Search results for "Perceptual Masking"
showing 10 items of 39 documents
Masked identity priming reflects an encoding advantage in developing readers.
2019
Abstract The masked priming technique is widely used to explore the early moments of letter and word identification. Although this technique is increasingly used in experiments with young readers, the mechanism in play during masked priming with early readers has not yet been fully explored. We investigated the masked priming effects from a modeling perspective; we instantiated competing theories as data models (using Bayes factors) and as a computational model (diffusion model). We carried out a masked priming experiment using identity primes with second- and fourth-grade participants, and we analyzed the data through an evidence accumulation model lens. The priming effect manifests as a s…
The association of noise sensitivity with music listening, training, and aptitude
2015
After intensive, long-term musical training, the auditory system of a musician is specifically tuned to perceive musical sounds. We wished to find out whether a musician's auditory system also develops increased sensitivity to any sound of everyday life, experiencing them as noise. For this purpose, an online survey, including questionnaires on noise sensitivity, musical background, and listening tests for assessing musical aptitude, was administered to 197 participants in Finland and Italy. Subjective noise sensitivity (assessed with the Weinstein's Noise Sensitivity Scale) was analyzed for associations with musicianship, musical aptitude, weekly time spent listening to music, and the impo…
The role of letter features in visual-word recognition: Evidence from a delayed segment technique.
2016
Available online 9 June 2016 Do all visual features in aword's constituent letters have the same importance during lexical access? Herewe examined whether some components of a word's letters (midsegments, junctions, terminals) are more important than others. To that end,we conducted two lexical decision experiments using a delayed segment techniquewith lowercase stimuli. In this technique a partial previewappears for 50ms and is immediately followed by the target item. In Experiment 1, the partial preview was composed of terminals+junctions,midsegments+junctions, or midsegments + terminals — a whole preview condition was used as a control. Results only revealed an advantage of the whole pre…
The decision process in forward-masked intensity discrimination: evidence from molecular analyses.
2009
In a two-interval forced-choice intensity discrimination task presenting a fixed increment, the level of the forward masker in interval 1 and interval 2 was sampled independently from the same normal distribution on each trial. Mean and standard deviation of the distribution were varied. Correlational analyses of the trial-by-trial data revealed different decision strategies depending on the relation between mean masker level and standard level. If the two levels were identical, listeners tended to select the interval containing the higher-level masker, behaving like an energy detector at the output of a temporal window of integration. For mean masker level higher than the standard level, m…
Masked Translation Priming Effects With Highly Proficient Simultaneous Bilinguals
2010
One essential issue for models of bilingual memory organization is to what degree the representation from one of the languages is shared with the other language. In this study, we examine whether there is a symmetrical translation priming effect with highly proficient, simultaneous bilinguals. We conducted a masked priming lexical decision experiment with cognate and noncognate translation equivalents. Results showed a significant masked translation priming effect for both cognates and noncognates, with a greater priming effect for cognates. Furthermore, the magnitude of the translation priming was similar in the two directions. Thus, highly fluent bilinguals do develop symmetrical between…
The effect of body posture on long range time-to-contact estimation
2011
On Earth, gravity accelerates freely moving objects downward, whereas upward-moving objects are being decelerated. Do humans take internalised knowledge of gravity into account when estimating time-to-contact (TTC, the time remaining before the moving object reaches the observer)? To answer this question, we created a motion-prediction task in which participants saw the initial part of an object's trajectory moving on a collision course prior to an occlusion. Observers had to judge when the object would make contact with them. The visual scene was presented with a head-mounted display. Participants lay either supine (looking up) or prone (looking down), suggestive of the ball either rising…
Temporal weights in loudness: Investigation of the effects of background noise and sound level
2019
Previous research has consistently shown that for sounds varying in intensity over time, the beginning of the sound is of higher importance for the perception of loudness than later parts (primacy effect). However, in all previous studies, the target sounds were presented in quiet, and at a fixed average sound level. In the present study, temporal loudness weights for a time-varying narrowband noise were investigated in the presence of a continuous bandpass-filtered background noise and the average sound levels of the target stimuli were varied across a range of 60 dB. Pronounced primacy effects were observed in all conditions and there were no significant differences between the temporal w…
Loudness changes induced by a proximal sound: loudness enhancement, loudness recalibration, or both?
2007
The effect of a forward masker on the loudness of a target tone in close temporal proximity was investigated. Loudness matches between a target and a comparison tone at the same frequency were obtained for a wide range of target and masker levels. Contrary to the hypothesis by Scharf, Buus, and Nieder [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 112, 807-810 (2002)], these matches could not be explained by an effect of the masker on the comparison loudness, which was measured by loudness matches between the comparison and a fourth tone separated in frequency from the comparison and the masker. The data thus demonstrate that a forward masker has an effect on the loudness of a proximal target. The results are compat…
On the role of the upper part of words in lexical access: evidence with masked priming.
2012
More than 100 years ago, Huey (1908) indicated that the upper part of words was more relevant for perception than the lower part. Here we examined whether mutilated words, in their upper/lower portions (e.g., , , , ), can automatically access their word units in the mental lexicon. To that end, we conducted four masked repetition priming experiments with the lexical decision task. Results showed that mutilated primes produced a sizeable masked repetition priming effect. Furthermore, the magnitude of the masked repetition priming effect was greater when the upper part of the primes was preserved than when the lower portion was preserved –this was the case not only when the mutilated words we…
There is no clam with coats in the calm coast: delimiting the transposed-letter priming effect.
2009
In this article, we explore the transposed-letter priming effect (e.g., jugde–JUDGE vs. jupte–JUDGE), a phenomenon that taps into some key issues on how the brain encodes letter positions and has favoured the creation of new input coding schemes. However, almost all the empirical evidence from transposed-letter priming experiments comes from nonword primes (e.g., jugde–JUDGE). Indeed, previous evidence when using word–word pairs (e.g., causal–CASUAL) is not conclusive. Here, we conducted five masked priming lexical decision experiments that examined the relationship between pairs of real words that differed only in the transposition of two of their letters (e.g., CASUAL vs. CAUSAL). Result…