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Neuroticism, schizotypy, and scale anchors influence eye movement behaviour in the visual exploration of abstract art: An exploratory study
Abstract
The same piece of artwork can attract both admiration and rejection from different people. One potential explanation for this effect is individual differences in perceptual biases, which influence the way in which we see different aspects of the same image. We explored the relationship between individual differences (i.e., personality) and eye movements for examinations of abstract art. Images were presented for 5000 ms, after which participants judged aesthetic appeal and perceived value using visual analogue scales. Scale anchor labels (Looks Good/Looks Bad; 0/5000) were counterbalanced between participants such that positive labels were on the left half of the time and on the right half of the time. Overall, more fixations occurred to the right and upper visual fields. Neuroticism significantly predicted the proportion of fixations to the left, whereas cognitive disorganisation negatively predicted the proportion of fixations to upper space. Participants found images more aesthetically pleasing and more valuable when positive anchors were on the left. Findings demonstrate that personality traits influence fixation patterns. Further, the positioning of positive anchor labels on the left leads to higher ratings of visual stimuli.
... A growing body of research has found that personal traits involving artistic experience and openness to experience influence AE (Colver & El-Alayli, 2015;Krajewska & Waligórska, 2015;Myszkowski, Storme, Zenasni, & Lubart, 2014;Simpson & Thomas, 2018). Besides, the level of knowledge and personal experience created by the paintings predict an aesthetic appreciation, suggesting an interaction effect of personal traits and stimuli during an AE process (Jankowski, Francuz, Oleś, & Chmielnicka-Kuter, 2018). ...
Aesthetic experience (AE) and creativity overlap in cognitive processes; the conscious practice of AE focused on everyday designed products can be an effective way to enhance creativity. To better understand the effects of such conscious practice, we designed one control intervention with free product observation and four interventions corresponding to four product-based AE processes, by which we explored what types of conscious practice would best facilitate the learning of creativity. Additionally, the moderation effect of everyday aesthetic experience in designed products was examined. One hundred and eighty college students were randomly assigned to five intervention groups: Control group (C), Perceptual analysis (E1), Life-experience association (E2), Functional analysis (E3), or Aesthetic-emotion evocation (E4). The intervention stimuli were 50 photos of everyday designed products, and the creativity was measured by the Product-based Figural Creativity Test. The results revealed that engaging the participants in conscious AE practices, especially those that contribute to the association between imaginary narratives and the participants' life experiences (E4) or that enhance analytical thinking on valuableness of the product (E3), can best improve college students' creativity. Besides, the personal trait of everyday AE interacted with the interventions and influenced the participants' creativity improvement, suggesting that providing scaffolding in accordance with personality traits can magnify the effects of learning creativity. To conclude, this study theorizes and examines the link between varied AE-based practices and the performance of creativity as well as the moderation role of everyday AE in such learning. The findings provide valuable insight for designing effective AE-based interventions for enhancing AE and creativity.
... A growing body of research has found that personal traits involving artistic experience and openness to experience influence AE (Colver & El-Alayli, 2015;Krajewska & Waligórska, 2015;Myszkowski, Storme, Zenasni, & Lubart, 2014;Simpson & Thomas, 2018). Besides, the level of knowledge and personal experience created by the paintings predict an aesthetic appreciation, suggesting an interaction effect of personal traits and stimuli during an AE process (Jankowski, Francuz, Oleś, & Chmielnicka-Kuter, 2018). ...
Aesthetic experience (AE) and creativity overlap in cognitive processes; the conscious practice of AE focused on everyday designed products can be an effective way to enhance creativity. To better understand the effects of such conscious practice, we designed one control intervention with free product observation and four interventions corresponding to four product-based AE processes, by which we explored what types of conscious practice would best facilitate the learning of creativity. Additionally, the moderation effect of everyday aesthetic experience in designed products was examined. One hundred and eighty college students were randomly assigned to five intervention groups: Control group (C), Perceptual analysis (E1), Life-experience association (E2), Functional analysis (E3), or Aesthetic-emotion evocation (E4). The intervention stimuli were 50 photos of everyday designed products, and the creativity was measured by the Product-based Figural Creativity Test. The results revealed that engaging the participants in conscious AE practices, especially those that contribute to the association between imaginary narratives and the participants’ life experiences (E4) or that enhance analytical thinking on valuableness of the product (E3), can best improve college students’ creativity. Besides, the personal trait of everyday AE interacted with the interventions and influenced the participants’ creativity improvement, suggesting that providing scaffolding in accordance with personality traits can magnify the effects of learning creativity. To conclude, this study theorizes and examines the link between varied AE-based practices and the performance of creativity as well as the moderation role of everyday AE in such learning. The findings provide valuable insight for designing effective AE-based interventions for enhancing AE and creativity.
... Due to the relevance of eye movements in salience attribution processes, the relative dearth of research linking natural, self-driven eye movement behavior to schizophrenia-spectrum symptoms is surprising. Research to date has instead been largely limited to the examination of smooth pursuit eye tracking deficits using task-based paradigms (see meta-analysis, O'Driscoll and Callahan, 2008) or lateral asymmetries in eye movement behavior (Simpson and Thomas, 2018). These paradigms, however, do not target the key question of whether differences in visual salience attribution are present. ...
What is the relationship between creativity, curiosity, and schizotypy? Schizophrenia-spectrum conditions and creativity have been linked to deficits in filtering sensory information, and curiosity is associated with information-seeking. This raises the possibility of a perception-based link between all three concepts. Here, we investigated whether the same
individual differences in perceptual encoding explain variance in creativity, curiosity, and schizotypy. We administered an active auditory oddball task and a free viewing eye-tracking paradigm (N=88). Creativity was measured with the figural portion of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) and two self-report scales. Schizotypy and curiosity
were measured with self-reports. We found that creativity was associated with increased reaction time to the rare tone in the oddball task and was positively associated with the number and duration of fixations in the free viewing task. Schizotypy, on the other hand, showed a negative trend with the number and duration of fixations. Both creativity and curiosity were positively associated with explorative eye movements (unique number of regions visited) and Shannon entropy, while schizotypy was negatively associated with entropy. We further compared saliency maps finding that individuals high versus low in creativity and curiosity, respectively, exhibit differences in where they look. These findings may suggest a perception-based link between creativity and curiosity, but not schizotypy. Implications and limitations
of these findings are discussed.
