Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

Human spatial representations are often assumed to represent Euclidean properties such as length, distance, and angle. Here we test an alternative (but not mutually exclusive) possibility - that spatial memory is structured primarily around topological relations. Across four experiments, adults and children memorized simple letter-like figures and reproduced them by drawing, allowing the contents of their spatial representations to be revealed directly. Drawings showed systematic distortions of metric features, including strong biases of angles toward 90{degrees} and compression of line length towards an average value. In contrast, topologically critical features -- such as T-junctions and holes -- were reliably preserved, even relative to closely matched but topologically irrelevant features like L-junctions. These effects were magnified in a serial reproduction paradigm, in which participants iteratively generated new drawings from previous participant drawings: At the end of each mnemonic chain, figures converged on simplified topological structures as metric detail degraded. Similar patterns were observed in children aged five to eight years. Together, these findings suggest that basic topological relations may function as primitive building blocks of human spatial representation, with metric detail encoded secondarily. Significance statementThe iconic map of the London Underground is one of the most famous maps in history, yet something special about it goes unnoticed: it is not a veridical representation of space. Distances are arbitrary, and angles are presented only in coarse terms. Yet the ubiquity and appeal of such maps suggests that topological representation is intuitive -- as if the mind is keen to receive information in exactly this way. Here, using drawing as a tool, we show directly that the most primitive form of spatial representation appears to be a topological skeleton. Remarkably, even children as young as five represent spatial structure in topological terms, with roughly the same fidelity as adults -- pointing to an underappreciated building block of spatial representation.

Visual search is a critical component of many professions such as military operations, baggage screening, and radiology. Aided Target Recognition (AiTR) systems are designed to highlight potential threats across the operator visual field in real-time, directing attention and improving accuracy. However, these systems may impact search and, consequently, situational awareness by diverting attentional resources from non-highlighted, yet relevant, locations. Previous work suggests that scene gist is extracted within the first 250 ms of scene onset (Vo & Henderson, 2010). As such, this study examined whether a 250 ms AiTR onset delay could encourage a more even distribution of attention. Participants searched synthetically generated scenes and classified each person in the scene as armed or unarmed. Depending on their condition, participants either saw the scenes unaugmented (No AiTR condition), with AiTR highlights consisting of red bounding boxes around armed people and yellow boxes around unarmed (AiTR condition), or with AiTR highlights presented 250 ms post scene onset (Delayed AiTR condition). A surprise memory test of background objects presented in the search scenes was administered to all participants upon completion of the search task. As predicted and preregistered, results showed less overt attentional deployment to background information (anything other than the people themselves) in the AiTR condition compared to No AiTR , however, decreased overt attentional deployment was not seen in the Delayed AiTR group. A similar pattern was observed in the memory data (with the AiTR condition having a lower score than the No AiTR condition and the Delayed AiTR condition), this difference was not significant.

Perception is typically biased towards prior expectations. In some cases, however, it seems repelled away from expectations, such that percepts appear less like what is expected. Even more intriguingly, separate studies have recently reported that predictions derived from gravity may shape perception in opposing ways. Specifically, gravity causes unsupported objects to accelerate downwards, leading to two predictions; that objects will move downwards (location prior) and at an increasing speed (acceleration prior). There is evidence that perceptual judgements are attracted towards location priors yet repelled from acceleration ones. Here we examine these effects in the same paradigm to determine whether they result from different types of stimuli and judgement, or more interestingly, might result from opposite influences of common predictive mechanisms influencing perception. We first replicate previous reports of a systematic bias to report upward moving objects as more accelerating than downward moving objects: effectively a repulsion from acceleration priors. We then show that the effect applies both at the level of retinal space and due to contextual cues concerning gravitational direction. Finally, we find that participants errors in a location reproduction task are similarly consistent with a repulsion from acceleration priors and, simultaneously, with an attraction towards location priors. We conclude by considering the ways in which these concurrent attractive and repulsive biases may reflect mechanisms optimising fast, accurate, and informative experiences in our ever-changing sensory world, therefore optimising the interface between perception and learning. Public Significance StatementIn a series of behavioural experiments, we show that expectations about how objects move due to gravity concurrently attract perception towards the prediction that objects move downwards, and repel perception away from the prediction that they do so at an increasing rate. These opposing influences inform current theories of perceptual processing, which explain how expectations may generate percepts that are fast, veridical, and informative.

