烟草依赖者的注意偏向研究

Relapse has been a great challenge in clinical treatment and experimental studies of drug addiction. Recent studies suggest that psychological dependence may play a major role in addiction relapse, even more important than physiological dependence. Then a fundamental question arises: how to measure the psychological dependence? How to examine whether an addict has psychologically quitted when leaving drug rehabilitation centers? Self-report, a commonly used evaluation approach, is inevitably vulnerable to various cognitive influences, particularly in explicit tasks. Therefore, an objective index is necessary to evaluate the subliminal psychological drug dependence level. The objective of the current study was to develop such a psychological paradigm to probe the unaware attentional bias of in smoking addicts. Experiment 1 adapted the interocular suppression technique of binocular rivalry to study the attentional bias to cigarette pictures in smokers and age-matched nonsmoker. Results show that the smokers demonstrated similar attentional bias in both visible and unaware conditions, while non-smokers showed attentional bias only in the visible condition, and there was a significant interaction between experiment conditions and subject groups. These results provide compelling evidence for addiction-specific attentional bias in cigarette smokers, by minimizing the influence of confounding conscious factors. Furthermore, attentional bias of smokers in unawareness state was negatively correlated with their cigarette dependence levels, while their pre-test cigarette craving levels was positively correlated with their attnetional bias in the visible condition. This pair of correlations further demonstrated the advantages of unawareness state in disclosing stable dependence states, therefore supporting the effectiveness of the paradigm used in this study. Another interesting finding of Experiment 1 is that non-smokers also showed attentional bias in the visible condition. To exclude the possibility that the attentional bias found in experiment 1 was task-specific, experiment 2 adapted the most commonly-used visual dot probe task with smoking scenes as in relevant reference. The result in experiment 1 was well replicated, i.e., nonsmokers in experiment 2 also showed significant attentional bias to smoking-related stimuli, We interpenetrate this interesting finding as an effect of environmental influence, as the participants of the current study live in a highly smoking-exposed and smoking-encouraged environment, which is quite different with the participants of studies reported in the literature. A series of questionnaires and scales administered in the current study indeed show that most smokers smoked due to influence of the environment. They also acknowledged that smoking as an important media of social communication in China, and even considered that away from the smoking environment would effectively help them to quit. The current study also found that the disgust level towards cigarette pictures and smoking-related scenes of non-smokers was positively correlated with their attnentional bias in the visible condition of experiment 1. It is likely that in a highly smoking-encouraged environment, the remaining few on-smokers have severe disgust to cigarettes and smoking scenes; and their attentional bias might be caused by disgust avoidance. In conclusion, the current study represents the first study showing the existence of unaware attentional bias to smoking related stimuli in cigarette smokers by applying the interocular suppression paradigm, providing a reference to study of dependence of other drugs. The current study also found that our non-smoking participants also showed attentional bias to smoking related stimuli, which may be due to the possible influence of highly smoking-exposed environment of our participants.

