The time course of Temporal Binding in social and nonsocial interactions.

Temporal Binding (TB) is the subjective compression of action-effect intervals. While the effects of nonsocial actions are highly predictable, it is not the case when interacting with conspecifics, who often act under their own volition, at a time of their choosing. Given the relative differences in action-effect predictability in non-social and social interactions, it is plausible that TB and its properties differ across these situations.

Neural and behavioral signatures of the multidimensionality of manipulable object processing.

Understanding how we recognize objects requires unravelling the variables that govern the way we think about objects and the neural organization of object representations. A tenable hypothesis is that the organization of object knowledge follows key object-related dimensions. Here, we explored, behaviorally and neurally, the multidimensionality of object processing.

Fundamental units of numerosity estimation.

Humans can approximately enumerate a large number of objects at a single glance. While several mechanisms have been proposed to account for this ability, the fundamental units over which they operate remain unclear. Previous studies have argued that estimation mechanisms act only on topologically distinct units or on units formed by spatial grouping cues such as proximity and connectivity, but not on units grouped by similarity.

Visual field asymmetries in numerosity processing.

A small number of objects can be rapidly and accurately enumerated, whereas a larger number of objects can only be approximately enumerated. These subitizing and estimation abilities, respectively, are both spatial processes relying on extracting information across spatial locations. Nevertheless, whether and how these processes vary across visual field locations remains unknown.

Masking, crowding, and grouping: Connecting low and mid-level vision.

An important task for vision science is to build a unitary framework of low- and mid-level vision. As a step on this way, our study examined differences and commonalities between masking, crowding and grouping-three processes that occur through spatial interactions between neighbouring elements. We measured contrast thresholds as functions of inter-element spacing and eccentricity for Gabor detection, discrimination and contour integration, using a common stimulus grid consisting of nine Gabor elements.

Emergence of crowding: The role of contrast and orientation salience.

Crowding causes difficulties in judging attributes of an object surrounded by other objects. We investigated crowding for stimuli that isolated either S-cone or luminance mechanisms or combined them. By targeting different retinogeniculate mechanisms with contrast-matched stimuli, we aim to determine the earliest site at which crowding emerges.

Characterizing the in-out asymmetry in visual crowding.

An object's processing is impaired by the presence of nearby clutter. Several distinct mechanisms, such as masking and visual crowding, are thought to contribute to such flanker-induced interference. It is therefore important to determine which mechanism is operational in any given situation.

Social Agency as a continuum.

Sense of Agency, the phenomenology associated with causing one's own actions and corresponding effects, is a cornerstone of human experience. Social Agency can be defined as the Sense of Agency experienced in any situation in which the effects of our actions are related to a conspecific. This can be implemented as the other's reactions being caused by our action, joint action modulating our Sense of Agency, or the other's mere social presence influencing our Sense of Agency.

Subitizing object parts reveals a second stage of individuation.

Humans can efficiently individuate a small number of objects. This subitizing ability is thought to be a consequence of limited attentional resources. However, how and what is selected during the individuation process remain outstanding questions.

A simple rule to describe interactions between visual categories.

Humans can rapidly categorise visual objects when presented in isolation. However, in everyday life we encounter multiple objects at the same time. Far less is known about how simultaneously active object representations interact.

Too little, too late, and in the wrong place: Alpha band activity does not reflect an active mechanism of selective attention.

Selective attention focuses visual processing on relevant stimuli in order to allow for adaptive behaviour despite an abundance of distracting information. It has been proposed that increases in alpha band (8-12 ​Hz) amplitude reflect an active mechanism for distractor suppression. If this were the case, increases in alpha band amplitude should be succeeded by a decrease in distractor processing.

Crowding in humans is unlike that in convolutional neural networks.

Object recognition is a primary function of the human visual system. It has recently been claimed that the highly successful ability to recognise objects in a set of emergent computer vision systems-Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (DCNNs)-can form a useful guide to recognition in humans. To test this assertion, we systematically evaluated visual crowding, a dramatic breakdown of recognition in clutter, in DCNNs and compared their performance to extant research in humans.

Clustering leads to underestimation of numerosity, but crowding is not the cause.

Humans have the remarkable ability to rapidly estimate the number of objects in a visual scene without relying on counting, something referred to as the number sense. It has been well documented that the more clustered the elements are, the lower their perceived numerosity is. A recent account of this observation is the crowdinghypothesis, which posits that the perceived underestimation is driven by visual crowding: the inability to recognise objects in clutter.

