Marleen Stelter

Beyond colour perception: Auditory–visual synaesthesia induces experiences of geometric objects in specific locations

Our brain constantly integrates signals across different senses. Auditory-visual synaesthesia is an unusual form of cross-modal integration in which sounds evoke involuntary visual experiences. Previous research primarily focuses on synaesthetic colour, but little is known about non-colour synaesthetic visual features. Here we studied a group of synaesthetes for whom sounds elicit consistent visual experiences of coloured geometric objects located at specific spatial location. Changes in auditory pitch alter the brightness, size, and spatial height of synaesthetic experiences in a systematic manner resembling the cross-modal correspondences of non-synaesthetes, implying synaesthesia may recruit cognitive/neural mechanisms for normal cross-modal processes. To objectively assess the impact of synaesthetic objects on behaviour, we devised a multi-feature cross-modal synaesthetic congruency paradigm and asked participants to perform speeded colour or shape discrimination. We found irrelevant sounds influenced performance, as quantified by congruency effects, demonstrating that synaesthetes were not able to suppress their synaesthetic experiences even when these were irrelevant for the task. Furthermore, we found some evidence for task-specific effects consistent with feature-based attention acting on the constituent features of synaesthetic objects: synaesthetic colours appeared to have a stronger impact on performance than synaesthetic shapes when synaesthetes attended to colour, and vice versa when they attended to shape. We provide the first objective evidence that visual synaesthetic experience can involve multiple features forming object-like percepts and suggest that each feature can be selected by attention despite it being internally generated. These findings suggest theories of the brain mechanisms of synaesthesia need to incorporate a broader neural network underpinning multiple visual features, perceptual knowledge, and feature integration, rather than solely focussing on colour-sensitive areas.

Recognizing Emily and Latisha: Inconsistent Effects of Name Stereotypicality on the Other-Race Effect

A person’s name may activate social category information, which has been shown to lead to stereotyping and discrimination in various contexts. However, no previous research has investigated the influence of names on more basic processes of person perception. We present a set of seven experimental studies examining the influence of names on face recognition, namely, on the other-race effect (i.e., the relative difficulty to recognize outgroup faces). White-American participants completed online recognition tasks with White ingroup faces and Black or Chinese outgroup faces. Outgroup faces were presented with typical outgroup names versus typical White names; White faces were presented with typical White names versus infrequent names. We expected better recognition of outgroup faces with typical White names compared to outgroup faces with typical outgroup names. Employing an internal meta-analysis, we observe overall evidence of a small but significant effect (dz = 0.11). However, the pattern of results across the seven studies is inconsistent. Given that particularly the high-powered pre-registered studies did not show an effect, we suggest that the effect should be interpreted with caution. We discuss that a small effect may still have important implications for real life as well as for theories of the ORE, emphasizing the importance of future research regarding the influence of name typicality on inter-group face perception.

Investigating the other-race effect in working memory

People have difficulties in remembering other-race faces; this so-called other-race effect (ORE) has been frequently observed in long-term recognition memory (LTM). Several theories argue that the ORE in LTM is caused by differences in earlier processing stages, such as encoding of ingroup and outgroup faces. We test this hypothesis by exploring whether the ORE can already be observed in visual working memory (VWM)-an intermediate system located between encoding processes and LTM storage. In four independent experiments, we observed decreased performance for outgroup faces compared to ingroup faces using three different VWM tasks: an adaptive N-back task, a self-ordered pointing task, and a change detection task. Also, we found that the number of items stored in VWM is smaller for outgroup faces than for ingroup faces. Further, we explored whether performance differences in the change detection task are related to the classic ORE in recognition memory. Our results provide further evidence that the ORE originates during earlier stages of cognitive processing. We discuss that (how) future ORE research may benefit from considering theories and evidence from the VWM literature.

When “We” or “They” exclude others: attributing and evaluating ostracism observed in in-groups and out-groups

ABSTRACTOstracism is a common social occurrence with severe psychological and behavioral consequences. Whereas many studies have focused on the perspective of ostracized individuals, our research e...

Beyond colour perception : auditory synaesthesia elicits visual experience of colour, shape, and spatial location

The N400 is a human neuroelectric response to semantic incongruity in on-line sentence processing, and implausibility in context has been identified as one of the factors that influence the size of the N400. In this paper we investigate whether predictors derived from Latent Semantic Analysis, language models, and Roark’s parser are significant in modeling of the N400m (the neuromagnetic version of the N400). We also investigate significance of a novel pairwise-priming language model based on the IBM Model 1 translation model. Our experiments show that all the predictors are significant. Moreover, we show that predictors based on the 4-gram language model and the pairwise-priming language model are highly correlated with the manual annotation of contextual plausibility, suggesting that these predictors are capable of playing the same role as the manual annotations in prediction of the N400m response. We also show that the proposed predictors can be grouped into two clusters of significant predictors, suggesting that each cluster is capturing a different characteristic of the N400m response.s From Peer-Reviewed Presentations at the Australasian Cognitive Neurosciences Conference (21st meeting of the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology), December 9-12, 2012, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia Keynote Presentations The Prospective Brain: Using the Past to Imagine the Future Donna Rose Addis Department of Psychology, The University of Auckland Recently, traditional theories of episodic memory have been extended to consider the role of memory in future thinking. In particular, patient and neuroimaging research suggests that episodic memory and associated neural structures such as the hippocampus may play a critical role in future simulation. I will describe a number of studies that examine how flexible and constructive memory processes, supported by the hippocampus and associated networks, allow us to construct detailed simulations that serve to guide and enhance our future behaviours. Limits of Subliminal Processing and Signatures of Conscious Access Stanislas Dehaene INSERM-CEA Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, Collège de France The nature of conscious processing can be investigated by presenting subjects with stimuli below, at, or above the threshold for conscious reportability, and evaluating how their cognitive and cerebral processing differs. I will present new experiments that, on the one hand, extend the known limits of subliminal processing and, on the other hand, reveal specific processes that can only be deployed consciously. The results suggest that, non-consciously, evidence can be accrued in parallel and from multiple target stimuli, thus biasing even complex cognitive processes (e.g. addition or averaging). However, conscious processing is characterised by the flexible deployment of strategic top-down processes. Neural signatures of conscious processing are characterised by long-lasting and long-distance interactions in the beta and alpha frequency bands, compatible with the theory of a global neuronal workspace for conscious processing. Temporal Processing in Neurodevelopmental Disorders Revisited Joel B. Talcott School of Life and Health Sciences, Aston University Many neurodevelopmental disorders are characterised by a constellation of symptoms that extend well beyond the core cognitive deficit and which overlap highly with diagnostic features associated with presumed independent disorder phenotypes. One such instance of symptom overlap is a deficit in the perception and processing of those temporal dimensions of stimuli that occur on a timescale of milliseconds. Deficits of this kind are frequently reported in neurodevelopmental disorders. However, the effect-size correlations between measures of this construct and the core cognitive and behavioural symptoms of the disorder are rarely as large as those demonstrated in comparisons between deficit and non-deficit groups. This suggests that stimulus timing, a generic functional property of the nervous system, may help to explain the high diagnostic comorbidity of some of these neurodevelopmental disorders, though perhaps less so their unique symptom sets. Using developmental dyslexia and co-morbid disorders as a model, this presentation will evaluate some of central methodological and theoretical issues for current research and for future investigations of temporal processing deficits as candidate endophenotypes of developmental disorder. Neural Oscillations in Schizophrenia and during Brain Development: Perspectives From Magnetoencephalography Peter J. Uhlhaas Department of Neurophysiology, Max-Planck Institute for Brain