... We varied the location of the label anchors for our rating scales as prior research has shown that participants respond more positively when positive labels are located on the left side on both Likert-type and visual analogue scales [30,51]. Given we included this manipulation to control for any possible effects, we did not make any hypotheses about this factor and therefore did not include it in our primary analysis. ...
We live in a right-hander’s world. Although left-handers become accustomed to using right-handed devices, an underlying preference for objects that afford the dominant hand could remain. We employed eye tracking while left- and right-handed participants viewed advertisements for everyday products. Participants then rated aesthetic appeal, purchase intention, and perceived value. Left-handed participants found advertisements for products that more easily afforded them action to be more aesthetically appealing. They also indicated greater future purchase intention for products that were oriented towards the left hand, and gave these products a higher perceived value. Eye tracking data showed that object handles attracted attention, and were also able to retain participants’ attention. Further, across multiple eye movement measures, our data show that participant eye movements were altered by the orientation of the handle, such that this side of the image was examined earlier and for longer, regardless of handedness. Left-handers’ preferences might be stronger because they are more aware of object orientation, whereas right-handers do not experience the same difficulties. These findings highlight intrinsic differences in the way in which we perceive objects and our underlying judgments about those products, based on handedness.
... First, it is unlikely that the cheerleader effect is due to increasing familiarity with the target faces over repeated presentations (Peskin & Newell, 2004), because the effect occurs when the target face is shown twice in a randomised order (group, alone; e.g., Experiment 1, Chapter 5). Second, the cheerleader effect occurred when the left-right orientation of the response scale anchors ("very unattractive/very attractive") was counterbalanced between participants (Chapter 4), indicating that the effect is not caused by a spatial congruency between the target location and the rating scale (Nicholls et al., 2006;Simpson & Thomas, 2018). Third, the cheerleader effect occurred when the presentation time of the group image (7000 ms) greatly exceeded that of the alone condition (2000 ms; Experiment 5, Chapter 6), suggesting that the effect does not occur because the observer has less time to examine the target face in the group image (Rashidi et al., 2012;Saegusa & Watanabe, 2016). ...
Despite the cautionary reminder to never “judge a book by its cover”, we regularly judge others based upon their facial appearance. Far from meaning that we are all terribly judgmental, these trait impressions occur automatically. Even though they are often not accurate, the trait judgments that we make about others can influence our own decision making. The candidate with the more “competent” face wins approximately 70% of national elections, and criminals with “untrustworthy” faces receive longer prison sentences for the same crimes than those with “trustworthy” faces.
Trait impressions have been the focus of research in the field of social perception since the earliest days of experimental psychology. While these studies have undoubtedly improved our understanding of the way that trait judgments are made from faces, the vast majority of these studies have been conducted by presenting observers with a single face at a time. However, we often meet people for the first time when they are surrounded by others, perhaps at a café or a bar. Consequently, very little is known about the way we make trait impressions about an individual face that is seen among a group of other faces. Within this thesis, I aimed to improve our understanding of the way that the facial attractiveness and trustworthiness of an individual is evaluated when they are seen among a group of other faces, compared to when they are seen alone.
In the introduction to this thesis, I discuss the factors that influence the trustworthiness judgments that are made from the face, as well as the characteristics of faces that are perceived to be attractive. Then, I describe the way that the visual system processes complex visual scenes, such as a group of faces, using a process called ensemble coding. Bringing together these lines of research, I discuss “the cheerleader effect”, a phenomenon that is said to occur when the same face is perceived to be more attractive in a group compared to alone.
The research in this thesis significantly advances our understanding of the cheerleader effect. My findings show that all individuals are perceived to be approximately 1.5-2% more attractive in a group than they are alone, regardless of how attractive they are, or how attractive the other group members are. I also show that the cheerleader effect does not extend to judgments of trustworthiness. Crucially, my findings are also inconsistent with the hierarchical encoding mechanism that was initially proposed to cause the cheerleader effect, which was related to the way that the visual system uses ensemble coding to summarise groups of faces. Based on the results contained within this thesis, I offer an alternative explanation for the cheerleader effect, which suggests that the effect might be related to the socially desirable characteristics that are attributed to individuals in groups. In conclusion, my findings demonstrate that social context reliably influences perceptions of facial attractiveness, and suggests that the field of social perception must be expanded to consider the influence of social context on the trait impressions that are made from the face.
Introduction. The necessity to counteract vandalism is due to economic, cultural and social losses. Inefficiency of the actual preventive programs calls for a new research of vandalistic behavior motives and ways to control them. The paper deals with subjective effects of vandalism – youths’ perception of vandalistic damage to urban area. Youths’ attitude to vandalistic behavior is supposed to get shaped already at the perception stage, that is why research of this stage is viewed as essential to reveal initial and regulatory drivers of vandalism. Objectives. The study is aimed at researching special aspects of youths’ perception of vandalism through identification of cognitive, emotional, valueand-sense, attitude and visual motor components of a perceptual act. The goal of the study implies the following research challenges: 1. to identify subjectively essential forms of vandalism; 2. to reveal conventional forms of vandalism; 3. to discover the effect of role-oriented position on vandalism perception; 4. to identify the effect of vandalistic experience on visual motor characteristics of vandalistic stimuli perception. Methods. Phenomenological approach to social-environmental research of urban area is the major tool of the study. This method enables to explain some research findings by subjective attitude of urban youths to vandalistic damages. In the course of the experiment this attitude manifested itself in the evaluation and orientation as reaction to images of urban vandalistic damages. The main research procedure is experiment. In the course of the experiment a subject was given stimuli, his visual motor reactions and changes of their ophthalmic system were fixed. Data were collected through self-evaluation reports fixing psychoemotional state, attitude and understanding of vandalistic damages, as well as through an eye tracker Tobii Pro Spectrum measuring oculomotor responses to the stimuli. The processing method was descriptive statistics, U-criteria of Mann-Whitney. Participants and stimuli. The stimuli were 10 images of vandalistic damages to urban area. The survey sample included 103 people aged 19-24 with proportional correlation of men and women. They were divided into 8 focus groups. The experiment lasted 1 hour and 40 minutes for each group. The eye tracker research was conducted with a group of 11 people (72,2 % – girls). Results: 1) Subjectively significant forms of vandalism are graffiti, littering and property destruction. 2) Conventional forms of vandalism are damage to recreational areas, the building and its premises. 3) Roles I-vandal and I-viewer (observer) differ in evaluation of admissibility of vandalistic actions and their significance. 4) Previous vandalistic experience affects visual motor characteristics of vandalistic damages perception. Scientific novelty. The research findings give a wider scope of vandalistic actions perception, proving that a role-oriented position influences on evaluation of vandalistic damages and vandalistic experience, predetermines orientation and evaluation of vandalistic damages. Practical significance. Developed research procedure of vandalistic damages to urban area perception enables to collect data about oculomotor response and can be applied for similar research.