The eye that binds: Feature integration is not disrupted by saccadic eye movements.

Feature integration theory proposes that visual features, such as shape and color, can only be combined into a unified object when spatial attention is directed to their location in retinotopic maps. Eye movements cause dramatic changes on our retinae, and are associated with obligatory shifts in spatial attention. In two experiments, we measured the prevalence of conjunction errors (that is, reporting an object as having an attribute that belonged to another object), for brief stimulus presentation before, during, and after a saccade.

Response selection modulates crowding: a cautionary tale for invoking top-down explanations.

Object recognition in the periphery is limited by clutter. This phenomenon of visual crowding is ameliorated when the objects are dissimilar. This effect of inter-object similarity has been extensively studied for low-level features and is thought to reflect bottom-up processes.

Two's company, three's a crowd: Individuation is necessary for object recognition.

Object recognition is essential for navigating the real world. Despite decades of research on this topic, the processing steps necessary for recognition remain unclear. In this study, we examined the necessity and role of individuation, the ability to select a small number of spatially distinct objects irrespective of their identity, in the recognition process.

Critical resolution: A superior measure of crowding.

Visual object recognition is essential for adaptive interactions with the environment. It is fundamentally limited by crowding, a breakdown of object recognition in clutter. The spatial extent over which crowding occurs is proportional to the eccentricity of the target object, but nevertheless varies substantially depending on various stimulus factors (e.

Combining S-cone and luminance signals adversely affects discrimination of objects within backgrounds.

The visual system processes objects embedded in complex scenes that vary in both luminance and colour. In such scenes, colour contributes to the segmentation of objects from backgrounds, but does it also affect perceptual organisation of object contours which are already defined by luminance signals, or are these processes unaffected by colour's presence? We investigated if luminance and chromatic signals comparably sustain processing of objects embedded in backgrounds, by varying contrast along the luminance dimension and along the two cone-opponent colour directions. In the first experiment thresholds for object/non-object discrimination of Gaborised shapes were obtained in the presence and absence of background clutter.

The Temporal Dynamics of Visual Processing in Multiple Sclerosis.

Although the integrity of the visual system is often affected in multiple sclerosis (MS), the potential relationship between the temporal dynamics of visual processing and performance on neuropsychological tests assessing processing speed (PS) remains relatively unexplored. Here, we test if a PS deficit is related to abnormalities within the visual system, rather than impaired higher-level cognitive function. Two groups of participants with MS (1 group with PS deficits and another without) and a healthy control group, matched for age and education, were included.

The Bouma law of crowding, revised: critical spacing is equal across parts, not objects.

Crowding is the inability to identify an object among flankers in the periphery. It is due to inappropriate incorporation of features from flanking objects in perception of the target. Crowding is characterized by measuring critical spacing, the minimum distance needed between a target and flankers to allow recognition.

Categorical membership modulates crowding: evidence from characters.

Visual crowding is generally thought to affect recognition mostly or only at the level of feature combination. Calling this assertion into question, recent studies have shown that if a target object and its flankers belong to different categories crowding is weaker than if they belong to the same category. Nevertheless, these results can be explained in terms of featural differences between categories.

For whom the bell tolls: periodic reactivation of sensory cortex in the gamma band as a substrate of visual working memory maintenance.

Working memory (WM) is central to human cognition as it allows information to be kept online over brief periods of time and facilitates its usage in cognitive operations (Luck and Vogel, 2013). How this information maintenance actually is implemented is still a matter of debate. Several independent theories of WM, derived, respectively, from behavioral studies and neural considerations, advance the idea that items in WM decay over time and must be periodically reactivated.

The temporal evolution of coarse location coding of objects: evidence for feedback.

Objects occupy space. How does the brain represent the spatial location of objects? Retinotopic early visual cortex has precise location information but can only segment simple objects. On the other hand, higher visual areas can resolve complex objects but only have coarse location information.

Conscious updating is a rhythmic process.

As the visual world changes, its representation in our consciousness must be constantly updated. Given that the external changes are continuous, it appears plausible that conscious updating is continuous as well. Alternatively, this updating could be periodic, if, for example, its implementation at the neural level relies on oscillatory activity.

Substitution and pooling in crowding.

Unless we fixate directly on it, it is hard to see an object among other objects. This breakdown in object recognition, called crowding, severely limits peripheral vision. The effect is more severe when objects are more similar.