不同智力水平儿童的自我调控特点

Self-regulation has recently become an important topic in cognitive and developmental domain. According to previous theories and experimental studies, it is shown that self-regulation consist of both a personality (or social) aspect and a behavioral cognitive aspect of psychology. Self-regulation can be divided into self-regulation personality and self-regulation ability. In the present study researches have been carried out from two perspectives: child development and individual differences. We are eager to explore the characteristics of self-regulation in terms of human cognitive development. In the present study, we chose two groups of early adolescences one with high intelligence and the other with normal intelligence. In Study One Questionnaires were used to compare whether the highly intelligent group had had better self-regulation personality than the normal group. In Study Two experimental psychology tasks were used to compare whether highly intelligent children had had better self-regulation cognitive abilities than their normal peers. Finally, in Study Three we combined the results of Study One and Study Two to further explore the neural mechanisms for highly intelligent children with respect to their good self-regulation abilities. Some main results and conclusions are as follows: (1) Questionnaire results showed that highly intelligent children had better self-regulation personalities, and they got higher scores on the personalities related to self-regulation such as, self-reliance, stability, rule-consciousness. They also got higher scores on self-consciousness which meant that they could know their own self better than the normal children. (2) Among the three levels of cognitive difficulties in self-regulation abilities, the highly intelligent children had faster reaction speed than normal children in the primary self-regulation tasks. In the intermediate self-regulation tasks, highly intelligent children’s inhibition processing and executive processing were both better than their normal peers. In the advanced self-regulation tasks, highly intelligent children again had faster reaction speed and more reaction accuracy than their normal peers when facing with conflict and inconsistency experimental conditions,. Regression model’s results showed that primary and advanced self-regulation abilites had larger predictive power than intermediate self-regualation ability. (3) Our neural experiments showed that highly intelligent children had more efficient neural automatic processing ability than normal children. They also had better, faster and larger neural reaction to novel stimuli under pre-attentional condition which made good and firm neural basis for self-regualation. Highly intelligent children had more mature frontal lobe and pariental functions for inhibition processing and executive processing. P3 component in ERP was closely related to executive processing which mainly activated pariental function. There were two time-periods for inhibition processing—first it was the pariental function and later it was the coordination function of frontal and pariental lobes. While conflict control task had pariental N2 and frontal-pariental P3 neural sources, highly intelligent children had much smaller N2 and shorter P3 latency than normal children. Inconsistency conditions induced larger N2 than conditions without inconsistency, and conditions without inconsistency (or Conflict) induced higher P3 amplitudes than with Inconsistency (or Conflict) conditions. In conclusion, the healthy development of self-regulation was very important for children’s personality and cognition maturity, and self-regulation had its own specific characteristics in ways of presentation and ways of development. Better understanding of self-regulation can further help the exploration of the nature of human intelligence and consciousness.

幼儿分类能力发展及促进的实验研究

Classification is a kind of basic cognitive process, and category is an important way for human beings to define the world. At the same time, categories are organized in a hierarchical way, which makes it possible for human beings to process information efficiency. For those reasons, the development of classification ability is always one of the foci in developmental psychology. By using the methods of spontaneous and trained classification of both familiar stimuli materials and artificial concepts, this research explored the 4-6 year old children's classification criteria. And by the artificial concept system formed in these classification criteria experiments, the mastery degree of class hierarchy in these young children was analyzed. The main results and conclusions are: 1) The classification ability increases quickly among kindergarteners from 4 to 6 year old: the 4 year old children seemed unable to classify objects by classificatory criteria, however, the 6 year ones had shown the ability in many experimental conditions. But the main basis of classificatory criteria in these young children, including 6 year old ones, was the functional relation of the objects but the conceptual relations, and their classification criteria was not consistent because they seem to be easily affected by experimental conditions. 2) The age of 5 is a more sensitive period of classification ability development: for the children of 5 year old, it was found that their classification ability was easily enhanced by training. The zone of proximal development in classification ability by category standard could probably lie in this period of age. 3) Knowledge is an important factor that affects young children's classification ability, meanwhile, their classification activity are affected by cognitive processing ability: young children exhibited different classification ability as they had different understanding of stimuli materials. Kindergarteners of different age were significantly different in their classification ability as the difference in cognitive processing ability, even if they had the same knowledge about the stimuli materials. 4) Different properties of class hierarchy are different in difficulty for young children: the 5-6 year old children showed that the could master the transitivity of the class hierarchy. No matter under what learning condition, they could answer most of the transitivity questions correctly and infer the property of the sub-class according to that of the super-class. The young children at 5-6 years old had mastered the branching property of class hierarchy at a relative high level, but their answers were easily affected by the hints in the questions. However, it seemed that the asymmetry of class hierarchy was difficult for young children to learn. Because young children could not understand the class inclusion relation, they always drew wrong conclusions about super-class from sub-class in their classification.