The work analyses the phenomenon of Arabfuturism - an aesthetic and ideological metanarration present in the Middle Eastern discourse. This phenomenon belongs to the family of ethnofuturisms, movements that deal with identity, as well as historical, cultural and political issues. Ethnofuturisms use genres such as science fiction, utopia and dystopia. They also use themes of close and far future, advanced technology, time travel, virtual reality. Ethnofuturisms are critical towards the mainstream imagination of past and present; they are counter-narratives of the future, i.e. they counteract the appropriation of the future by privileged groups. The paper describes the context of the emergence of Arabfuturism, then the social semiotic multimodal analysis is carried out, in order to describe the characteristic and repetitive visual features of arabfuturistic artworks.
Emotional perception was examined in stroke patients across 3 communication channels: facial, prosodic, and lexical. Hemispheric specialization for emotion was tested via right-hemisphere (RH) and valence hypotheses, and relationships among channels were determined. Participants were 11 right-brain–damaged (RBD), 10 left-brain–damaged (LBD), and 15 demographically matched normal control (NC) adults. Experimental measures, with analogous psychometric properties, were identification and discrimination tasks, including a range of positive and negative emotions. Nonemotional control tasks were used for each channel. For identification, RBDs were significantly impaired relative to LBDs and NCs across channels and valences, supporting the RH hypothesis. No group differences emerged for discrimination. Findings were not influenced by demographic, clinical, or control variables. Correlations among the channels were more prominent for normal than for brain-damaged groups.
A 30-item true–false scale was developed for magical ideation, which is defined as belief in forms of causation that by conventional standards are invalid. The scale was based on P. E. Meehl's (1964) description of magical ideation as a symptom of schizotypy or schizophrenia proneness. Of 1,512 college students who completed the scale, 28 were selected who scored at least 1.91 SD above the mean on the Magical Ideation Scale. These 28 magical-ideation Ss and 27 control Ss were interviewed using a modified version of the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia–Lifetime Version. The magical-ideation Ss exceeded the control Ss on evidence of magical thoughts and reported more psychotic or psychoticlike experiences, more schizotypal experiences, more affective symptoms, and more difficulties in concentration. It is concluded that Ss high on the Magical Ideation Scale show symptoms suggestive of predisposition to psychosis, justifying the long-term follow-up of these persons. (27 ref)
Spatial relationships are used to mentally represent numerical information. We visualize small numbers on the left and large numbers on the right, forming a mental number line. When determining the midpoint between two numbers, healthy participants show a bias to the left, similar to the bias on line bisection. Upper space distractors increase leftward line bisection biases and the current study examined the influence of distractors on mental number line bisection. Participants viewed sequential number triplets, presented concurrently with distractors. In Experiment 1, participants performed more accurately when numbers were presented in ascending order and showed stronger left biases for descending trials. Further, a responding bias was observed, where participants pressed the response key on the same side as the distractors. In Experiment 2, an orthogonal response mapping was used, which confirmed the occurrence of a responding bias. Interestingly, distractors weakened pseudoneglect, demonstrating a dissociation between line bisection and mental number line bisection in terms of distractibility. Numerical direction influenced asymmetries, such that leftward biases were stronger on descending trials. It is suggested that a right-to-left orientation of attention on descending trials might lead participants to overestimate how far along the number line they have moved, which increases leftward biases.
Recent evidence suggests that face processing may be more robust in the upper visual field (UVF) than in the lower visual field (LVF). We asked whether this UVF advantage is due to an upward bias in participants' visuospatial attention. Participants classified the sex of a UVF or LVF target face that was preceded by a congruent or incongruent masked prime face. We manipulated spatial attention within subjects by varying the predictability of target location across sessions (UVF:LVF ratio of 50:50 on Day 1 and 20:80 on Day 2). When target location was unpredictable, priming emerged earlier in the UVF (~165 ms) than the LVF (~195 ms). This UVF advantage was reversed when targets were more likely to be presented in the LVF. Here priming arose earlier for LVF targets (~53 ms) than UVF targets (~165 ms). Critically, however, UVF primes were processed to the same degree regardless of whether spatial attention was diffuse (Day 1) or deployed elsewhere (Day 2). We conclude that, while voluntarily directed spatial attention is sufficient to modulate the processing of masked faces in the LVF, it is not sufficient to explain the UVF advantage for masked face processing.
Previous studies show that eye movement trajectory curves away from a remembered visual location if a saccade needs to be made in the same direction as the location. Data suggest that part of the process of maintaining the location in working memory is the mental simulation of that location, so that the oculomotor system treats the remembered location as a real one. Other research suggests that word meaning may also behave like a 'real object' in space. The current study aimed to combine the two streams of research examining the effect of word meaning on the memory of a dot location. The results of two experiments showed that word meaning for 'up' (but not 'down') modulated both eye movement trajectory and location recognition time. Thus, mental simulation of task-irrelevant space-related word meaning affected both earlier stages of memory processes (maintenance of the location in the working memory) and later ones (location recognition).
Psychometric analysis of scores from the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) confirmed their internal (8 = 527) and test-retest reliability (n = 335) in an Australian adult sample, The data also provided support for the internal and temporal reliability of scores derived from 13 lower order item clusters identified in the NEO-FFI by G. Saucier (1998).
