
Takao SatoUniversity of Human Environments, Japan · Faculty of Human Environments
Takao Sato
PhD
About
173
Publications
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1,244
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Introduction
Additional affiliations
April 2016 - April 2021
June 1990 - April 1995
NTT basic research laboratories
Position
- supervisor
April 1986 - December 1995
Education
September 1978 - May 1982
April 1974 - March 1976
April 1970 - March 1974
Publications
Publications (173)
The present study explores to what extent Asian elephants show "means-end" behavior. We used captive Asian elephants (N = 2) to conduct four variations of the Piagetian "support" problem, which involves a goal object that is out of reach, but rests on a support within reach. In the first condition, elephants were simultaneously presented with two i...
The direction of Café Wall illusion was measured for ordinary Café Wall figures comprised of blocks with a square wave profile and for those with a missing fundamental (MF) profile. For the MF version, it was found that the illusion direction alternates according to the patterns' main component frequency when the shift between adjacent rows was sys...
Backscroll illusion is an apparent motion perceived in backgrounds of movie images that present locomotive objects such as people, animals, and vehicles. This illusion is from the visual system registering retinal motion signals in relation to high-level object motion signals. We confirmed this notion from psychophysical experiments that mainly pre...
Attentional effects on self-motion perception (vection) were examined by using a large display in which vertical stripes containing upward or downward moving dots were interleaved to balance the total motion energy for the two directions. The dots moving in the same direction had the same colour, and subjects were asked to attend to one of the two...
In this study, we examined the operation of first- and second-order motion mechanisms with respect to object tracking using dichoptic presentation. A bistable apparent motion stimulus composed of four rectangles arranged in square- and diamond-shapes in every other frame was presented binocularly, monocularly, or dichoptically using a stereoscope....
Despite the subjective continuity of perception over time, increasing evidence suggests that the human nervous system samples sensory information periodically, a finding strongly exemplified by discretized perception in the alpha-rhythm frequency band. More recently, studies have revealed a theta-band cyclic process that manifests itself as periodi...
In visual search, a moving target among stationary distracters is detected more rapidly and more efficiently than a static target among moving distracters. Here we examined how this search asymmetry depends on motion signals from three distinct coordinate systems—retinal, relative, and spatiotopic (head/body-centered). Our search display consisted...
In binocular rivalry, moving stimulus is dominant over stationary stimulus. This is called motion dominance. The motion here is usually a motion defined on the retina (retinal motion). However, motion can be defined in several different coordinates. It can be defined with respect to objects in the background (object-based motion) or to observers' h...
Using textures composed of sparse bright/dark elements that can activate either on or offsensors selectively, Sato, Motoyoshi, and Sato (2012) reported simultaneous contrast-contrast effects tuned for contrast polarity. As with contrast-contrast effects, prolonged viewing of high-contrast stimuli reduces the perceived contrast of a subsequently pre...
It is known that smooth pursuit eye movement (SPEM) modulates visual contrast sensitivity in an asymmetric manner. For instance, Schütz et al. (2007) reported that contrast sensitivity to a 1 c/deg grating is higher when it drifts in the same direction with the SPEM than in the opposite direction. They interpret this asymmetry in terms of the effec...
Blur gradient is acknowledged as an important cue for relative distance. A number of studies examined detection and discrimination of blur, but no study to date has directly examined human performance of gradient detection per se. In this study we examined gradient detection by using filtered random patterns. Blur gradient was generated by applying...
Numerosity judgments of simultaneous talkers were examined. Listeners were required to report the number of talkers heard when this number varied (1 to 13). Spatial location of talkers (1 or 6 locations), duration of talker voices (0.8 s, 5.0 s, and 15.0 s), and gender arrangement of talkers also were manipulated in four experiments. In all experim...
Natural images appear blurred when imperfect lens focus reduces contrast energy at higher spatial frequencies. Here, we present evidence that perceived blur also depends on asymmetries between On (positive contrast polarities) and Off (negative contrast polarities) image signals. Psychophysical matching experiments involving natural and artificial...
Images appear to be blurred as its power at higher spatial frequencies is reduced. The present study examines whether the perceived blur depends on only one or both of the bright/dark (On/Off) contrast polarities. In experiments, the subjective blur of test image in which the power of either On or Off component at higher spatial frequencies is redu...
In natural scenes, motion of an object as a whole is usually consistent with motion of local patterns contained within the object. We investigated human visual motion perception in cases where these motions conflict with each other, by using a Gabor pattern whose Gaussian spatial window and carrier grating moved inconsistently with different direct...
Classical or long-range apparent motion is sometimes considered as a first-order motion (Cavanagh & Mather, 1989), but sometimes as an attention-based phenomenon (Horowitz & Treisman, 1994). This confusion partly resulted from the lack of detailed knowledge about spatio-temporal characteristics of classical apparent motion. Thus, in this study, we...
We can extract general trends as well as momentary values when we look at ongoing natural and social events. We constantly make such judgments all the way through the duration of events. To understand computational principles underlying the perceptual decision on global trends (and momentary values) of temporally varying data, we analyzed human jud...