长时记忆中图形不同特征的加工与提取

Information can be represented both conceptually and imaginarily in long-term memory. However, it seems that only conceptual representation appears, neglecting imaginary information, in most of the long-term memory (LTM) models. In the matter of fact, picture can be stored in LTM directly and conceptually. There is no evidence for what specific type of information, conceptual or imaginary, for the color, shape, or texture to be represented. However, it is evident that the shape and color can be represented separately in LMT. Further research is needed on whether features are represented separately or not, such as color and texture, texture and shape etc. Rehearsal plays important role in picture memory besides the types of storage and representation. Memory of picture is indeed enhanced by rehearsal. There are two types of rehearsal. One is for creating image, another is articulatory loop. Which one will be taken during picture memory process depends on the characteristics of stimuli, subjects' encoding preferences and/or task requirements. Nevertheless, the relation between two types of rehearsal is not very clear yet up to now. Different features could be activated at different time course or possibilities since they can be represented separately. Six experiments were conducted dealing with the characteristics of representation, rehearsal and retrieval of picture in LTM. From these experiments, further understanding of picture information processing was expected. It would add more evidence to the LTM models, and make practical sense to the computer visual identification. The first two experiments were based on the paradigm from Hanna et al.(1996) to investigate separable representation of texture and shape, texture and color. The results indicated that texture could be represented separately with color and shape respectively. It suggested that different features might be processed in different way during remembering. Another interest finding is that recognition performance for shape, color and texture are quite different. What for shape is highest, for color is lowest, and for texture is between of them. Three features of picture can be represented separately. How about the roles of rehearsal when they enter the LTM from short-term memory(STM)? The second three experiments assigned three different types of rehearsal, i. e. visual, verbal, and subject-run(might be both of visual and verbal). The findings are that performances of picture memory were affected significantly by different types of rehearsal. Both visual and verbal rehearsal played important role during remembering process. It seems that verbal rehearsal, which might enhance the relative strength of memory trace, was much more effective than visual one. In addition, subjects tended to choose those difficult-to-name, features to rehearse, to improve the memory performance. Only two features were changed in each of the first two experiments. They might interact (facilitate or disturb) each other when they were retrieved. So it was difficult to identify the retrieval difference between them. In the last experiment, easy-to-name pictures were studied, and only one feature could be recognized. The results indicated that the retrieval performances of three features(shape, color, and texture) were quite different. They were different on the relative strength of memory trace, with the shape was strongest, color was lightest, and texture was in between. No difference was found on the absolute strength of them.

印象形成中同化和对比效应研究

Impression formation is an important aspect of person perception and has important interpersonal consequences. There are assimilation and contrast effects in impression formation and is still considerable debate regarding the best way to account for them. This present research used trait-implying sentences as priming materials, trait inferences sever as self-generated primes, examined the effect of different trait knowledge in assimilation and contrast effects. Experiment 1 determined the priming and target stimuli of this research by pretest. In experiment 2, participants read trait-implying sentences and resulted in trait inference as self-generated primes, examined the influence of trait activation on impression formation. The results indicated that participants instructed to memorize trait-implying sentences showed assimilation effect, whereas participants instructed to form impression from trait-implying sentences showed contrast effect. Difference to previous studies that emphasized the impact of awareness of the prime in impression formation, this research paid attention to the impact of different trait knowledge that resulted from trait inference. Experiment 3 studied the influence of actor salience on impression formation. The results indicated that when trait-implying sentences that described actors with names and were accompanied with photos of the actors, participants showed contrast under both memorization and impression instructions. Experiment 4 studied the influence of attribution context on assimilation and contrasts. The results showed that contrast ensued when trait-implying sentences were accompanied with the information that suggested a person attribution, whereas assimilation ensued when that information suggested a situation attribution, independent of processing goals. Experiment 5 made a direct test of the effect of different trait knowledge in impression formation. The results discovered that when abstract trait concepts were activated they act as a general interpretation frame in encoding stage, whereas when specific actor-trait links were activated, the activated information is likely to be used as a comparative standard in judgment stage. All studied indicated that there are two types of activated trait knowledge in trait inference: abstract trait concepts versus specific actor-trait links. When trait inference activated abstract trait concepts, the activated information serves as interpretation frame and lead to assimilation effect during impression formation, when trait inference activated specific actor-trait links, the activated information is more likely to be used as a comparative standards and resulted in contrast effects. These findings have important implications for understanding the mechanism of impression formation and practical values for interpersonal communication.

