Emre Ozgen

Yasar University · Psychology Department

Markus and Kitayama's (1991) theory of independent and interdependent self-construals had a major influence on social, personality, and developmental psychology by highlighting the role of culture in psychological processes. However, research has relied excessively on contrasts between North American and East Asian samples, and commonly used self-r...

Several theories propose that self-esteem, or positive self-regard, results from fulfilling the value priorities of one’s surrounding culture. Yet, surprisingly little evidence exists for this assertion, and theories differ about whether individuals must personally endorse the value priorities involved. We compared the influence of four bases for s...

Several theories propose that self-esteem, or positive self-regard, results from fulfilling the value priorities of one's surrounding culture. Yet, surprisingly little evidence exists for this assertion, and theories differ about whether individuals must personally endorse the value priorities involved. We compared the influence of four bases for s...

Beliefs about personhood are understood to be a defining feature of individualism-collectivism (I-C), but they have been insufficiently explored, given the emphasis of research on values and self-construals. We propose the construct of contextualism, referring to beliefs about the importance of context in understanding people, as a facet of cultura...

Beliefs about personhood are understood to be a defining feature of individualism-collectivism (I-C), but they have been insufficiently explored, given the emphasis of research on values and self-construals. We propose the construct of contextualism, referring to beliefs about the importance of context in understanding people, as a facet of cultura...

Beliefs about personhood are understood to be a defining feature of individualism-collectivism (I-C), but they have been insufficiently explored, given the emphasis of research on values and self-construals. We propose the construct of contextualism, referring to beliefs about the importance of context in understanding people, as a facet of cultura...

Category training can induce category effects, whereby color discrimination of stimuli spanning a newly learned category boundary is enhanced relative to equivalently spaced stimuli from within the newly learned category (e.g., categorical perception). However, the underlying mechanisms of these acquired category effects are not fully understood. I...

The motive to attain a distinctive identity is sometimes thought to be stronger in, or even specific to, those socialized into individualistic cultures. Using data from 4,751 participants in 21 cultural groups (18 nations and 3 regions), we tested this prediction against our alternative view that culture would moderate the ways in which people achi...

There is indirect evidence that categorical colour perception (better discrimination of colours from different categories than those from the same category) can be learned. For instance, CP can be induced across a newly learned category boundary (Özgen & Davies 2002). Here we replicate and extend Özgen and Davies's category learning study to try an...

Perceptual learning has been shown on a wide variety of achromatic visual tasks. However, very little work has explored the possibility of improvements on chromatically based tasks. Here, we used a transfer of learning paradigm to assess the specificity of improvements at discriminating the orientation of a chromatically defined edge presented in l...

Humans are able to process spatial scale flexibly depending on task demands and prior knowledge (e.g. Schyns & Oliva (1999) Cognition, 69, 243-265). Could such ability be due to attentional modulation of early visual processing mechanisms such as spatial frequency (SF) channels (Sowden, Özgen & Schyns (2001) Perception, 30, s91)? Consistent with th...

When an observer is cued to detect a sinusoidal grating presented at one SF their detection of an unexpected SF is impaired compared with when the same SF is expected (Sowden & Schyns, 2000, Perception, 29, s24). Further, these 'expectancy' effects are SF tuned consistent with their origin being top-down directed monitoring of early SF processing c...

Recent work suggests that, for some tasks, selection among multiple narrow-band SF channels is determined 'bottom-up' by stimulus size (e.g. Majaj et al., 2002, V. Res., 42, 1165-1184). In contrast, work on spatial scale processing suggests that 'top-down' factors can determine the selection of spatial scale (e.g. Schyns et al., 2002, Psych. Sci.,...

Spatial scale processing of natural stimuli (e.g. faces, scenes) can be flexible depending on type of categorization task and prior experience (Gosselin & Schyns, 2001, V. Res., 41, 2261-2271). We argue that attentional modulation of spatial frequency (SF) channels in early vision can account for such flexibility (Sowden, Özgen & Schyns, 2002, J. V...

Modulation of perceptual discrimination of simple physical dimensions characterize three related phenomena: categorical perception (e.g., Roberson et al. 2000; JEP General, 369-398); the perceptual magnet effect (e.g. Guenther et al., 1999; JOSA, 2900-2912); and prototype-bias (Huttenlocher et al., 2000; JEP General, 220-241). In categorical percep...

Categorical perception (CP) is characterised as a superior ability to discriminate stimuli when they belong to different categories (cross-category) than when they are the members of the same category (within-category). Colour perception is well-documented to show this pattern. This property of colour perception has been used to test effects of lan...

Observers can use spatial scale information flexibly depending on categorisation task and on their prior sensitisation. Here, we explore whether attentional modulation of spatial frequency processing at early stages of visual analysis may be responsible. In three experiments, we find that observers' perception of spatial frequency (SF) band-limited...

Recent evidence suggests that spatial frequency (SF) processing of simple and complex visual patterns is flexible. The use of spatial scale in scene perception seems to be influenced by people's expectations. However as yet there is no direct evidence for top-down attentional effects on flexible scale use in scene perception. In two experiments we...

Categorical perception is often cited as a striking example of cognitive influences on perception. However, some evidence suggests the term is a misnomer, with effects based on cognitive not perceptual processing. Here, using a psychophysical approach, we provide evidence consistent with a learned categorical perception effect that is dependent on...

People perceive colors categorically. But what is the role of the environment (or nurture)—specifically, language—in color perception? The effects of language on the way people categorize and perceive colors have been considered to be minimal, but recent evidence suggests that language may indeed change color perception. Speakers of languages with...

We explored top-down modulation of spatial frequency (SF) processing. When auditory pre-cueing directed observers' attention to one of two 4-octaves (SF) apart plaid components observers tended to perceive the cued component, suggesting selective attention to the SF channel they expected to carry task relevant information. In agreement, pre-cueing...

Roberson and Davidoff (2000) found that color categorical perception (CP; better cross-category than within-category discrimination) was eliminated by verbal, but not by visual, interference presented during the interstimulus interval (ISI) of a discrimination task. On the basis of this finding, Roberson and Davidoff concluded that CP was mediated...

Color perception can be categorical: Between-category discriminations are more accurate than equivalent within-category discriminations. The effects could be inherited, learned, or both. The authors provide evidence that supports the possibility of learned categorical perception (CP). Experiment 1 demonstrated that observers' color discrimination i...

Color perception can be categorical: Between-category discriminations are more accurate than equivalent within-category discriminations. The effects could be inherited, learned, or both. The authors provide evidence that supports the possibility of learned categorical perception (CP). Experiment 1 demonstrated that observers' color discrimination i...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Surrey, 2000. Includes bibliographical references. Photocopy.

We report a study of Turkish color terms with four main aims: to establish the inventory of BASIC color terms; to compare this inventory with Berlin and Kay's 11 color universals; to see if Turkish is an exception to the theory by having two basic terms for blue; and if it is, to explore whether there are cognitive effects of the two blue terms. Ei...

Cultural relativists adduce the variation in colour categories across languages as prima facie evidence for linguistic relativity (language affects thought). However, there have been very few experiments that have gone beyond this observational level to assess the extent and the nature of linguistic differences on colour categorisation and percepti...