Certain conscious contents--such as the covert name of a viewed object--arise involuntarily and resist suppression, a phenomenon captured by the Reflexive Imagery Task (RIT). Whether a subliminal prime can bias which of two simultaneously present objects captures such an involuntary naming response has not been established. We adapted a two-object RIT into a self-contained, browser-based instrument. Thirty-eight adults (M age = 21.6 years, SD = 2.3; 26 female) viewed 24 object pairs and were instructed to fixate a central cross, to refrain from thinking of the objects names, and to click an object whenever its name intruded into awareness. On each trial a masked prime (17 ms, flanked by pattern masks) was either the exact name of one object (Exact Word Prime), a semantic associate of one object (Semantic Prime), or a neutral string (No Prime), defining a primed side per trial. A post-experiment debriefing confirmed that participants noticed the masks but none consciously perceived or could identify the prime words, indicating that the primes were subliminal. Analyses excluded 91 of 912 trials (10.0%) with more than five clicks. The priming effect was robust across measures: an omnibus comparison of clicks across conditions was significant (Friedman {chi}{superscript 2}(2) = 6.59, p = .037); within both prime conditions participants clicked the primed side more than the not-primed side (Exact Word, p = .039; Semantic, p = .005); and the primed-to-not-primed ratio exceeded parity by roughly 57-59% (Laplace-smoothed ratio {approx} 1.58; one-sample Wilcoxon p < .001 for each). A Bayesian Poisson generalized linear mixed model with random participant intercepts confirmed a credible primed-side advantage (incidence rate ratio = 1.72, 95% credible interval [1.57, 1.90]) that did not differ between prime types. No general left/right response bias emerged. An exploratory ight-side x Exact Word Prime interaction was inconsistent across model classes and is reported as hypothesis-generating. The findings indicate that subliminal lexical and semantic primes can steer the spatial locus of involuntary object naming.

Past sensory experience shapes our perceptual decision-making in the now. Popular models frame perceptual decisions as either attracted towards or repelled away from recent sensory information, but it is unclear when and why these distinct effects emerge. We here ask whether effects turn from attractive to repulsive depending on the level of surprise elicited by the precision-weighted discrepancy between past and present sensory states. This model is based upon the idea that attraction is adaptive for optimizing efficiency and accuracy when discrepancies are small, because they likely reflect sensory noise rather than real change in the environment. In contrast, repulsion may reflect the upweighting of counterfactual evidence when discrepancies are large because they more likely signal the need for model updating. We test this model on a large amount of recently-collated trial-by-trial serial dependence data and consistently find support for it across the dataset, participant, and trial-by-trial level. Specifically, serial dependence effects are attractive at low discrepancies between past and current sensory states but turn repulsive when discrepancies are larger. Higher sensory precision is found to accelerate this flip by reducing the modal discrepancy threshold required to trigger repulsion effects. We discuss how these findings necessitate extending existing theories of serial dependence, and how they may resolve conflicts in the broader predictive processing, learning and perception literatures.

