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Description
When people look for things in their environment they use a target template - a mental representation of the object they are attempting to locate - to guide their attention around a scene and to assess incoming visual input to determine if they have found that for which they are searching. However, unlike laboratory experiments, searchers in the real-world rarely have perfect knowledge regarding the appearance of their target. In five experiments (with nearly 1,000 participants), we examined how the precision of the observer's template affects their ability to conduct visual search. Specifically, we simulated template imprecision in two ways: First, by contaminating our searchers' templates with inaccurate features, and second, by introducing extraneous features to the template that were unhelpful. In those experiments we recorded the eye movements of our searchers in order to make inferences regarding the extent to which attentional guidance and decision-making are hindered by template imprecision. We also examined a third way in which templates may become imprecise; namely, that they may deteriorate over time. Overall, our findings support a dual-function theory of the target template, and highlight the importance of examining template precision in future research.
ContributorsHout, Michael C (Author) / Goldinger, Stephen D (Thesis advisor) / Azuma, Tamiko (Committee member) / Homa, Donald (Committee member) / Reichle, Erik (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
ContributorsShi, Ge (Performer) / ASU Library. Music Library (Publisher)
Created2018-03-25
Description
Recognition memory was investigated for naturalistic dynamic scenes. Although visual recognition for static objects and scenes has been investigated previously and found to be extremely robust in terms of fidelity and retention, visual recognition for dynamic scenes has received much less attention. In four experiments, participants view a number of clips from novel films and are then tasked to complete a recognition test containing frames from the previously viewed films and difficult foil frames. Recognition performance is good when foils are taken from other parts of the same film (Experiment 1), but degrades greatly when foils are taken from unseen gaps from within the viewed footage (Experiments 3 and 4). Removing all non-target frames had a serious effect on recognition performance (Experiment 2). Across all experiments, presenting the films as a random series of clips seemed to have no effect on recognition performance. Patterns of accuracy and response latency in Experiments 3 and 4 appear to be a result of a serial-search process. It is concluded that visual representations of dynamic scenes may be stored as units of events, and participant's old
ew judgments of individual frames were better characterized by a cued-recall paradigm than traditional recognition judgments.
ew judgments of individual frames were better characterized by a cued-recall paradigm than traditional recognition judgments.
ContributorsFerguson, Ryan (Author) / Homa, Donald (Thesis advisor) / Goldinger, Stephen (Committee member) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Brewer, Gene (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Everyday speech communication typically takes place face-to-face. Accordingly, the task of perceiving speech is a multisensory phenomenon involving both auditory and visual information. The current investigation examines how visual information influences recognition of dysarthric speech. It also explores where the influence of visual information is dependent upon age. Forty adults participated in the study that measured intelligibility (percent words correct) of dysarthric speech in auditory versus audiovisual conditions. Participants were then separated into two groups: older adults (age range 47 to 68) and young adults (age range 19 to 36) to examine the influence of age. Findings revealed that all participants, regardless of age, improved their ability to recognize dysarthric speech when visual speech was added to the auditory signal. The magnitude of this benefit, however, was greater for older adults when compared with younger adults. These results inform our understanding of how visual speech information influences understanding of dysarthric speech.
ContributorsFall, Elizabeth (Author) / Liss, Julie (Thesis advisor) / Berisha, Visar (Committee member) / Gray, Shelley (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Current research has identified a specific type of visual experience that leads to faster cortical processing. Specifically, performance on perceptual learning of a directional-motion leads to faster cortical processing. This is important on two levels; first, cortical processing is positively correlated with cognitive functions and inversely related to age, frontal lobe lesions, and some cognitive disorders. Second, temporal processing has been shown to be relatively stable over time. In order to expand on this line of research, we examined the effects of a different, but relevant visual experience (i.e., implied motion) on cortical processing. Previous fMRI studies have indicated that static images that imply motion activate area V5 or middle temporal/medial superior temporal complex (MT/MST+) of the visual cortex, the same brain region that is activated in response to real motion. Therefore, we hypothesized that visual experience of implied motion may parallel the positive relationship between real directional-motion and cortical processing. Seven subjects participated in a visual task of implied motion for 4 days, and a pre- and post-test of cortical processing. The results indicated that performance on implied motion is systematically different from performance on a dot motion task. Despite individual differences in performance, overall cortical processing increased from day 1 to day 4.
ContributorsVasefi, Aresh (Author) / Nanez, Jose (Thesis advisor) / Duran, Nicholas (Committee member) / Keil, Thomas J. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
ContributorsShatuho, Kristina (Performer) / ASU Library. Music Library (Publisher)
Created2018-03-27
Description
Previous research has shown that people can implicitly learn repeated visual contexts and use this information when locating relevant items. For example, when people are presented with repeated spatial configurations of distractor items or distractor identities in visual search, they become faster to find target stimuli in these repeated contexts over time (Chun and Jiang, 1998; 1999). Given that people learn these repeated distractor configurations and identities, might they also implicitly encode semantic information about distractors, if this information is predictive of the target location? We investigated this question with a series of visual search experiments using real-world stimuli within a contextual cueing paradigm (Chun and Jiang, 1998). Specifically, we tested whether participants could learn, through experience, that the target images they are searching for are always located near specific categories of distractors, such as food items or animals. We also varied the spatial consistency of target locations, in order to rule out implicit learning of repeated target locations. Results suggest that participants implicitly learned the target-predictive categories of distractors and used this information during search, although these results failed to reach significance. This lack of significance may have been due the relative simplicity of the search task, however, and several new experiments are proposed to further investigate whether repeated category information can benefit search.
