scholarly journals Contour integration, attentional cuing, and conscious awareness: An investigation on the processing of collinear and orthogonal contours

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (16) ◽  
pp. 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ya Li ◽  
Sheng Li
PeerJ ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. e7550 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaiwen Cheng ◽  
Keyu Yang ◽  
Long Qin ◽  
Yixuan Zhuo ◽  
Hongmei Yan

Previous research has documented that contour detection and integration may either be affected by local features such as the distances between elements or by high-level cognitive factors such as attention in our visual system. Less is known about how low and high level factors interact to influence contour integration. In this paper, we investigated how attention modulates contour integration through saliency (different element spacing) and topological propert ies (circle or S-shaped) when the state of conscious awareness is manipulated. A modified inattentional blindness (IB) combined with the Posner cuing paradigm was adopted in our three-phased experiment (unconscious-training-conscious). Attention was manipulated with high or low perceptual load for a foveal go/no-go task. Cuing effects were utilized to assess the covert processing of contours prior to a peripheral orientation discrimination task. We found that (1) salient circles and S-contours induced different cuing effects under low perceptual load but not with high load; (2) no consistent pattern of cuing effects was found for non-salient contours in all the conditions; (3) a positive cuing effect was observed for salient circles either consciously or unconsciously while a negative cuing effect occurred for salient S-contours only consciously. These results suggest that conscious awareness plays a pivotal role in coordinating a closure effect with the level of perceptual load. Only salient circles can be successfully integrated in an unconscious state under low perceptual load although both salient circles and S-contours can be done consciously. Our findings support a bi-directional mechanism that low-level sensory features interact with high-level cognitive factors in contour integration.


1991 ◽  
Vol 36 (7) ◽  
pp. 623-624
Author(s):  
Mardi J. Horowitz
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Charles L. Epstein ◽  
Rafe Mazzeo

This chapter describes the construction of a resolvent operator using the Laplace transform of a parametrix for the heat kernel and a perturbative argument. In the equation (μ‎-L) R(μ‎) f = f, R(μ‎) is a right inverse for (μ‎-L). In Hölder spaces, these are the natural elliptic estimates for generalized Kimura diffusions. The chapter first constructs the resolvent kernel using an induction over the maximal codimension of bP, and proves various estimates on it, along with corresponding estimates for the solution operator for the homogeneous Cauchy problem. It then considers holomorphic semi-groups and uses contour integration to construct the solution to the heat equation, concluding with a discussion of Kimura diffusions where all coefficients have the same leading homogeneity.


Author(s):  
Shaun Gallagher

This chapter examines the concept of free will as it is discussed in philosophy and neuroscience. It reviews reflective and perceptual theories of agency and argues against neuro-centric conclusions about the illusory nature of free will. Experiments conducted by Benjamin Libet suggest that neural activations prior to conscious awareness predict specific actions. This has been taken as evidence that challenges the traditional notion of free will. Libet’s experiments, arguably, are about motor control processes on an elementary timescale and say nothing about freely willed intentional actions embedded in personal and social contexts that involve longer-term, narrative timescales. One implication of this interpretation is that enactivism is not a form of simple behaviorism. Agency is not a thing reducible to elementary neuronal processes; nor is it an idea or a pure consciousness. It rather involves a structure of complex relations.


Author(s):  
Drew Leder

This chapter undertakes a phenomenology of inner-body experience, starting with a focus on visceral interoception. While highly personal, such experience also reveals a level of the lived body that is pre-personal, beyond our understanding and control. In contrast to exteroception, elements of the visceral field can be inaccessible, or surface only indistinctly and intermittently to conscious awareness. Nonetheless, interoception is more than just a series of such sensations. This chapter argues for the “exterior interior”—that is, we interpret inner body experiences through models drawn from the outer world, and interoception itself is bound up with emotion, purpose, and projects. In the West, we tend to valorize the interiority of rational thought; by contrast, experience of the inner body is a kind of “inferior interior,” often overlooked or overridden, yet inside insights—gained from attending to messages from the inner body—may preserve our health and wellbeing.


10.1167/5.2.3 ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony M. Norcia ◽  
Vanitha Sampath ◽  
Hou Chuan ◽  
Mark W. Pettet

1992 ◽  
Vol 76 (Appendix) ◽  
pp. 48-49
Author(s):  
Takasi Higo ◽  
Yukitaka Shinoda ◽  
Yoshio Sasaki
Keyword(s):  

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