This article introduces and reviews the history of the construct of schizotypy for the special section appearing in the journal. Schizotypy offers a useful construct for understanding the etiology, development, and expression of schizophrenia-spectrum psychopathology and a unifying construct for linking a broad continuum of clinical and subclinical manifestations. The article reviews the descriptive psychopathology roots of schizotypy, Meehl and Claridge's classical formulations of the construct (including the debate about dimensional vs taxonic structure), and the need for a comprehensive, multidimensional model of schizotypy. The article briefly reviews the wide empirical literature supporting schizotypy and also examines several criticisms and misconceptions about the construct and research methods used to assess it. Finally, the article offers several suggested goals for future schizotypy research.
© The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.
In the experiment reported here, 30 participants made a lexical decision on 120 spoken words and 120 spoken non-words. The words had either an upward (e.g. 'moon') or downward (e.g. 'sewer') spatial association, or they were neutral in this respect (e.g. 'letter'). Participants made their lexical decisions by fixating a target located either above or below the centre of the screen, counterbalanced across participants. Saccade launch latencies to targets in a congruent spatial location (e.g., hearing 'moon' and looking up to confirm that the stimulus is a word) were significantly faster than those to targets in an incongruent location (e.g., hearing 'moon' and looking down to confirm that it is a word). Crucially, saccade launch latencies to incongruent target locations did not differ from those launched after hearing neutral words. Our results extend earlier findings (Dudschig et al., 2013) by showing that language-related spatial associations facilitate eye movements towards congruent locations rather than inhibiting eye movements towards incongruent locations.
Conscious experience is fluid; it rarely remains on one topic for an extended period without deviation. Its dynamic nature is illustrated by the experience of mind wandering, in which attention switches from a current task to unrelated thoughts and feelings. Studies exploring the phenomenology of mind wandering highlight the importance of its content and relation to meta-cognition in determining its functional outcomes. Examination of the information-processing demands of the mind-wandering state suggests that it involves perceptual decoupling to escape the constraints of the moment, its content arises from episodic and affective processes, and its regulation relies on executive control. Mind wandering also involves a complex balance of costs and benefits: Its association with various kinds of error underlines its cost, whereas its relationship to creativity and future planning suggest its potential value. Although essential to the stream of consciousness, various strategies may minimize the downsides of mind wandering while maintaining its productive aspects. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Psychology Volume 66 is November 30, 2014. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/catalog/pubdates.aspx for revised estimates.
Neurologically normal individuals devote more attention to the left side; an asymmetry known as pseudoneglect, which reflects right hemisphere involvement in visuospatial attention. The role of eye movements in attentional asymmetries has received little consideration, particularly in terms of the greyscales task. Stimulus length, elevation, and presentation duration were manipulated, while monitoring eye movements during the greyscales task. Region of interest analyses compared time spent examining each quadrant of the stimulus. Further, saccades were examined in conjunction with fixations to gain an understanding of overall eye movement patterns. Scatterplots combining x-and y-coordinates illustrate mean eye position. Results demonstrated a comparison strategy was used, where the dark portions of each rectangle were fixated. Mean eye position was within the lower left quadrant. The left visual field was inspected most for the baseline condition. Interestingly, the lower visual field was examined most when duration, length, or elevation was manipulated. Eye movement patterns provide a possible explanation for why correlations are y not observed between visuospatial tasks. Different strategies, based on specific-task demands, are likely to be used, which in turn, engage separate aspects of visuospatial attention.
Quick and accurate judgments of emotional expressivity and attractiveness facilitate social interactions. Eye tracking was used to examine left/right asymmetries across 2 studies. Fixations to each hemiface, and to the eyes and mouth, when judging attractiveness and emotional expressivity were examined. Overall, more fixations occurred on the left hemiface (from the viewer's point of view), even when mirror-reversed, supporting the suggestion that we intuitively know the left hemiface is more expressive. The right side of the mouth was fixated more when judging happiness, whereas the left eye was fixated more for sadness and the left mouth when rating emotional expressivity. The present findings support the notion that the right hemisphere and valence-specific hypotheses are not mutually exclusive. The right hemisphere hypothesis is supported when assessing global facial qualities (i.e., hemiface); however, hemispheric processing differences emerge when exploring the eyes and mouth. The current findings highlight the importance of not only considering how the face is examined more generally, but of also exploring smaller regions of interest to investigate lateral biases. Future research should therefore include analyses of fixations to the hemifaces, as well as to these smaller regions of interest. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
Recent evolutionary theory has argued that what people find “beautiful” is not arbitrary, but rather has evolved over millions of years of hominid sensory, perceptual, and cognitive evolution. Sensations that have adaptive value (i.e., that enhance safety, survival, and reproduction) often become aesthetically preferred. One purpose of the current study was to present a personality and social attitude template for persons who prefer a relatively recent and generally unappreciated form of art, namely abstract art. One hundred and four college participants (68 female) completed personality (openness and experience seeking) and social attitude questionnaires and recorded their preference for 15 realistic, 15 ambiguous, and 15 abstract works of art. Results showed that open participants preferred every form of art presented, but that this difference increased as the art became more abstract. In addition, those with attitudes more tolerant of political liberalism and drug use preferred abstract art the most.
Subjects were shown pairs of slides; one member of each pair represented a painting in its correct left-right orientation and the other a mirror image of the same painting. For each pair, subjects were asked (a) to choose which they preferred, (b) to choose which they thought was the original, and (c) to rate their confidence that they had seen the picture before. Subjects were only able to discriminate between originals and mirror images for those paintings they were highly confident of having seen before.