汉字音匹配和半球加工

This study explores hemispheric processing and relations during the homophone matching. In the literature summary, we review the past studies employing Tachistoscopic Presentation of Divided View Field (DVF) to the two hemispheres cooperation, and point out the different and complex opinions about both homophone matching and hemispheric processing. to some focuses, we handle this study by six behavioral experiments. First, under the condition of stimulus presenting simultaneously and function of graphic/semantic dimension, we study the bilateral/unilateral processing efficiency, the function on the level of synonym/similar grapheme. Main result shows, during homophone matching, bilateral processing is better than unilateral one, i.e., bilateral processing advantage rises. For further study whether the effects of transferring information between hemispheres will change along the time, combining with the paradigm of Priming, we make the stimulus present in the certain order; and under the function of graphic/semantic dimension, we also study the bilateral/unilateral processing efficiency, the function on the level of synonym/similar grapheme. Results show, there is semantic/graphic information which brings effects on homophone matching transferring between two hemispheres. And semantic/graphic information can be affected with the time, for example, when SOA = 210ms, the effect of semantic/graphic information disappears. When homophone present in the sequence, bilateral processing advantage also disappears, there are no significant differences between bilateral processing and unilateral one. In addition, we also explore whether sex differences exist during bilateral homophone matching, and we get, there are no significant differences between different sex. Among all experimental results, we also find several special phenomenon as the following example: 1) when stimuli presenting simultaneously during homophone matching on the level of synonym/similar grapheme, the processing effect of LVF(Left View Field) is better than RVF (Right View Field). 2) when stimuli presenting simultaneously, during homophone matching on the level of synonym/similar grapheme, one hemisphere may inhibit the other (because of the interference). to wrap up, under certain condition bilateral processing advantage is obtained, and during the interhemispheric interaction when homophone matching, some kind of information will relay between two hemispheres. And when two hemispheres cooperate, mutual inhibition (or interference) also follows. Further, interhemispheric interaction is closely connected with time, the attribution of stimuli, and so on. At last, a model is put forward to describe the coordinated process and the possible relations between two hemispheres.

