Mary L. Still

Repetition Blindness: An Emergent Property of Inter-Item Competition.

Repeating an item in a brief or rapid display usually produces faster or more accurate identification of the item (repetition priming), but sometimes produces the opposite effect (repetition blindness). We present a theory of short-term repetition effects, the competition hypothesis, which explains these paradoxical outcomes. The central tenet of the theory is that repetition produces a representation with a higher signal-to-noise ratio but also produces a disadvantage in the representations ability to compete with other items for access to awareness. A computational implementation of the competition hypothesis was developed to simulate standard findings in the RB literature and to generate novel predictions which were then tested in three experiments. Results from these experiments suggest that repetition effects emerge from competitive interactions between items and that these influences extend to adjacent, nonrepeated items in the display. The results also present challenges to existing theories of short-term repetition effects.

Designing Intuitive Interactions: Exploring Performance and Reflection Measures

Intuitive interactions are supported by users’ implicit and explicit learning experiences. But, determining user knowledge can be difficult. With many options available for eliciting that knowledge, we tested the effectiveness of two methods – performance and reflection. Users were presented with simple interactions that had varying levels of intuitiveness (affordance, convention, bias). They were asked to perform the interaction or to describe how the interaction should be designed. These methods of knowledge elicitation produced inconsistent results; sometimes they produced the same result (affordance-based interactions), sometimes the opposite (convention-based interactions). Furthermore, when both methods were used, results obtained from the second measure were often contaminated by completion of the first measure. Carryover effects were present regardless of which measure was completed first. These results indicate that the method used to elicit knowledge should be selected based on the type of interaction that is being investigated and multiple measures should be used with caution.

Eyes wide open: Pupil size as a proxy for inhibition in the masked-priming paradigm.

A core assumption underlying competitive-network models of word recognition is that in order for a word to be recognized, the representations of competing orthographically similar words must be inhibited. This inhibitory mechanism is revealed in the masked-priming lexical-decision task (LDT) when responses to orthographically similar word prime–target pairs are slower than orthographically different word prime–target pairs (i.e., inhibitory priming). In English, however, behavioral evidence for inhibitory priming has been mixed. In the present study, we utilized a physiological correlate of cognitive effort never before used in the masked-priming LDT, pupil size, to replicate and extend behavioral demonstrations of inhibitory effects (i.e., Nakayama, Sears, & Lupker, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 34, 1236–1260, 2008, Exp. 1). Previous research had suggested that pupil size is a reliable indicator of cognitive load, making it a promising index of lexical inhibition. Our pupillometric data replicated and extended previous behavioral findings, in that inhibition was obtained for orthographically similar word prime–target pairs. However, our response time data provided only a partial replication of Nakayama et al. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 34, 1236–1260, 2008. These results provide converging lines of evidence that inhibition operates in word recognition and that pupillometry is a useful addition to word recognition researchers’ toolbox.

Orthographic similarity: The case of “reversed anagrams”

How orthographically similar are words such as paws and swap, flow and wolf, or live and evil? According to the letter position coding schemes used in models of visual word recognition, these reversed anagrams are considered to be less similar than words that share letters in the same absolute or relative positions (such as home and hose or plan and lane). Therefore, reversed anagrams should not produce the standard orthographic similarity effects found using substitution neighbors (e.g., home, hose). Simulations using the spatial coding model (Davis, Psychological Review 117, 713-758, 2010), for example, predict an inhibitory masked-priming effect for substitution neighbor word pairs but a null effect for reversed anagrams. Nevertheless, we obtained significant inhibitory priming using both stimulus types (Experiment 1). We also demonstrated that robust repetition blindness can be obtained for reversed anagrams (Experiment 2). Reversed anagrams therefore provide a new test for models of visual word recognition and orthographic similarity.

Subliminal Techniques: Considerations and Recommendations for Analyzing Feasibility

ABSTRACT In an attempt to provide users with more information while maintaining a calm ubiquitous environment, researchers have investigated the possibility of presenting information “subliminally.” The authors explores the historical issues associated with examining perception without awareness with special emphasis on the difficulty associated with ensuring stimuli have been presented below the participant’s subjective threshold of awareness. It may be possible to circumvent this issue by taking a results-oriented approach. However, the advancement of subliminal techniques requires stronger experimental evidence that information is actually being presented below the subject threshold of awareness and gaining the desired effect on user performance. The authors offers three considerations that help designers weigh the costs and benefits of employing a subliminal technique. The authors also offers three recommendations that help designers present information below the subjective threshold of awareness and measure their users’ awareness of the information.

Would disfluency by any other name still be disfluent? Examining the disfluency effect with cursive handwriting

When exposed to words presented under perceptually disfluent conditions (e.g., words written in Haettenschweiler font), participants have difficulty initially recognizing the words. Those same words, though, may be better remembered later than words presented in standard type font. This counterintuitive finding is referred to as the disfluency effect. Evidence for this disfluency effect, however, has been mixed, suggesting possible moderating factors. Using a recognition memory task, level of disfluency was examined as a moderating factor across three experiments using a novel cursive manipulation that varied on degree of legibility (easy-to-read cursive vs. hard-to-read cursive). In addition, list type and retention interval between study and test were manipulated. Across all three experiments, cursive words engendered better memory than type-print words. This memory effect persisted across varied list designs (blocked vs. mixed) and a longer (24-hour) retention interval. A small-scale meta-analysis across the three experiments suggested that the cursive disfluency effect is moderated by level of disfluency: easy-to-read cursive words tended to be better remembered than hard-to-read cursive words. Taken together, these results challenge extant accounts of the disfluency effect. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Opinions or Algorithms: An Investigation of Trust in People Versus Automation in App Store Security

Mobile application app stores are a critical source of information about risk in an uncertain environment. App stores ought to assess and communicate the risk associated with an installation so that users are discouraged from installing risky or harmful apps in app stores. However, only a limited number of studies offer designers information about how to communicate risk effectively. We focused on the users trust associated with security information stemming from crowd-sourced evaluations compared to those generated from an automated system. Both of these sources of security information are pervasively used to indicate possible risk associated with an app. We investigated whether biases exist for a particular source of information given similar amount of security information being available. We found that participants preferred to install apps rated by automation to those rated by humans despite equivalence in stated risk. Further, we found evidence of a gender difference in trust in automation.

Semantic interference and associative facilitation from words presented in rapid serial visual presentation

Semantic interference in picture naming is readily obtained when categorically related distractor words are displayed with picture targets; however, this is not typically the case when both primes and targets are words. Researchers have argued that to obtain semantic interference for word primes and targets, the prime must be shown for a sufficient duration, prime processing must be made difficult, and participants must attend to the primes. In this article, we used a novel procedure for prime presentation to investigate semantic interference in word naming. Primes were presented as the last word of a rapid serial visual presentation stream, with the target following 600-1,200 msec later. Semantic interference was observed for categorically related targets, whereas facilitation was found for associatively related targets.