The vision-for-action literature favours the idea that the motor output of an action-whether manual or oculomotor-leads to similar results regarding object handling. Findings on line bisection performance challenge this idea: healthy individuals bisect lines manually to the left of centre and to the right of centre when using eye fixation. In case that these opposite biases for manual and oculomotor action reflect more universal compensatory mechanisms that cancel each other out to enhance overall accuracy, one would like to observe comparable opposite biases for other material. In the present study, we report on three independent experiments in which we tested line bisection (by hand, by eye fixation) not only for solid lines, but also for letter lines; the latter, when bisected manually, is known to result in a rightward bias. Accordingly, we expected a leftward bias for letter lines when bisected via eye fixation. Analysis of bisection biases provided evidence for this idea: manual bisection was more rightward for letter as compared to solid lines, while bisection by eye fixation was more leftward for letter as compared to solid lines. Support for the eye fixation observation was particularly obvious in two of the three studies, for which comparability between eye and hand action was increasingly adjusted (paper-pencil versus touch screen for manual action). These findings question the assumption that ocular motor and manual output are always inter-changeable, but rather suggest that at least for some situations ocular motor and manual output biases are orthogonal to each other, possibly balancing each other out.
Traditionally, language processing has been attributed to a separate system in the brain, which supposedly works in an abstract propositional manner. However, there is increasing evidence suggesting that language processing is strongly interrelated with sensorimotor processing. Evidence for such an interrelation is typically drawn from interactions between language and perception or action. In the current study, the effect of words that refer to entities in the world with a typical location (e.g., , ) on the planning of saccadic eye movements was investigated. Participants had to perform a lexical decision task on visually presented words and non-words. They responded by moving their eyes to a target in an upper (lower) screen position for a word (non-word) or vice versa. Eye movements were faster to locations compatible with the word's referent in the real world. These results provide evidence for the importance of linguistic stimuli in directing eye movements, even if the words do not directly transfer directional information.
Gazing is a fundamental human behavior with important cognitive, affective, motivational, and social underpinnings that is likely to have produced individual differences linking it to major personality traits. If traits play a substantial role in gazing, they should predict eye movement parameters above and beyond stimuli without meaningful and topical information. The current eye-tracking study (N = 242) demonstrated with linear mixed models that personality (Big Five, Behavioral Inhibition System/Behavioral Activation System) predicts number of fixations, mean fixation duration, and dwelling time in two different abstract animations. Specifically, neuroticism, extraversion, openness, and the Behavioral Activation System were related to eye movement parameters. Prospective research in studying links between dispositions and gazing is discussed.
The present research examined personality continuity and change in a sample of young men and women assessed at the beginning and end of college. Two-hundred seventy students completed measures of the Big Five personality traits when they first entered college and then four years later. Analyses indicate small- to medium-sized normative (i.e., mean-level) changes, large rank-order stability correlations, high levels of stability in personality structure, and moderate levels of ipsative (i.e. profile) stability. Overall, the findings are consistent with the perspective that personality traits exhibits considerable continuity over time, yet can change in systematic ways.
Neurologically normal individuals show an attentional bias toward the left side, which results from right hemisphere activation during visuospatial tasks. The strength of this bias is influenced by various factors, such as line length, vertical elevation and presentation time. What remains unknown is how participants gather information via saccadic eye movements during task performance and how this relates to their responses. Eye movements were recorded while participants performed the landmark task. Fixations and saccades were both analysed to gain a complete understanding of eye movement patterns. Fixations tended to focus on the centre of the line, with few left-right differences. Saccades were examined by creating histograms illustrating all x-coordinates which were examined over the course of each trial. Interestingly, mean eye position varied with participant response, with an overall tendency to look to the right of centre. Results are consistent with prior research, which has primarily looked at fixations and demonstrates the necessity of examining saccades as well as fixations in order to see how eye movement patterns relate to pseudoneglect.
In the present study the relationship between behavioural adjustment following cognitive conflict and schizotypy was investigated using a Stroop colour naming paradigm. Previous research has found deficits with behavioural adjustment in schizophrenia patients. Based on these findings, we hypothesized that individual differences in schizotypy, a personality trait reflecting the subclinical expression of the schizophrenia phenotype, would be associated with behavioural adjustment. Additionally, we investigated whether such a relationship would be explained by individual differences in neuroticism, a non-specific measure of negative trait emotionality known to be correlated with schizotypy.
106 healthy volunteers (mean age: 25.1, 60% females) took part. Post-conflict adjustment was measured in a computer-based version of the Stroop paradigm. Schizotypy was assessed using the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) and Neuroticism using the NEO-FFI.
We found a negative correlation between schizotypy and post-conflict adjustment (r = -.30, p<.01); this relationship remained significant when controlling for effects of neuroticism. Regression analysis revealed that particularly the subscale No Close Friends drove the effect.
Previous findings of deficits in cognitive control in schizophrenia patients were extended to the subclinical personality expression of the schizophrenia phenotype and found to be specific to schizotypal traits over and above the effects of negative emotionality.
The process of fixation identification—separating and labeling fixations and saccades in eye-tracking protocols—is an essential part of eye-movement data analysis and can have a dramatic impact on higher-level analyses. However, algorithms for performing fixation identification are often described informally and rarely compared in a meaningful way. In this paper we propose a taxonomy of fixation identification algorithms that classifies algorithms in terms of how they utilize spatial and temporal information in eye-tracking protocols. Using this taxonomy, we describe five algorithms that are representative of different classes in the taxonomy and are based on commonly employed techniques. We then evaluate and compare these algorithms with respect to a number of qualitative characteristics. The results of these comparisons offer interesting implications for the use of the various algorithms in future work.
Nine experiments of timed odd-even judgments examined how parity and number magnitude are accessed from Arabic and verbal numerals. With Arabic numerals, Ss used the rightmost digit to access a store of semantic number knowledge. Verbal numerals went through an additional stage of transcoding to base 10. Magnitude information was automatically accessed from Arabic numerals. Large numbers preferentially elicited a rightward response, and small numbers a leftward response. The Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect depended only on relative number magnitude and was weaker or absent with letters or verbal numerals. Direction did not vary with handedness or hemispheric dominance but was linked to the direction of writing, as it faded or even reversed in right-to-left writing Iranian Ss. The results supported a modular architecture for number processing, with distinct but interconnected Arabic, verbal, and magnitude representations.
Why are original artworks valued more than identical duplicates? The present studies explore 2 mechanisms underlying the special value of original artwork: the assessment of the art object as a unique creative act (performance) and the degree of physical contact with the original artist (contagion). Across 5 experiments, participants were exposed to hypothetical scenarios in which an original object was duplicated. The type of object varied across experiments (e.g., a painting vs. a piece of furniture) as did the circumstances surrounding the creation of the original object and the duplicate. Overall, the results support assessments of performance and contagion as key factors underlying the value of original artwork, and they are consistent with the conclusion that the discrepancy in value between original artworks and perfect duplicates derives from people's lay theories about the domain of art, rather than from associations with particular kinds of art or certain cases of forgery.