When we feel restless and easily distracted, continuously switching tasks (exploration), our pupils tend to be large. In contrast, when we are calmly focused on a single task (exploitation), our pupils tend to be small. According to the Adaptive Gain Theory (AGT), a switch from exploitation to exploration is associated with an increase in norepinephrine in the locus coeruleus, which in turn triggers pupil dilation. However, the AGT does not provide a functional explanation of why exploration triggers pupil dilation. One possibility is that visual sensitivity, which increases with pupil size, is especially important during exploration. We set out to provide evidence consistent with this functional explanation, as well as to replicate two key previous results. Participants performed a four-armed bandit task, which induces both exploration and exploitation behavior. During the task, participants also needed to detect an occasional and unpredictable near-threshold peripheral flash. We replicated two key results: pupils were larger during exploration than during exploitation; and increased pupil size (overall, independent of exploration status) was associated with increased visual sensitivity. However, most importantly, we did not find that visual sensitivity was higher during exploration than during exploitation; probably, the reliable-yet-tiny increase in pupil size during exploration was too small to affect visual sensitivity. We conclude that key previous results are replicable; however, common experimental paradigms, such as the four-armed bandit task, induce only small changes in exploration behavior. Therefore, more powerful paradigms are required in order to test functional explanations of pupil-size changes during exploration and exploitation.

Language production requires the coordination of multiple cognitive processes. The ability to anticipate and override a habitual response in favor of a contextually-appropriate response are key subprocesses of cognitive control which enable speakers to communicate effectively. Word retrieval involves the co-activation of semantically related alternatives from which the speaker must select the appropriate target representation. Although cognitive control mechanisms have been proposed to contribute to resolving semantic interference during language production, the nature of these control processes remain unclear. Studies investigating the temporal dynamics of cognitive control during decision making tasks have led to a distinction between two operating processes: proactive control, initiated prior to the occurrence of conflict, and reactive control recruited after conflict is detected. We investigated the roles of proactive and reactive control in resolving interference between competing linguistic representations during word retrieval. We analyzed congruency sequence effects combined with delta-plot distributional analyses to dissociate potential adjustments in proactive versus reactive cognitive control in a picture-naming task manipulating semantic context compared to a minimally-linguistic Stroop-like paradigm. Reaction time distributional properties following semantically related trials revealed the engagement of proactive control in semantic interference resolution during word retrieval in the PWI task. In contrast, reactive inhibitory control was engaged in resolving semantic interference following low conflict trials. This distinction was not present in the minimally-linguistic task, which did not appear to engage adaptive control to the same extent. These findings demonstrate that both proactive and reactive cognitive control mechanisms contribute to language production, and are engaged dynamically, adjusting trial-by-trial to resolve semantic interference during word retrieval. In addition, our study provides important insight into the comparison of language with other cognitive domains and positions linguistic paradigms as being instrumental in the study of cognitive control dynamics.

Bayesian decision theory proposes that people make statistically rational decisions by combining prior knowledge with sensory information (likelihoods). This framework successfully explains many aspects of human behaviour. However, debate persists over whether people perform precise Bayesian computations (i.e., explicit Bayesian strategy) or rely on less demanding strategies - such as approximations or heuristics - that produce Bayesian-like behaviour (i.e., implicit Bayesian strategy). To address this, we examined people's sensitivity to metamers: different prior-likelihood combinations yielding identical optimal policies. An explicit Bayesian observer would show a temporary performance drop immediately after a switch of prior-likelihood combination, followed by recovery, reflecting prior updating. In two studies, we trained participants to estimate hidden target locations drawn from a Gaussian prior. On each trial, scattered dots provided likelihood information. Over time, participants learned the prior and combined it with likelihood information to infer target locations. We then covertly introduced an untrained prior-likelihood metamer. Unlike explicit Bayesian observers, participants' performance declined after the switch and persisted throughout the untrained pair presentation. This finding challenges strict Bayesian interpretations of task performance and suggests that participants rely instead on likelihood-sensitive strategy that is neither explicit Bayesian nor does it not fully integrate prior information. Our study demonstrates how metamer manipulations can distinguish behaviour that merely appears Bayesian, from behaviour genuinely produced by Bayesian computations, and calls for the use of metamers for ruling out alternative explanations of Bayesian-like behaviours.

