Biomedical subjects

Michael J Wenger

Publications and source records attributed to Michael J Wenger.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

On the costs and benefits of faces and words: process characteristics of feature search in highly meaningful stimuli.

The authors present a comprehensive consideration of the process characteristics of visual search in contexts that vary in their meaningfulness. The authors frame hypotheses regarding process architecture, stopping rule, capacity, and channel independence, using analytic results and a rigorously specified dynamic system to characterize a set of alternative hypotheses that vary along all of these dimensions. Results of the tests of these hypotheses suggest that process architecture and the stopping rule do not distinguish the processing of meaningful and meaningless forms. The major distinction between configural and nonconfigural processing was with regard to processing capacity, potentially implicating channel interdependencies. All of these conclusions hold for both faces and words.

Face↗

PubMed2006

An investigation of perceptual and decisional influences on the perception of hierarchical forms.

When observers are asked to identify the global and local dimensions of hierarchical forms, their responses are typically faster when the dimensions are consistent rather than inconsistent. This effect, which we refer to as the dimensional consistency effect, has been demonstrated numerous times in paradigms requiring responses to a single dimension. However, most hypotheses regarding dimensional consistency effects address the simultaneous perception of both dimensions, and the manner in which the information about these dimensions may (or may not) 'interact'. Most explanations of the dimensional consistency effect attribute the effect to perceptual influences. The present study uses the constructs of general recognition theory (Ashby and Townsend, 1986 Psychological Review 93 154-179) to represent the source of the effect in terms of both perceptual and decisional influences. In addition, a complete identification response paradigm was used to collect data on the simultaneous perception of both global and local dimensions of hierarchical forms. Analyses of multidimensional signal detection measures and fits of parametric models of the perceptual space were used to guide inferences, with all sources of evidence pointing to both perceptual and decisional influences.

Decision Making↗

PubMed2006

Perceptual learning in contrast detection: presence and cost of shifts in response criteria.

Contemporary theoretical accounts of perceptual learning typically assume that observers are either unbiased or stably biased across the course of learning. However, standard methods for estimating thresholds, as they are typically used, do not allow this assumption to be tested. We present an approach that allows for this test specific to perceptual learning for contrast detection. We show that reliable decreases in detection thresholds and increases in hit rates are not uniformly accompanied by reliable increases in sensitivity (d'), but are regularly accompanied by reliable liberal shifts in response criteria (c). In addition, we estimate the extent to which sensitivity could have increased in the absence of these liberal shifts. The results pose a challenge to the assumption that perceptual learning has limited or no impact on response criteria.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

A strong test of the dual-mode hypothesis.

One account of facial cognition, the dual-mode hypothesis, maintains that there are two sources of information in a human face, featural and configural, and that these sources are processed simultaneously and independently of one another. According to the hypothesis, the processing and identification of upright faces relies primarily on configural information, and this information is disrupted to such an extent upon inversion as to result in a reliance on featural information for identifying inverted faces (e.g., Searcy & Bartlett, 1996). When considered in terms of the general characteristics of human information processing, the foundational assumptions of the dual-mode hypothesis are as follows: Facial information processing is accomplished by a parallel self-terminating architecture with unlimited capacity to supercapacity and a preservation of independence between the rates of processing of featural and configural information. Although a number of studies have provided evidence consistent with the dual-mode hypothesis, until now there have been no direct tests of the foundational assumptions of the hypothesis. The present study provides that direct test, providing strong support for three of the assumptions (parallel self-terminating processing with unlimited capacity to supercapacity) while contradicting a fourth (independence in rates).

Attention↗

PubMed2004

A theory of interactive parallel processing: new capacity measures and predictions for a response time inequality series.

The authors present a theory of stochastic interactive parallel processing with special emphasis on channel interactions and their relation to system capacity. The approach is based both on linear systems theory augmented with stochastic elements and decisional operators and on a metatheory of parallel channels' dependencies that incorporates standard independent and coactive parallel models as special cases. The metatheory is applied to OR and AND experimental paradigms, and the authors establish new theorems relating response time performance in these designs to earlier and novel issues. One notable outcome is the remarkable processing efficiency associated with linear parallel-channel systems that include mutually positive interactions. The results may offer insight into perceptual and cognitive configural-holistic processing systems.

Cognition↗

PubMed2004

Using hazard functions to assess changes in processing capacity in an attentional cuing paradigm.

Processing capacity--defined as the relative ability to perform mental work in a unit of time--is a critical construct in cognitive psychology and is central to theories of visual attention. The unambiguous use of the construct, experimentally and theoretically, has been hindered by both conceptual confusions and the use of measures that are at best only coarsely mapped to the construct. However, more than 25 years ago, J. T. Townsend and F. G. Ashby (1978) suggested that the hazard function on the response time (RT) distribution offered a number of conceptual advantages as a measure of capacity. The present study suggests that a set of statistical techniques, well-known outside the cognitive and perceptual literatures, offers the ability to perform hypothesis tests on RT-distribution hazard functions. These techniques are introduced, and their use is illustrated in application to data from the contingent attentional capture paradigm.

Attention↗

PubMed2004

The serial-parallel dilemma: a case study in a linkage of theory and method.

The question as to whether humans perceive, remember, or cognize psychological items simultaneously (i.e., in parallel) or sequentially (i.e., serially) has been of interest to philosophers and psychologists since at least the 19th century. The advent of the information-processing approach to cognition in the 1960s reopened the inquiry, initiating a flood of experiments and models in the literature. Surprisingly for so elemental an issue, persuasive experimental tests have, until recently, proven rather elusive. Several decades of theoretical, methodological, and experimental effort, propelled and shaped by a meta-theoretical perspective, are leading to powerful strategies for assessing this and related cognitive issues. The present article reviews the theoretical and empirical history of these inquiries and details situations in which decisive experimental tests are possible.

Cognition↗

PubMed2003

Preserving informational separability and violating decisional separability in facial perception and recognition.

The holistic encoding hypothesis (M. J. Farah, K. D. Wilson, M. Drain, & J. N. Tanaka, 1998) proposes that faces are encoded and used in perception and cognition as relatively undifferentiated wholes. A previous study (M. J. Wenger & E. M. Ingvalson, 2002) found very little support for the strong version of this hypothesis and instead found evidence that shifts in decisional criteria may be important. This study provides a replication and stronger test of those findings, demonstrating consistent violations of decisional separability and preservation of informational separability in both immediate perception and delayed recognition.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

A decisional component of holistic encoding.

It has been proposed (see, specifically, M. J. Farah, K. D. Wilson, M. Drain, & J. N. Tanaka, 1998) that human faces are used in cognition as undifferentiated wholes. General recognition theory (GRT; F. G. Ashby & J. T. Townsend, 1986) is used to represent hypotheses regarding the possible sources for the behavioral evidence supporting holistic representation. Specifically, it is suggested that holism can be understood in terms of violations of informational independence, informational separability, or decisional separability, as these constructs are defined in GRT. Stimuli were presented upright, inverted, and in an encoding task that emphasized the meaningful nature of the stimuli. Patterns of performance (recognition hit rates) were consistent with prior studies. However, there were only a handful of violations of informational separability. Instead, consistent violations of decisional separability suggested a decisional basis for holistic effects.

Analysis of Variance↗