An exhaustive qualitative (vote-counting) review is conducted of the literature concerning visual and non-visual line bisection in neurologically normal subject populations. Although most of these studies report a leftward bisection error (i.e., pseudoneglect), considerable between-study variability and inconsistency characterize this literature. A meta-analysis of this same literature is performed in which the total quantitative data set, comprising 73 studies (or sub-studies) and 2191 subjects, is analyzed with respect to 26 performance factors. The meta-analytic results indicate a significant leftward bisection error in neurologically normal subjects, with an overall effect size of between -0.37 and -0.44 (depending on integration method), which is significantly modulated to varying degrees by a number of additional task or subject variables. For example, visual bisection tasks, midsagittal-pointing tasks and tactile bisection tasks all lead to leftward errors, while kinesthetic tasks result in rightward errors. Tachistoscopic forced-choice testing methods reveal much greater estimates of bisection error (effect size = -1.32) than do manual method-of-adjustment procedures (effect size= -0.40). Subject age significantly modulates line bisection performance such that older subjects err significantly rightward compared to younger subjects, and to veridical line midpoint. Male subjects make slightly larger leftward errors than do female subjects. Handedness has a small effect on bisection errors, with dextrals erring slightly further to the left than sinistral subjects. The hand used to perform manual bisection tasks modulated performance, where use of the left hand lead to greater leftward errors than those obtained using the right hand. One of the most significant factors modulating bisection error is the direction in which subjects initiate motor scanning (with either eye or hand), where a left-to-right scan pattern leads to large leftward errors while a right-to-left scan pattern leads to rightward errors.
Unilateral spatial neglect is a common neurological syndrome following predominantly right hemisphere injuries and is characterized by both spatial and non-spatial deficits. Core spatial deficits involve mechanisms for saliency coding, spatial attention, and short-term memory and occur in conjunction with nonspatial deficits that involve reorienting, target detection, and arousal/vigilance. We argue that neglect is better explained by the dysfunction of distributed cortical networks for the control of attention than by structural damage of specific brain regions. Ventral lesions in right parietal, temporal, and frontal cortex that cause neglect directly impair nonspatial functions partly mediated by a ventral frontoparietal attention network. Structural damage in ventral cortex also induces physiological abnormalities of task-evoked activity and functional connectivity in a dorsal frontoparietal network that controls spatial attention. The anatomy and right hemisphere dominance of neglect follow from the anatomy and laterality of the ventral regions that interact with the dorsal attention network.
Anxiety and depression are often associated with attention control deficits, but few studies have explored whether neuroticism can account for these links. In the present study, undergraduate students (n=146) completed self-report measures of neuroticism, worry, anxious arousal, and anhedonic depression and also completed a visual attention task in which they were asked to identify a red target letter embedded within a rapid sequence of items. Neuroticism was associated with detection of the target when it was preceded by a distracter with which it shared a feature in common (a green letter). Specifically, these distracters produced longer attentional blinks in individuals with elevated levels of neuroticism. In contrast, target detection was not significantly associated with worry, anxious arousal, or anhedonic depression. We discuss the implications of this link between neuroticism and attention for cognitive models of emotional distress and disorders.
Latent inhibition (LI), poor evidence of learning following preexposure to a task-irrelevant stimulus, reflects the ability to ignore inconsequential events. Stroop interference represents a failure to inhibit processing of a task-irrelevant word when it is incongruent with the required naming of the word's print color. The apparent commonality between the two effects is in contradiction to the literature, which indicates that LI is affected by schizotypy and schizophrenia, and perhaps gender, while Stroop interference generated by the trial-to-trial procedure is unaltered by those variables. In the present experiment, low schizotypal healthy males, but not females, exhibited LI. The same groups did not differ on Stroop interference. The results are discussed in terms of different processing requirements for task-irrelevant stimuli that are an integral part of the task-relevant target stimulus (as in Stroop) or separated from it in space (as in LI).
Previous studies examining perceptual biases in art have revealed that paintings tend to be lit from above and to the left. Abstract images provide a way of testing for the left-light bias while controlling for cues such as posing biases, ground line, shadows, and reflections. A total of 42 participants completed a task that required moving a "virtual flashlight" across the surface of abstract images presented on a computer screen: 20 images (presented both right-side-up and upside down) were used in the study. The participant's only instruction was to "light the painting in a way that is most aesthetically pleasing to you". As predicted, participants on average focused the "virtual flashlight" in the top left quadrant. This study reveals that lateral lighting biases in artwork are not dependent on perception of local light source or interactions with discrete, concrete visual representations in the artwork.
Cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience have recently developed a keen interest in the phenomenon of mind-wandering. People mind-wander frequently, and mind-wandering is associated with decreased cognitive performance. But why do people mind-wander so much? Previous investigations have focused on cognitive abilities like working memory capacity and attention control. But an individual's tendency to worry, feel anxious, and entertain personal concerns also influences mind-wandering (Klinger, 1999; 2009). The Control Failure X Concerns model of mind-wandering (McVay & Kane, 2010) argues that individual differences in the propensity to mind-wander are jointly determined by cognitive abilities and by the presence of personally salient concerns that intrude on task focus. In order to test this model, we investigated individual differences in mind-wandering, executive attention, and personality with a focus on neuroticism. The results showed that neurotic individuals tended to report more mind-wandering during cognitive tasks, lower working memory capacity, and poorer attention control. Thus the trait of neuroticism adds an additional source of variance in the tendency to mind-wander, which offers support for the Control Failure X Concerns model. The results help bridge the fields of clinical psychology, cognitive psychology, affective neuroscience, and cognitive neuroscience as a means of developing a more complete understanding of the complex relationship between cognition, personality, and emotion.
