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Stimulus–Response Congruency Effects Depend On Quality Of Perceptual Evidence: A Diffusion Model Account, Blaine Tomkins

Psychology Faculty Publications

Individuals often need to make quick decisions based on incomplete or “noisy” information. This requires the coordination of attentional, perceptual, cognitive, and behavioral mechanisms. This poses a challenge for isolating the unique effects of each subprocess from behavioral data, which reflect the summation of all subprocesses combined. Sequential sampling models offer a more detailed examination of behavioral data, enabling us to separate decisional and non-decisional processes at play in a task. Participants were required to identify briefly presented shapes while perceptual (duration, size, location) and response features (location-congruent/-incongruent/-neutral) of the task were manipulated. The diffusion model (Ratcliff, 1978) was used …

Cosmetics Increase Skin Evenness: Evidence From Perceptual And Physical Measures, Carlota Batres, Aurélie Porcheron, Julie Latreille, Magalie Roche, Frédérique Morizot, Richard Russell

Psychology Faculty Publications

Background

Cosmetics are commonly attributed with increasing skin evenness, yet little published data characterizes the effect, either perceptually or physically. We therefore investigated whether makeup increases skin evenness using a perceptual measurement and two physical measurements of color and luminance homogeneity.

Materials and Methods

Twenty‐two French women (aged 29‐45 years) were photographed without cosmetics, with self‐applied cosmetics, and with professionally‐applied cosmetics. In Study 1, 143 participants rated skin evenness. In Study 2, each face was delineated to create regions of interest (ROI) in the cheek and forehead areas. Both ROIs were then analyzed for luminance homogeneity using an established measure …

A Behavioral Confirmation And Reduction Of The Natural Versus Synthetic Drug Bias, Brian P. Meier, Amanda J. Dillard, Eric S. Osorio, Courtney M. Lappas

Psychology Faculty Publications

Research reveals a biased preference for natural versus synthetic drugs; however, this research is based upon self-report and has not examined ways to reduce the bias. We examined these issues in five studies involving 1,125 participants. In a Pilot Study (N = 110), participants rated the term natural to be more positive than the term synthetic, which reveals a default natural-is-better belief. In Studies 1 (N = 109) and 2 (N = 100), after a supposed personality study, participants were offered a thank you “gift” of a natural or synthetic pain reliever. Approximately 86% (Study 1) and 93% (Study 2) …

Investigating Neural Sensorimotor Mechanisms Underlying Flight Expertise In Pilots: Preliminary Data From An Eeg Study, Mariateresa Sestito, Assaf Harel, Jeff Nador, John Flach

Psychology Faculty Publications

Over the last decade, the efforts toward unraveling the complex interplay between the brain, body, and environment have set a promising line of research that utilizes neuroscience to study human performance in natural work contexts such as aviation. Thus, a relatively new discipline called neuroergonomics is holding the promise of studying the neural mechanisms underlying human performance in pursuit of both theoretical and practical insights. In this work, we utilized a neuroergonomic approach by combining insights from ecological psychology and embodied cognition to study flight expertise. Specifically, we focused on the Mirror Neuron system as a key correlate for understanding …

Age-Related Differences In Vehicle Control And Eye Movement Patterns At Intersections: Older And Middle-Aged Drivers, Yusuke Yamani, William J. Horrey, Yulan Liang, Donald L. Fisher

Psychology Faculty Publications

Older drivers are at increased risk of intersection crashes. Previous work found that older drivers execute less frequent glances for detecting potential threats at intersections than middle-aged drivers. Yet, earlier work has also shown that an active training program doubled the frequency of these glances among older drivers, suggesting that these effects are not necessarily due to age-related functional declines. In light of findings, the current study sought to explore the ability of older drivers to coordinate their head and eye movements while simultaneously steering the vehicle as well as their glance behavior at intersections. In a driving simulator, older …

Investigating Intrinsic And Extrinsic Variables During Simulated Internet Search, Molly M. Liechty, Poornima Madhaven

Psychology Faculty Publications

Using an eye tracker we examined decision-making processes during an internet search task. Twenty experienced homebuyers and twenty-five undergraduates from Old Dominion University viewed homes on a simulated real estate website. Several of the homes included physical properties that had the potential to negatively impact individual perceptions. These negative externalities were either easy to change (Level 1) or impossible to change (Level 2). Eye movements were analyzed to examine the relationship between participants' "stated preferences"[verbalized preferences], "revealed preferences" [actual decisions[, and experience. Dwell times, fixation durations/counts, and saccade counts/amplitudes were analyzed. Results revealed that experienced homebuyers demonstrated a more refined …

Perception And Control Of Locomotion, John M. Flach

Psychology Faculty Publications

Over the past four years we have been studying problems of control and coordination with funds from AFOSR. Work over the first three years has been reviewed in the final report for the original AFOSR award (Flach, 1996). This report reviews work for the last year of the ASSERT grant. This work has focused on perception and control of low altitude flight. Experimental work from two synthetic task environments is described in this report. The first environment involved descent to low altitude. The key independent variables were speed of forward motion and optical texture (dot, grid, splay, depression). Results showed …

Perception/Action: An Holistic Approach, John M. Flach

Psychology Faculty Publications

A general systems approach is taken to studying the emergent properties of the human perception/action system. Two task domains, the control of locomotion and the recognition of objects, are used to study human performance. The locomotion task involves the control of altitude. Experiments are described that will manipulate the type of texture, the speed of forward motion, and altitude. A general hypothesis is presented that performance in the altitude control task is a function of the signal-to-noise ratio within the flow field--where signal refers to optical activity resulting from change of altitude and noise refers to optical activity resulting from …