汉字形音义加工时间进程的事件相关电位（ERP）研究

The time-courses of orthographic, phonological and semantic processing of Chinese characters were investigated systematically with multi-channel event-related potentials (ERPs). New evidences concerning whether phonology or semantics is processed first and whether phonology mediates semantic access were obtained, supporting and developing the new concept of repetition, overlapping, and alternating processing in Chinese character recognition. Statistic parameter mapping based on physiological double dissociation has been developed. Seven experiments were conducted: I) deciding which type of structure, left-right or non-left-right, the character displayed on the screen was; 2) deciding whether or not there was a vowel/a/in the pronunciation of the character; 3) deciding which classification, natural object or non-natural object, the character was; 4) deciding which color, red or green, the character was; 5) deciding which color, red or green, the non-character was; 6) fixing on the non-character; 7) fixing on the crosslet. The main results are: 1. N240 and P240:N240 and P240 localized at occipital and prefrontal respectively were found in experiments 1, 2, 3, and 4, but not in experiments 5, 6, or 7. The difference between the former 4 and the latter 3 experiments was only their stimuli: the former's were true Chinese characters while the latter's were non-characters or crosslet. Thus Chinese characters were related to these two components, which reflected unique processing of Chinese characters peaking at about 240 msec. 2. Basic visual feature analysis: In comparison with experiment 7 there was a common cognitive process in experiments 1, 2, 4, and 6 - basic visual feature analysis. The corresponding ERP amplitude increase in most sites started from about 60 msec. 3. Orthography: The ERP differences located at the main processing area of orthography (occipital) between experiments 1, 2, 3, 4 and experiment 5 started from about 130 msec. This was the category difference between Chinese characters and non-characters, which revealed that orthographic processing started from about 130 msec. The ERP differences between the experiments 1, 2, 3 and the experiment 4 occurred in 210-250, 230-240, and 190-250 msec respectively, suggesting orthography was processed again. These were the differences between language and non-language tasks, which revealed a higher level processing than that in the above mentioned 130 msec. All the phenomena imply that the orthographic processing does not finished in one time of processing; the second time of processing is not a simple repetition, but a higher level one. 4. Phonology: The ERPs of experiment 2 (phonological task) were significantly stronger than those of experiment 3 (semantic task) at the main processing areas of phonology (temporal and left prefrontal) starting from about 270 msec, which revealed phonologic processing. The ERP differences at left frontal between experiment 2 and experiment 1 (orthographic task) started from about 250 msec. When comparing phonological task with experiment 4 (character color decision), the ERP differences at left temporal and prefrontal started from about 220 msec. Thus phonological processing may start before 220 msec. 5. Semantic: The ERPs of experiment 3 (semantic task) were significantly stronger than those of experiment 2 (phonological task) at the main processing areas of semantics (parietal and occipital) starting from about 290 msec, which revealed semantic processing. The ERP differences at these areas between experiment 3 and experiment 4 (character color decision) started from about 270 msec. The ERP differences between experiment 3 and experiment 1 (orthographic task) started from about 260 msec. Thus semantic processing may start before 260 msec. 6. Overlapping of phonological and semantic processing: From about 270 to 350 msec, the ERPs of experiment 2 (phonological task) were significantly larger than those of experiment 3 (semantic task) at the main processing areas of phonology (temporal and left prefrontal); while from about 290-360 msec, the ERPs of experiment 3 were significantly larger than those of experiment 2 at the main processing areas of semantics (frontal, parietal, and occipital). Thus phonological processing may start earlier than semantic and their time-courses may alternate, which reveals parallel processing. 7. Semantic processing needs part phonology: When experiment 1 (orthographic task) served as baseline, the ERPs of experiment 2 and 3 (phonological and semantic tasks) significantly increased at the main processing areas of phonology (left temporal and frontal) starting from about 250 msec. The ERPs of experiment 3, besides, increased significantly at the main processing areas of semantics (parietal and frontal) starting from about 260 msec. When experiment 4 (character color decision) served as baseline, the ERPs of experiment 2 and 3 significantly increased at phonological areas (left temporal and frontal) starting from about 220 msec. The ERPs of experiment 3, similarly, increased significantly at semantic areas (parietal and frontal) starting from about270 msec. Hence, before semantic processing, a part of phonological information may be required. The conclusion could be got from above results in the present experimental conditions: 1. The basic visual feature processing starts from about 60 msec; 2. Orthographic processing starts from about 130 msec, and repeats at about 240 msec. The second processing is not simple repetition of the first one, but a higher level processing; 3. Phonological processing begins earlier than semantic, and their time-courses overlap; 4. Before semantic processing, a part of phonological information may be required; 5. The repetition, overlapping, and alternating of the orthographic, phonological and semantic processing of Chinese characters could exist in cognition. Thus the problem of whether phonology mediates semantics access is not a simple, but a complicated issue.

认知电位时空模式研究

This report mainly focused on methodology of spatiotemporal patterns (STP) of cognitive potentials or event-related potentials (ERP). The representation of STP of brain wave is an important issue in the research of neural assemblies. This paper described methods of parametric 3D head or brain modeling and its corresponding interpolation for functional imaging based on brain waves. The 3D interpolation method is an extension of cortical imaging technique. It can be used with transformed domain features of brain wave on realistic head or brain models. The simulating results suggests that it is a better method in comparison with the global nearest neighbor technique. A stable and definite STP of brainwave referred as microstate may become basic element for comprehending sophisticated cognitive processes. Fuzzy c-mean algorithm was applied to segmentation STPs of ERP into microstates and corresponding membership functions. The optimal microstate number was estimated with both the trends of objective function against increasing clustering number and the decorrelation technique base don microstate shape similarity. Comparable spatial patterns may occur at different moments in time with fuzzy indices and thus the serial processing limit generated from behavioral methods has been break through. High-resolution frequency domain analysis was carried out with multivariate autoregressive model. Bases on a 3D interpolation mentioned above, visualization of dynamical coordination of cerebral network was realized with magnitude-squared partial coherence. Those technique illustrated with multichannel ERP of 9 subjects when they undertook Strop task. Stroop effects involves several regions during post-perception stage with technique of statistical parameter mapping based F-test [SPM(F)]. As SPM(F) suggested task effects occurred within 100 ms after stimuli presentation involved several sensory regions, it may reflect the top-down processing effect.

