with a picture. When incongruent stimulus pairs were semantically related, both positive and negative decision times...

In two experiments subjects were required to compare the meanings of either a word and a picture, or of two words. Different name levels, i.e. category versus superordinate names, had only a small effect on the time to compare a name with a picture. When incongruent stimulus pairs were semantically related, both positive and negative decision times...

The experiment attempted to determine whether or not Ss' verbal reaction time to name words was influenced by the number of possible word stimuli in a set. It was suggested that a discrepancy between the results of previous investigators was an artefact of the manner in which some of the data had been analysed. The results of the experiment indicat...

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