Gray (1981, 1982) holds that 2 general motivational systems underlie behavior and affect: a behavioral inhibition system (BIS) and a behavioral activation system (BAS). Self-report scales to assess dispositional BIS and BAS sensitivities were created. Scale development (Study 1) and convergent and discriminant validity in the form of correlations with alternative measures are reported (Study 2). In Study 3, a situation in which Ss anticipated a punishment was created. Controlling for initial nervousness, Ss high in BIS sensitivity (assessed earlier) were more nervous than those low. In Study 4, a situation in which Ss anticipated a reward was created. Controlling for initial happiness, Ss high in BAS sensitivity (Reward Responsiveness and Drive scales) were happier than those low. In each case the new scales predicted better than an alternative measure. Discussion is focused on conceptual implications.
This article reviews several approaches to assessing schizotypal traits using a wide variety of self-report and interview measures. It makes a distinction between clinical approaches largely based on syndrome and symptom definitions, and psychometric approaches to measuring personality traits. The review presents a brief description of the content and psychometric properties of both sets of measures; these cover both the broad rubric of schizotypy often, but not exclusively based on DSM conceptions, as well as measures with a more specific focus. Measurement of schizotypy has taken place within clinical and nonclinical research utilizing a range of designs and methodologies. Several of these are elucidated with respect to the assessment choices open to researchers, and the implications of the measures chosen. These paradigms include the case-control study, "high risk"/"ultra-high risk" groups, a variety of nonclinical groups and other groups of interest, large scale epidemiology and "in vivo" designs. Evidence from a wide variety of designs continues to provide evidence of the validity of both clinical and personality approaches to schizotypal assessment.
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The present study demonstrates that levels of extraversion and neuroticism can predict attentional performance during a change detection task. After completing a change detection task built on the flicker paradigm, participants were assessed for personality traits using the EPQ-R. Multiple regression analyses revealed that higher levels of extraversion predict increased change detection accuracies, while higher levels of neuroticism predict decreased change detection accuracies. In addition, neurotic individuals exhibited decreased sensitivity A' and increased fixation dwell times. Hierarchical regression analyses further revealed that eye movement measures mediate the relationship between neuroticism and change detection accuracies. Based on the current results, we propose that neuroticism is associated with decreased attentional control over the visual field, presumably due to decreased attentional disengagement. Extraversion can predict increased attentional performance, but the effect is smaller than the relationship between neuroticism and attention.
Neuroaesthetics is an emerging discipline within cognitive neuroscience that is concerned with understanding the biological bases of aesthetic experiences. These experiences involve appraisals of natural objects, artifacts, and environments. Because aesthetic encounters are common in everyday life, exploration of their biological bases can deepen our understanding of human behavior in important domains such as mate selection, consumer behavior, communication, and art. We review recent evidence showing that aesthetic experiences emerge from the interaction between sensory-motor, emotion-valuation, and meaning-knowledge neural systems. Neuroaesthetics draws from and informs traditional areas of cognitive neuroscience including perception, emotion, semantics, attention, and decision-making. The discipline is at a historical inflection point and is poised to enter the mainstream of scientific inquiry.
Healthy individuals with high as compared to low levels of schizotypal personality traits make more first saccades to the left side of faces, suggesting increased right hemisphere (RH) dominance for face processing. Patients with schizophrenia, however, show attenuated or reversed RH dominance for face processing. It is unclear whether the increased RH dominance found in high schizotypes is specific to face processing or whether it is also observable for other stimuli matched in terms of low-level visual properties. We measured gaze to faces and symmetrical fractal patterns and found higher Magical Ideation (MI) is associated with an increased left-side bias for initial saccade landing points and dwell times when free-viewing faces. These laterality biases were unaffected by facial emotion. Schizotypy scores were not related to laterality biases when viewing fractals. Our results provide further evidence that high schizotypy is associated with an increase in RH dominance for face processing.
Abstract Saccadic and smooth pursuit eye movements were recorded in three groups of subjects: a schizophrenic group, a non-schizophrenic psychotic patient comparison group, and a normal control group. Schizophrenic subjects demonstrated a greater decrease in saccadic response time than did normal controls in a gap task (when the fixation point was turned off 150 msec before the target appeared). The psychiatric comparison subjects did not differ from normal controls. Further, only schizophrenic subjects demonstrated a relation between smooth pursuit and saccadic eye movement performance, such that subjects with impaired smooth pursuit showed a larger decrease in saccadic response time in the gap task. The relation between performance on the gap task and quality of smooth pursuit and its relevance for a prefrontal deficit hypothesis of schizophrenia are discussed.
Selecting values for fixation filters is a difficult task as not only the specifics of the selected filter algorithm has to be taken into account, but also what it is going to be used for and by whom. In this paper the selection and testing process of values for an I-VT fixation filter algorithm implementation is described.
Two studies examined the relationship between a multi-dimensional measure of schizotypy (the minor manifestations of schizophrenic symptoms in non-psychiatric individuals) and preference for paintings and line drawings. Study 1 correlated scores on the four schizotypy scales with seven categories of paintings and the “Origence” measure of figural complexity derived from the Barron-Welsh Art Scale. The strongest correlation was between the schizotypy measure of Impulsive Nonconformity and preference for “violent” paintings. Study 2 divided “violent,” “erotic,” and “religious” categories into “abstract” and “realistic,” and employed measures of sensation seeking and openness to experience as well as the schizotypy scales. Openness was associated with liking for abstract over realistic paintings, and when Openness was kept constant in regression analyses, preference for violent, abstract paintings was positively associated with schizotypy measures of Unusual Experiences and Impulsive Nonconformity and negatively associated with Introvertive Anhedonia. Preference for erotic, abstract paintings was also associated negatively with Introvertive Anhedonia. The results are explained within a theoretical framework including Schubert's (1996) view that aesthetic context leads to a dissociation of negatively emotional information.
This investigation addresses the hypothesis that negative affect is associated with decreased ability to shift attention to a new focus. Thirty-nine participants completed a covert attentional orienting task and then viewed a distressing film clip. Mood was measured by self-report at the beginning and end of the session. Correlations between attentional orienting performance and self-reported mood indicated that participants with greater response time costs on invalidly cued trials reported more negative affect in response to the film. These results support the hypothesis that negative affect is associated with a slowness to disengage attention.