ContributorsWalenchok, Stephen C (Author) / Goldinger, Stephen D (Thesis advisor) / Azuma, Tamiko (Committee member) / Homa, Donald (Committee member) / Hout, Michael C (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The present study describes audiovisual sentence recognition in normal hearing listeners, bimodal cochlear implant (CI) listeners and bilateral CI listeners. This study explores a new set of sentences (the AzAV sentences) that were created to have equal auditory intelligibility and equal gain from visual information.
The aims of Experiment I were to (i) compare the lip reading difficulty of the AzAV sentences to that of other sentence materials, (ii) compare the speech-reading ability of CI listeners to that of normal-hearing listeners and (iii) assess the gain in speech understanding when listeners have both auditory and visual information from easy-to-lip-read and difficult-to-lip read sentences. In addition, the sentence lists were subjected to a multi-level text analysis to determine the factors that make sentences easy or difficult to speech read.
The results of Experiment I showed that (i) the AzAV sentences were relatively difficult to lip read, (ii) that CI listeners and normal-hearing listeners did not differ in lip reading ability and (iii) that sentences with low lip-reading intelligibility (10-15 % correct) provide about a 30 percentage point improvement in speech understanding when added to the acoustic stimulus, while sentences with high lip-reading intelligibility (30-60 % correct) provide about a 50 percentage point improvement in the same comparison. The multi-level text analyses showed that the familiarity of phrases in the sentences was the primary driving factor that affects the lip reading difficulty.
The aim of Experiment II was to investigate the value, when visual information is present, of bimodal hearing and bilateral cochlear implants. The results of Experiment II showed that when visual information is present, low-frequency acoustic hearing can be of value to speech understanding for patients fit with a single CI. However, when visual information was available no gain was seen from the provision of a second CI, i.e., bilateral CIs. As was the case in Experiment I, visual information provided about a 30 percentage point improvement in speech understanding.
The aims of Experiment I were to (i) compare the lip reading difficulty of the AzAV sentences to that of other sentence materials, (ii) compare the speech-reading ability of CI listeners to that of normal-hearing listeners and (iii) assess the gain in speech understanding when listeners have both auditory and visual information from easy-to-lip-read and difficult-to-lip read sentences. In addition, the sentence lists were subjected to a multi-level text analysis to determine the factors that make sentences easy or difficult to speech read.
The results of Experiment I showed that (i) the AzAV sentences were relatively difficult to lip read, (ii) that CI listeners and normal-hearing listeners did not differ in lip reading ability and (iii) that sentences with low lip-reading intelligibility (10-15 % correct) provide about a 30 percentage point improvement in speech understanding when added to the acoustic stimulus, while sentences with high lip-reading intelligibility (30-60 % correct) provide about a 50 percentage point improvement in the same comparison. The multi-level text analyses showed that the familiarity of phrases in the sentences was the primary driving factor that affects the lip reading difficulty.
The aim of Experiment II was to investigate the value, when visual information is present, of bimodal hearing and bilateral cochlear implants. The results of Experiment II showed that when visual information is present, low-frequency acoustic hearing can be of value to speech understanding for patients fit with a single CI. However, when visual information was available no gain was seen from the provision of a second CI, i.e., bilateral CIs. As was the case in Experiment I, visual information provided about a 30 percentage point improvement in speech understanding.
ContributorsWang, Shuai (Author) / Dorman, Michael (Thesis advisor) / Berisha, Visar (Committee member) / Liss, Julie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
ContributorsCarlisi, Daniel (Performer) / ASU Library. Music Library (Publisher)
Created2018-04-07
Description
Yannis Constantinidis was the last of the handful of composers referred to collectively as the Greek National School. The members of this group strove to create a distinctive national style for Greece, founded upon a synthesis of Western compositional idioms with melodic, rhyhmic, and modal features of their local folk traditions. Constantinidis particularly looked to the folk melodies of his native Asia Minor and the nearby Dodecanese Islands. His musical output includes operettas, musical comedies, orchestral works, chamber and vocal music, and much piano music, all of which draws upon folk repertories for thematic material. The present essay examines how he incorporates this thematic material in his piano compositions, written between 1943 and 1971, with a special focus on the 22 Songs and Dances from the Dodecanese. In general, Constantinidis's pianistic style is expressed through miniature pieces in which the folk tunes are presented mostly intact, but embedded in accompaniment based in early twentieth-century modal harmony. Following the dictates of the founding members of the Greek National School, Manolis Kalomiris and Georgios Lambelet, the modal basis of his harmonic vocabulary is firmly rooted in the characteristics of the most common modes of Greek folk music. A close study of his 22 Songs and Dances from the Dodecanese not only offers a valuable insight into his harmonic imagination, but also demonstrates how he subtly adapts his source melodies. This work also reveals his care in creating a musical expression of the words of the original folk songs, even in purely instrumental compositon.
ContributorsSavvidou, Dina (Author) / Hamilton, Robert (Thesis advisor) / Little, Bliss (Committee member) / Meir, Baruch (Committee member) / Thompson, Janice M (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011