The relationship between two constraints related to perception of 3 dimensional shape from shading was examined by using stimuli with temporal modulation in shading gradient (circular patches which appear either concave or convex). The temporal frequency was manipulated between 0.5 - 8 Hz. In experiments, observers reported perception from three al...
Previous studies have demonstrated that the serotonin transporter gene-linked polymorphic region (5-HTTLPR) affects the recognition of facial expressions and attention to them. However, the relationship between 5-HTTLPR and the perceptual detection of others' facial expressions, the process which takes place prior to emotional labeling (i.e., recog...
Temporal characteristics of depth perception from motion parallax were examined by modulating parallax intermittently while observers moved their head side to side. In Experiment 1, parallax of a fixed value was introduced only for the central 1/6 to 5/6 portion of each component head movement. It was found that the perceived depth was proportional...
This study examined how different components of working memory are involved in the acquisition of egocentric and allocentric survey knowledge by people with a good and poor sense of direction (SOD). We employed a dual-task method and asked participants to learn routes from videos with verbal, visual, and spatial interference tasks and without any i...
Object tracking has been generally discussed in relation to attention, but it is quite possible that nonattentive low-level motion components are involved. To elucidate this issue, we examined temporal aspects of object tracking by using stimuli comprised of just a single attribute and those comprised of multiple attributes. High-level motion proce...
A person depicted in portrait paintings does not appear slanted even when observers move around. The gaze is also fixed to the observer. This constancy in angle of face/body orientation or gaze direction is called the Mona Lisa effect. Do observers realize the portrait was physically slanted when the effect occurs? What is the relationship between...
In this paper, we report on a novel visual motion illusion. When hundreds of dots move in straight trajectories and random directions without colliding, the trajectories are perceived as wriggling rather than straight (Experiment 1). We examined the nature of this "wriggling motion trajectory illusion" via six separate experiments. The illusion was...
It is known that moving stimuli perceptually dominate over static stimuli during binocular rivalry. Recent evidence shows that visual motions can be processed in spatiotopic, or object-based as well as retinotopic coordinates. Here we examined which spatial coordinate determines the motion dominance in binocular rivalry. Observers viewed a dichopti...
Shape from motion (SFM) is a phenomenon that a spatial region is defined by 2D motion (typically moving random dots) and segregated from background as a shape. Because the shape in SFM is defined by motion, SFM perception supposedly coincides with MT+ activity as well as perception of motion. However, the temporal relationships between motion proce...
When a second sound follows a long first sound, its location appears to be perceived away from the first one (the localization/lateralization aftereffect). This aftereffect has often been considered to reflect an efficient neural coding of sound locations in the auditory system. To understand determinants of the localization aftereffect, the curren...
Proportion of “right” responses of each participant as a function of ITD of the test stimuli in the AM adapter condition (128-Hz modulation frequency). Each row displays each participant's result. Each column displays the results in each type of the test stimulus. See the caption of Figure 2 for explanation of abbreviations such as P128.
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Proportion of “right” responses of each participant as a function of ITD of the test stimuli in the tone adapter condition (128-Hz). See the caption of Figure S1 for details.
(TIF)
We demonstrated that vection is induced by a motion stimuli that does not have an explicit, bottom‐up motion component. The stimulus motion used in this experiment was animation movie clips of walking people, with no positional changes within the stimulus field. There were no low‐level motion signals in the direction of gait. The results indicate t...
The perception of a three‐dimensional shape from binocular disparity depends on the estimation of viewing distance. Therefore, in the absence of good distance information, an observer misestimates the viewing distance and perceives a wrong depth for an object. While motion depth cues can theoretically overcome this problem, past studies have report...
The apparent contrast of a texture is reduced when surrounded by another texture with high contrast. This contrast-contrast phenomenon has been thought to be a result of spatial interactions between visual channels that encode contrast energy. In the present study, we show that contrast-contrast is selective to luminance polarity by using texture p...
To elucidate the mechanisms of motion-defined shape perception (SP), we carried out experiments by employing the random-dot kinematogram. Participants were asked 1) whether a coherently moving dot in a core rectangle was moving "toward the upper left or lower right" (direction discrimination task) and 2) whether the shape of a motion-defined rectan...
A positive color is perceived when only the contour of the adapting figure was presented to the opposite eye following color adaptation to one eye. We have reported a similar positive aftereffect with van Lier's display (ECVP, 2010), but it involves simultaneous adaptation to two complementary colors, and the selection of aftereffects. The present...
This study examined how different components of working memory are involved in spatial knowledge acquisition for good and poor sense-of-direction (SOD) people. We employed a dual-task method, and asked participants to learn routes from videos with verbal, visual and spatial interference tasks and without any interference. Results showed that partic...
The apparent contrast of a texture is reduced when it is surrounded by another texture with high contrast. This contrast-contrast illusion has been thought to be a result of spatial interactions between visual channels that encode contrast energy. In the present study, we show that the contrast-contrast is selective to the luminance polarity by usi...