Knowing whether an individual prefers the left or right hand for skilled activities is important to researchers in experimental psychology and neuroscience. The current study reports on a new measure of skilled hand preference derived from the Provins and Cunliffe (1972) handedness inventory. Undergraduates (n = 3324) indicated their lateral preference for their hands, feet, eyes and ears. A measure of hand performance and familial handedness was also obtained. Factor analysis identified ten items that loaded on skilled hand preference and these were included in the new FLANDERS questionnaire. Cluster analysis of the new questionnaire revealed three distinct groups (left-, mixed- & right-handed). The new test showed a strong association with other measures of lateral preference and hand performance. Scores on the test were also related to the sex of the respondent and the hand preference of their parents. The FLANDERS provides a measure of skilled hand preference that is easy to administer and understand and should be useful for experimenters wanting to screen for hand preference.
Functional specialization in the lower and upper visual fields in humans is analyzed in relation to the origins of the primate visual system. Processing differences between the vertical hemifields are related to the distinction between near (peripersonal) and far (extrapersonal) space, which are biased toward the lower and upper visual fields, respectively. Nonlinear/global processing is required in the lower visual field in order to perceive the optically degraded and diplopic images in near vision, whereas objects in far vision are searched for and recognized primarily using linear/local perceptual mechanisms.
A comparative method of studying the biological bases of personality compares human trait dimensions with likely animal models in terms of genetic determination and common biological correlates. The approach is applied to the trait of sensation seeking, which is defined on the human level by a questionnaire, reports of experience, and observations of behavior, and on the animal level by general activity, behavior in novel situations, and certain types of naturalistic behavior in animal colonies. Moderately high genetic determination has been found for human sensation seeking, and marked strain differences in rodents have been found in open-field behavior that may be related to basic differences in brain neurochemistry. Agonistic and sociable behaviors in both animals and humans and the trait measure of sensation seeking in humans have been related to certain common biological correlates such as gonadal hormones, monoamine oxidase (MAO), and augmenting of the cortical evoked potential.The monoamine systems in the rodent brain are involved in general activity, exploratory behavior, emotionality, socialization, dominance, sexual and consummately behaviors, and intracranial self-stimulation. Preliminary studies have related norepinephrine and enzymes involved in its production and degradation to human sensation seeking. A model is suggested that relates mood, behavioral activity, sociability, and clinical states to activity of the central catecholamine neurotransmitters and to neuroregulators and other transmitters that act in opposite ways on behavior or stabilize activity in the arousal systems. Stimulation and behavioral activity act on the catecholamine systems in a brain–behavior feedback loop. At optimal levels of catecholamine systems activity (CSA) mood is positive and activity and sociability are adaptive. At very low or very high levels of CSA mood is dysphoric, activity is restricted or stereotyped, and the organism is unsocial or aggressively antisocial. Novelty, in the absence of threat, may be rewarding through activation of noradrenergic neurons.
Infant eye tracking is becoming increasingly popular for its presumed precision relative to traditional looking time paradigms and potential to yield new insights into developmental processes. However, there is strong reason to suspect that the temporal and spatial resolution of popular eye tracking systems is not entirely accurate, potentially compromising any data from an infant eye tracking experiment. Moreover, “best practices” for infant eye tracking, such as knowing which software tool enhances experimental flexibility, remain to be determined. The present investigation was designed to evaluate the temporal and spatial accuracy of data from the Tobii T60XL eye tracker through the use of visual latency and spatial accuracy tasks involving adults and infants. Systematic delays and drifts were revealed in oculomotor response times, and the system’s spatial accuracy was observed to deviate somewhat in excess of the manufacturer’s estimates; the experimental flexibility of the system appears dependent on the chosen software.
This study was concerned with the question of which personality variables are most predictive of judgements of particular types of painting. One hundred and twenty-one participants rated 24 slides of abstract, pop art, and representational paintings. They then completed two questionnaires which measured sensation seeking (SS) and the ‘Big Five’ personality dimensions. Thrill and Adventure Seeking was positively correlated with a liking of representational art while Disinhibition was associated with positive ratings of abstract art and pop art. Neuroticism was positively correlated with positive ratings of abstract and pop art, while conscientiousness was linked to liking of representational art. Openness to Experience was linked to positive ratings of all three art types. Agreeableness was negatively linked to liking of pop art. It was also found that art education and frequency of visits to art galleries were linked to positive ratings of abstract paintings. Regressional analyses showed about a fifth of the variance could be accounted for by personality and demographic variables. Personality variables were most strongly linked to positive judgements of representational art and least related to ratings of pop art. Overall the sensation seeking variables accounted for more of the variance than the big five dimensions. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Visual exploration is driven by two main factors - the stimuli in our environment, and our own individual interests and intentions. Research investigating these two aspects of attentional guidance has focused almost exclusively on factors common across individuals. The present study took a different tack, and examined the role played by individual differences in personality. Our findings reveal that trait curiosity is a robust and reliable predictor of an individual's eye movement behavior in scene-viewing. These findings demonstrate that who a person is relates to how they move their eyes.
A leftward spatial bias has been observed with visuospatial attention tasks, including line bisection and the greyscales task. Upper and lower visual field differences have been observed on various tasks, with a lower visual field advantage occurring for motion, global processing and coordinate spatial judgments. Upper visual field advantages occur for visual search, local processing and categorical judgments. In perceptual asymmetries research, upper and lower visual field differences have not typically been scored separately, as most presentations have been central. Mixed results have made it difficult to determine whether lateral biases are stronger in the upper or the lower visual field. As length of presentation time differed in prior studies, this factor was examined to determine whether it would lead differential biases to emerge in each visual field. The greyscales task was used to investigate the interaction of visual field and presentation time within subjects (N=43). Eye tracking was used during the task and supported the hypothesis of a stronger left bias in the lower visual field. Presentation time and visual field interacted to influence performance. Prolonged presentation led to a stronger leftward bias in the lower visual field whereas the leftward bias was stronger in the upper visual field during brief presentation. Results showed a relation between the lower and left visual fields and the upper and right visual fields, which has not previously been shown in perceptual asymmetries. Further, it is suggested that functional differences between the visual streams could underlie the visual field differences in perceptual asymmetries.