Reflecting how we organize visual experience in everyday memory, visual working memory is increasingly understood as a system in which individual item representations are organized within structures rather than maintained in isolation. Among these, relational structure may be especially consequential because, by specifying how one item value lies relative to another within a feature space, it could allow information about one remembered value to constrain which values are plausible for the other. Yet demonstrating such constraint is challenging because item-specific mnemonic evidence and relational evidence ordinarily support essentially the same estimate. We broke this equivalence with biased post-encoding feedback for one item, making item-specific and relation-based predictions for the other diverge. Across three experiments, participants remembered two sequentially presented orientations, with feedback for one shifted slightly clockwise or counterclockwise from its actual value. Participants incorporated this bias into memory for the feedback-provided orientation; critically, it also appeared in reports of the other orientation, which received no feedback, in the direction predicted by the signed angular offset linking the two remembered values. This feedback transfer weakened with increasing angular separation but occurred in both directions between the first and second orientations. These findings show that relational structure directly constrains individual value estimates in visual working memory, even for items encountered separately. By dissociating normally coincident item-specific and relation-based predictions, our approach reveals an otherwise hidden relational contribution. A probabilistic account explains these findings through joint inference from uncertain item-specific and relational evidence, with their relative uncertainties governing transfer strength.

A fundamental question in visual perception is how the human visual system transforms the rich kinematic information present in observed actions into coherent social meaning. We addressed this by validating a 5-dimensional action space model - defined by Formidableness, Friendliness, Locomotion, Abduction, and Environmental Interaction - as a perceptual representation of avatar-conveyed actions. Using Representational Similarity Analysis, we first demonstrated strong topological correspondence between the models geometry and the structure of independent perceptual judgements, with cross-validated regression confirming the model as a generative framework that reliably predicts how observers evaluate novel actions. A morphing paradigm further revealed that perceptual ratings scaled approximately linearly with geometric distances along model dimensions, with each dimension selectively predicting its corresponding perceptual quality, satisfying the criteria for a valid psychological metric space. Critically, the 5D model showed substantially stronger alignment with semantic representations of actions than with their raw skeletal kinematics - an association robust to statistical control for kinematic similarity. This dissociation suggests that higher-order social-evaluative dimensions of action perception are largely invariant to low-level motion statistics, consistent with a hierarchical visual processing architecture in which kinematic input is progressively abstracted into a compact, semantically organised representational space optimised for social inference.

Mental representations are the explanatory construct of the cognitive sciences, but there is no widely accepted characterization of how they cause behavior. Visual representational geometry can be quantified by similarity scores, but almost all methods require an explicit judgment. To examine how representations cause behavior by varying task demands, observers must perform different tasks while continuously reporting similarity, leading to dual-task interference. This study develops scanpaths as an implicit similarity measure, and uses representational similarity analysis to validate it. Observers searched for a target; fixations on distractors may reveal similarity. Similarity was also quantified by an odd-one-out task in the same participants, and ratings from different participants (Jiang et al. 2022). Representational geometries between tasks correlated. A generative model predicted first fixations in novel data. This double validation of the scanpath method opens the door to examining the causality of representations by determining if and how they vary with task demands.

Recent research has suggested that the availability of non-instrumental information about the outcome of a risky choice increases risk appetite. In this study, we aimed to perform a conceptual replication of these findings and to examine the cognitive mechanisms underlying this effect. Across two experiments (N = 150, 102), we presented participants with mathematically fair gambles and allowed them to choose the size of their bet. Between trials, we varied the presence of non-instrumental information that would reveal the outcome ahead of time. In both experiments, we did not find consistent evidence for an effect of the availability of non-instrumental information on bet size. These findings suggest that the previously reported effects of non-instrumental information on risk appetite may have been an idiosyncratic feature of experimental design, rather than a more general phenomenon that characterises human decision making under risk.

