Eye-gaze and arrow cues influence elementary sound perception

Borjon, Jeremy I.; Shepherd, Stephen V.; Todorov, Alexander; Ghazanfar, Asif A.

doi:10.1098/rspb.2010.2306

Cited by 11 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 40 publications

(72 reference statements)

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“…Recent findings have demonstrated that emotion modulates some basic aspects of perception, such as visual contrast sensitivity [6], but not others, such as auditory directional attention [7]. The selectivity of emotional effects on perception is consistent with anecdotal reports that specific phobias may induce categoryspecific distortions of perception [8].…”

Section: Correspondencessupporting

confidence: 78%

Threat modulates perception of looming visual stimuli

2012

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Among the most critical of visual functions is the detection of potentially hazardous or threatening aspects of the environment. For example, objects on a collision course with an observer must be quickly identified to allow sufficient time to prepare appropriate defensive or avoidant responses. Directly approaching objects produce a specific accelerating pattern of optical expansion, known as 'looming, which in theory exactly specifies time-to-collision independent of object size or distance. Such looming stimuli have been shown to trigger stereotyped defensive responses in both monkeys [1] and human infants [2]. Psychophysical results in adult participants have similarly suggested sensitivity to looming at early stages of visual processing [3]. Such findings indicate specialization of the visual system to detect and react to such 'looming' stimuli, and have contributed to the traditional view of looming as a purely optical cue to imminent collision [1]. Here, we investigated whether the semantic content of a looming visual stimulus affects perceived time-to-collision by manipulating its threat value. We show that time-to-collision is underestimated for threatening (snakes and spiders) compared to non-threatening (butterflies and rabbits) stimuli. Further, the magnitude of this effect is correlated with self-reported fear. Our results demonstrate affective modulation of the perception of looming stimuli, and suggest that emotion shapes basic aspects of visual perception.

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Section: Correspondencessupporting

confidence: 78%

Threat modulates perception of looming visual stimuli

2012

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“…Recent findings have demonstrated that emotion modulates some basic aspects of perception, such as visual contrast sensitivity [6], but not others, such as auditory directional 5 attention [7]. The selectivity of emotional effects on perception is consistent with anecdotal reports that specific phobias may induce category-specific distortions of perception [8].…”

supporting

confidence: 59%

Threat modulates perception of looming visual stimuli

Vagnoni¹,

Lourenco²,

Longo³

2012

Seeing and Perceiving

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Objects on a collision course with an observer produce a specific pattern of optical expansion on the retina known as looming, which in theory exactly specifies time-to-collision. Looming stimuli produce stereotyped defensive responses in monkeys and human infants, indicating that the primate visual system is intrinsically tuned to interpret this stimulus as threatening. We investigated how emotional reactions to the semantic content of a looming stimulus affects perceived time-to-collision. We presented either threatening (snakes, spiders) or non-threatening (butterflies and rabbits) stimuli which expanded in size at a rate indicating one of five different times to contact (3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5 or 5.0 s). After 1 s, the image disappeared and participants judged when it would have made contact with them continuing on the same trajectory. Consistent with previous findings, time-to-collision judgments systematically underestimated true arrival time. More importantly, our results showed that the magnitude of this underestimating significantly increased for threatening, compared to non-threatening, stimuli. Further, the magnitude of this increase was correlated with participants’ self-reported fear of snakes and spiders. Traditionally, looming has been interpreted as a purely optical cue to collision. Against that view, our results demonstrate that the semantic content of visual stimuli modulates perceived time-to-contact. Our results suggest that perceived threat led participants to use a larger margin of safety: underestimating time-to-collision errs on the side of allowing more time to prepare defensive responses (or flee). More generally, these results demonstrate that emotion has widespread effects on even very basic aspects of perception.

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“…We constantly need to use joint and shared attention with others by recognizing cues and targets that belong to different modalities; therefore, it is important to investigate the effect of joint attention under cross-modal conditions. Previous studies have examined joint attention in typically developing individuals under cross-modal conditions (Borjon, Shepherd, Todorov, & Ghazanfar, 2010;Newport & Howarth, 2009). Both studies presented visual cues and auditory targets and showed significant gaze-triggered joint attention under cross-modal conditions, as in a uni-modal paradigm.…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%