Presenting luminance contours surrounding the adapted areas in test phase enhances color afterimages in both duration and color appearance. The presence of surrounding contour is crucial to some color phenomenon such as van Lier's afterimage, but the contour-effect itself has not been seriously examined. In this paper, we compared the contour-effec...
It is known that moving stimuli perceptually dominate over static stimuli during binocular rivalry. Recent evidence shows that visual motions can be processed in spatiotopic, or object-based as well as retinotopic coordinates. Here we examined which spatial coordinate determines the motion dominance in binocular rivalry. Observers viewed a dichopti...
Anxious individuals have been shown to interpret others' emotional states negatively. Since most studies have used facial expressions as emotional cues, we examined whether trait anxiety affects the recognition of emotion in a dynamic face and voice that were presented in synchrony. The face and voice cues conveyed either matched (e.g., happy face...
The existence of top-down modulation from global- to local-motion mechanisms is examined by using motion-aftereffect (MAE) with four-patch pseudo-gabor stimuli containing either global (translation and rotation) or local (single patch) motion. MAE durations were measured with a stationary gabor test patch whose position coincided with one of the ad...
The moonwalk, in which dancers' gaits pretend forward walking but their bodies actually move backwards, gives us a strange impression. This indicates interactions of articulatory motions of limbs and global body motion in perceiving biological motion. Specifically, it suggests perceptual differences between conditions where gait and global motion a...
When a pair of stereo pictures were interchanged, all disparities are reversed, but inverted depth is never seen with familiar objects such as human faces (reversed disparity illusion). In contrast, Georgeson(1979) reported that concave face can be seen when a face is depicted as random-dot stereograms. Thus, the illusion for regular pictures is of...
Purpose: We have already reported that reversed-phi was perceived with Motion Defined Motion (MDM) stimulus (ARVO2001). This suggests that polarity-dependent detector function for MDM (Maruya & Sato, 2000; 2001: cf. Zanker, 1993). In this study, we further investigated the role of polarities by comparing perception characteristics for the stimuli w...
Purpose: It has been known that for luminance-defined missing fundamental (MF) with 1/4 cycle shifts is perceived in the direction opposite to physical shift. Similar phenomenon was reported for disparity- (Smith & Scott-Sammuel, 1998) and motion-defined (Maruya & Sato, 2001) MF patterns. In these stimuli, modulated features were derived from magno...
Purpose: Effects of spatial frequency contents on cafe wall illusion have not been studied extensively except for an isolated report on its disappearance at very high spatial frequencies (Morgan & Moulden, 1986). The main objective of this study is to examine effects of spatial frequency of the square wave part on appearance of the cafe wall illusi...
We found a new visual illusion caused by biological motion, in which a background pattern appears to move oppositely to a human locomotion indicated by gait. To exemplify this phenomenon, we conducted two experiments presenting an ambiguous motion as a background of a point-lights walker stepping on a tread-mill. In experiment 1, observers judged m...
Sequential presentation of multiple frames with the same texture characteristics improves texture segregation. In this study, we evaluated contributions of three potential factors for this improvement (border-signal enhancement, internal-noise reduction, and narrowed tuning for border detection) by using internal noise estimation method based on pe...
Purpose: Motion- and luminance-defined motions (MDM/LDM) were perceived misaligned when they were presented physically with a same speed and in phase. MDM is motion of patterns defined by local motion direction. In this study, we examined the effects of global motion speed (physical and perceptual) of MDM and LDM on the amount of this offset to exp...
Purpose: The main objective of this study was to examine the contributions of luminance (1st order) and higher-order components on Cafe wall illusion by comparing the illusion induced by stimuli with regular square wave (SQ) and missing fundamental (MF) gratings. Although the two types of gratings look alike, the lowest frequency component containe...
Purpose: We examined contribution of low-level motion systems to the asymmetry between the upper and lower visual fields in multiple object tracking (MOT) performances. He, Cavanagh & Intriligator (1996) suggested the asymmetry originated from attentional resolution (high-level visual processing), but it is not clear whether low-level motion system...
The stream-bounce stimulus induces a bi-stable motion perception (Metzger, 1934). In this phenomenon, two identical moving objects with trajectories crossing each other are perceived either as streaming through (stream) or colliding and bouncing off (bounce). Although this phenomenon is often related to a high-level motion processing, we explored a...
Purpose: When we point an object with a finger, the control of the arm and finger may be conducted by using a feedback loop involving vision, but it could be carried on solely by motor system without visual involvement especially when we point a target very quickly. To clarify the mode of control, or the involvement of vision in pointing behavior,...
Vection (visually-induced self-motion perception) has been investigated for static observers generally. We aimed to investigate effects of walking (body action) on vection perception. Viewpoint motion along a line-of-sight was simulated in a three-dimensional cloud of dots (2 km/h, 1626 dots visible in average), and its optic flow was presented on...
We conducted two psychophysical experiments to show that mechanisms mediating Café Wall illusion are situated within lower levels of the visual system.
The stimuli for the two experiments consisted of three sinusoidal gratings and two gray lines that were presented on a CRT screen. The task for both experiments was to judge the direction of illusor...