The absence of voluntary visual imagery, known as aphantasia, offers a unique lens into the role of visual imagery in visual memory processes such as face recognition. While aphantasics often report difficulties, behavioral differences in standard tasks have generally been small. One possibility is that the contribution of visual imagery becomes apparent only when face recognition is especially demanding. We compared age- and gender-matched aphantasics and typical imagers on the more challenging long-form version of the Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT+) and on a measure of inverted face recognition. We also included tasks assessing object recognition and face perception. No group differences emerged for face perception or object recognition. By contrast, typical imagers outperformed aphantasics under high visual and mnemonic demands in face recognition in the laboratory cohort, particularly at the highest difficulty level of the CFMT+ and in inverted face recognition. This effect was attenuated or even absent in the online cohort. Drift-diffusion modelling indicated that this discrepancy was primarily driven by reduced response caution in online typical imagers. A meta-analysis of published short-form CFMT studies (total N = 432) revealed a moderate and reliable advantage for typical imagers (hedges g [&le;] 0.41). Finally, across cohorts and tasks, aphantasics reported consistently lower subjective confidence, independent of accuracy. Overall, these findings suggest that visual imagery benefits face recognition, and highlight the need for caution in online testing, the predominant approach in aphantasia research.

Covert spatial attention selects and prioritizes relevant sensory information. Endogenous attention is voluntary, goal-driven, and flexible. However, it cannot alleviate visual polar-angle asymmetries, specifically, the horizontal-vertical anisotropy and the vertical meridian asymmetry. Visual perception is affected by both current sensory inputs and contextual information over time and space, such as the perception of preceding trials. Previous studies reported sequential effects whereby attention interacts with response repetitions. But it is unknown whether and how endogenous attention modulation on performance varies as a function of target location and trial history. Here, we reanalyzed data from three published studies of endogenous attention in orientation discrimination tasks, to (1) assess the typical sequential effects on response, in which response to the current trial is biased toward the previous one, and (2) examine if sequential effects would modulate the performance across locations, across four dimensions: (1) location, (2) feature, (3) attention repetition condition, and (4) the correctness of the preceding (n -1) trial. First, we demonstrated typical sequential effects of response repetition to the repeated location and feature aspects of the target. Second, we found a robust effect of attention on performance, but the results did not reveal evidence of sequential attention effects as a function of the four dimensions in any of the three studies. Moreover, there were no interactions between attention and location when considering trial history. Together, these findings provide compelling evidence that visual polar-angle asymmetries are resistant to endogenous attention, and that even top- down factors-sequential effects-do not alleviate these asymmetries in performance.

Serial dependence is influenced by sensory uncertainty and contextual continuity, but it remains controversial whether these influences reflect separate mechanisms or different expressions of a shared updating process. Across two time reproduction experiments (N = 44), we examined how motion coherence and coherence transitions modulated the attraction of recent temporal history while controlling for central tendency effects from the current stimulus. In Experiment 1, the low coherence led to stronger serial dependence compared to the high coherence. In Experiment 2, enhanced coherence categories introduced salient contextual boundaries; serial dependence was markedly stronger on the same category transition than switch transition. A three-state Kalman filter model, comprising fast (serial dependence), slow (central tendency), and bias (decision carryover) states captured these patterns through coherence-dependent modulation of fast-state process noise and Kalman gain. Within the tested model space, this precision-weighting account was selected in both experiments; with little evidence that an explicit state reset was needed. These findings support the precision-weighted updating account in which recent history is weighted according to the reliability and stability of the current perceptual environment.

During sideways movement of an observer, optic flow parsing - in which an objects speed in the world is extracted from all the other visual movement present in the scene, self-generated and otherwise - has been shown to be incomplete, leading to biases in speed perception, particularly when object and observer are moving in opposite directions. Here, we assess how judgements about the speed of objects moving in depth (judged relative to the world) towards or away from an observer (6 m/s) are affected by simultaneous movement of the observer either in the same or opposite direction as the object. In a virtual reality display, participants (n = 25) viewed a sphere simulated as moving in a corridor either while they were stationary or during visually simulated self-motion in the same or opposite direction as the object. They judged the spheres movement relative to the world by comparing its motion to a probe sphere that travelled laterally across the corridor in front of them. In a second experiment (n = 28) participants performed the same task but during faster self-motion (10 m/s). The second cohort also judged the direction in which the object was perceived to move during the same combinations of self and object speeds. Object speed was overestimated when the object travelled in the direction opposite to the observer compared to how objects motion was judged when the observer was stationary. However, object speed was also overestimated during self-motion in the same direction as the object where participants were also much more likely to misjudge the direction of motion of the object. Precision of judgements was lower when self-motion was simulated than it was for stationary observers. A simple arithmetic model of flow parsing fails to capture these results satisfactorily, suggesting that different mechanisms may be at play when the observer travels in the same direction as a moving object and is vulnerable to misperceiving its direction of travel.

