Research Interests Home
Selective Attention
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It is a truism that we can not Simultaneously attend to all the information impinging on our senses in a given moment. Thus, the process of selectively choosing relevant parts of the information and ignoring others comes into play. Selective attention is an important cognitive function that had been linked to pathologies and to higher cognitive functions like the quality of memory. What are the conditions that govern the successes or failure of selective attention? Can we manufacture conditions that will promote its success? To probe these questions we use two experimental tools. The Stroop task that has been named "The Golden Standard of Selective Attention" and the Garner paradigm that recently gained popularity. We look at contextual conditions like saliency of the stimulus and contingencies between the relevant and irrelevant information as important factors that influence selective attention.
Relevant Publications:
Arieh, Y., & Algom, D. (1997). Reading words in Stroop-like tasks: The effect of contingency between semantic and visual components. Psychologia: Israel Journal of Psychology, 6, 7-19.[Hebrew]
Arieh, Y., & Algom, D. (2002). Processing picture-word stimuli: The Contingent Nature of Picture and of Word Superiority. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 28, 221-232. pdf
Sensory Integration/Multisensory Processes
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Observers report that the brightness of a light is enhanced when it is accompanied by a noise. Analogously, they report, that the loudness of a sound increased when it is accompanied by a light. Clearly, information is exchanged between vision and audition and that information modulate the perception of intensity in these two senses. What is the sources of this cross-modal effect? Is it due to energy summation at a relatively low level of the nervous system? Or is it due to a more complex response bias that happens relatively late in the stream of perception. We are probing these questions in a series of studies, using rigorous psychophysical manipulations and the theory behind the Speed-Accuracy Trade-Off Function as our analytical tool.
Relevant Publications:
Odgaard, E. C., Arieh, Y., & Marks, L. E. (2003). Cross-modal Enhancement of Perceived Brightness: Sensory Interaction versus Response Bias. Perception and Psychophysics, 65, 123-132. pdf
Arieh, Y., Odgaard, E. C., & Marks, L. E. (2002). Cross-Modal Interaction between Light and Sound: An Accuracy-Speed Analysis. Poster presented at the 43nd annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Kansas City, Missouri. pdf
Odgaard, E. C., Arieh, Y. & Marks, L. E. (2004). Brighter Noise: Sensory Enhancement of Perceived Loudness by Concurrent Visual Stimulation. Journal of Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience. In Press. pdf
Sean, T. Stevens & Arieh, Y. (2005). What you see is what you hear: The effect of auditory pitch on the detection of visual targets. Poster presented at the 76th annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Society, Boston, MA. ppt
Haddad, A & Arieh, Y. (2007). Synesthetic Tendencies in Non- Synesthetes: The Processing of Color and Pitch in a Divided Attention Task. Poster presented at the 78th annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Society, Philadelphia, PA. ppt
Arieh, Y., Shepherd, M. R., Burger, K., & Marks, L. E. (2007). Combining information about pitch and position: Evidence for independent processing. Poster presented at the 19th annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science, Washington, DC. ppt
Arieh, Y & Marks, L. E. Cross Modal Interaction between Vision and Hearing: A speed - Accuracy Analysis. In Press - Perception and Psychphysics. pdf
Auditory Perception
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Sounds are rarely perceived in isolation. More often than not other sounds, softer or louder, accompany the target sound. What is the effect of these "context" sounds on the loudness of the target sound? Our research revealed that when a relatively loud sound precedes a relatively moderate sound the loudness of the later is dramatically reduced. We dubbed that phenomena recalibration. We also discovered that recalibration is not special to hearing and is present also in perception of length and taste. Furthermore, the magnitude of recalibration depends on the temporal gap between the two stimuli. Our research currently focuses on uncovering the time course for recovery from recalibration and on elucidating the auditory process that transpire when the temporal gap between the stimuli is extremely short.
Relevant Publications:
Arieh, Y., & Marks, L. E. (2002). Context Effects in Visual Length Perception: Role of Ocular, Retinal, and Spatial Location. Perception & Psychophysics, 64, 478-492. pdf
Arieh, Y., & Marks, L. E. (2003). Recalibrating the Auditory System: A Speed-Accuracy Analysis of Intensity Perception. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Performance and Perception, 29, 523-536. pdf
Arieh, Y, & Marks, L. E. (2003). Time Course of Loudness Recalibration: Implications for Loudness Enhancement. Journal of Acoustical Society of America, 114, 1550-1556. pdf
Arieh, Y., Mailloux, J., & Marks, L. E. (2004). Loudness Recalibration at Short ISI: A closer look. Poster presented at the 75th conference of Acoustical Society of America. New York, New York. pdf
Arieh, Y, Kelly, K., & Marks, L. E. (2005). Tracking the Time to Recovery after Induced Loudness Reduction. Journal of Acoustical Society of America, 117, 3381-3384. pdf
Kelly, K., Arieh, Y., & Marks, L. E. (2005). Inducing Loudness reduction affects auditory lateralization. In J. S. Monahan, S. M. Aheffert and J. T. Towensend (Eds.).Fechner Day 2005. Proceeding of the twenty first Annual Meeting of the International Society for Psychophysics. Mt. Pleasant, MI: The international Society for Psychophysics
Marks, L. E., & Arieh, Y. (2006). Differential effects of stimulus context in sensory processing. European Review of Applied Psychology, 56, 213-221 . pdf
Arieh, Y. & Marks, L. E. Post Transient Shifts in Auditory Lateralization. Perception and Psychophysics. In Press. pdf
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