The Sense of Agency (SoA), the experience of being in control of ones own actions, is thought to emerge from the comparison of internal sensorimotor predictions with afferent feedback. Classical comparator models treat SoA as arising from a prediction-feedback comparison. Volitional action likely engages multiple forward models that predict distinct features of an outcome, such as its timing and spatial trajectory. Whether prediction errors arising from these distinct forward models are integrated into a domain-general representation of agency, and if so by what computational logic, remains unresolved. We addressed this question using a Virtual Reality reaching task. Participants observed a virtual hand replicating their movements while we independently manipulated two sensorimotor domains: temporal delay and spatial angle deviation, in isolation and in factorial combinations. After each trial, participants made an SoA judgment. We examined whether SoA responses show computational hallmarks of integration between different features of sensorimotor prediction. Specifically, we pre-registered three computational models (Multiplicative, Minimum, and Mean) and compared their fit to per-trial responses. Across an exploratory sample (N = 16) and a pre-registered replication (N = 38), SoA declined monotonically with conflict magnitude in both domains. Critically, a Multiplicative integration rule consistently outperformed the Minimum and Mean rules. These results provide direct evidence for domain-general integration between prediction errors in SoA, governed by a multiplicative computational logic.

Studying chess experts helps researchers understand how intensive practice shapes thinking skills. Cognitive flexibility is the ability to adjust thoughts when rules or tasks change. Working memory is the ability to hold and use information over short periods. This study compared cognitive flexibility and working memory precision between adolescent chess players and non-players. Twenty-four professional chess players and twenty-five controls completed two novel behavioral tasks. Chess players showed better accuracy in both tasks than controls. They adapted more efficiently when rules changed during a continuous learning task. They also remembered facial expressions more precisely in a working memory task. Learning rates in the flexibility task did not differ between groups. These results indicate that chess expertise may improve rule-guided flexibility and visual working memory precision in adolescents.

The critical flicker fusion (CFF) threshold is a psychophysical measure used to quantify the temporal resolution of the visual system and is known to vary across individuals. However, it is unclear if this measure is stimulus-specific, or if it may represent a more fundamental processing rate for visual perception in general. Here, we assess if individual variation in CFF is predictive of two features of visual processing that are dependent on temporal perception: the attentional blink and global motion sensitivity. In a non-clinical sample of 84 individuals, flicker fusion thresholds were predictive of the magnitude of the attentional blink. In contrast, we found no link between flicker fusion and global motion sensitivity in a sample of 79 individuals. Our results suggest that CFF reflects a visual processing rate that impacts other, more complex perceptual tasks.

Humans exhibit a pervasive drive toward self-consistency, often failing to revise previous decisions even when confronted with contradictory evidence. Here, we investigate the computational mechanisms underlying decision revision in perceptual tasks, examining the regulatory role of metacognition. To do so, we capitalize on a novel paradigm in which participants are repeatedly presented with identical sensory information and allowed to revise their choices after each exposure. Our results reveal that repeated exposure to the same stimulus systematically biases subsequent judgments toward prior responses. Using drift-diffusion modeling, we tested competing explanations incorporating different assumptions about how prior choices affect evidence accumulation. Our findings indicate that consistency biases emerge from asymmetric sensory weighting, selectively amplifying information consistent with previous choices--a phenomenon akin to confirmation bias. Crucially, individuals with higher metacognitive skills exhibited weaker confirmatory biases and more flexible integration of repeated sensory information, enabling greater adaptability in decision-making. These findings highlight the continuous nature of perceptual inference and underscore metacognitions pivotal role in mitigating bias and optimizing decision flexibility.