色光适应条件下对人眼颜色感受性变化的研究及其机制的初步探讨

The fact of change in human vision sensitivity in color adaption was studied with the method of minimo step change. In this experiment, subjects were asked to judge the just-different threshold on 1° target stimulus which superimposed on 6° background. The target and the surrourding field flicked and different kinds of stimuli were shown to Ss. Data of Pre-color adaption and that of post-color adaption have been compared and ① Evidence of opponent effect is found. This result is contraversary to coefficient law and the "two process" hypothesis are supported; ② Opponent effect is strongly related to the kinds of stimuli ③ When the background light flicks, subjects sensitivity to target stimuli is obviously increased while under the condition of flicking target stimuli less increase can be found. But the increase in sensitivity seem to be not related with color adaption.

Disparity Gradients and Depth Scaling

The binocular perception of shape and depth relations between objects can change considerably if the viewing direction is changed only by a small angle. We explored this effect psychophysically and found a strong depth reduction effect for large disparity gradients. The effect is found to be strongest for horizontally oriented stimuli, and stronger for line stimuli than for points. This depth scaling effect is discussed in a computational framework of stereo based on a Baysian approach which allows integration of information from different types of matching primitives weighted according to their robustness.

Parallel Computation of Vernier Offsets, Curvature and Chevrons in Humans

A vernier offset is detected at once among straight lines, and reaction times are almost independent of the number of simultaneously presented stimuli (distractors), indicating parallel processing of vernier offsets. Reaction times for identifying a vernier offset to one side among verniers offset to the opposite side increase with the number of distractors, indicating serial processing. Even deviations below a photoreceptor diameter can be detected at once. The visual system thus attains positional accuracy below the photoreceptor diameter simultaneously at different positions. I conclude that deviation from straightness, or change of orientation, is detected in parallel over the visual field. Discontinuities or gradients in orientation may represent an elementary feature of vision.

Viewpoint-Specific Representations in Three-Dimensional Object Recognition

We report a series of psychophysical experiments that explore different aspects of the problem of object representation and recognition in human vision. Contrary to the paradigmatic view which holds that the representations are three-dimensional and object-centered, the results consistently support the notion of view-specific representations that include at most partial depth information. In simulated experiments that involved the same stimuli shown to the human subjects, computational models built around two-dimensional multiple-view representations replicated our main psychophysical results, including patterns of generalization errors and the time course of perceptual learning.

Spatial Reference Frames for Object Recognition: Tuning for Rotations in Depth

The inferior temporal cortex (IT) of monkeys is thought to play an essential role in visual object recognition. Inferotemporal neurons are known to respond to complex visual stimuli, including patterns like faces, hands, or other body parts. What is the role of such neurons in object recognition? The present study examines this question in combined psychophysical and electrophysiological experiments, in which monkeys learned to classify and recognize novel visual 3D objects. A population of neurons in IT were found to respond selectively to such objects that the monkeys had recently learned to recognize. A large majority of these cells discharged maximally for one view of the object, while their response fell off gradually as the object was rotated away from the neuron"s preferred view. Most neurons exhibited orientation-dependent responses also during view-plane rotations. Some neurons were found tuned around two views of the same object, while a very small number of cells responded in a view- invariant manner. For five different objects that were extensively used during the training of the animals, and for which behavioral performance became view-independent, multiple cells were found that were tuned around different views of the same object. No selective responses were ever encountered for views that the animal systematically failed to recognize. The results of our experiments suggest that neurons in this area can develop a complex receptive field organization as a consequence of extensive training in the discrimination and recognition of objects. Simple geometric features did not appear to account for the neurons" selective responses. These findings support the idea that a population of neurons -- each tuned to a different object aspect, and each showing a certain degree of invariance to image transformations -- may, as an assembly, encode complex 3D objects. In such a system, several neurons may be active for any given vantage point, with a single unit acting like a blurred template for a limited neighborhood of a single view.

The Role of Attention in Binocular Rivalry as Revealed Through Optokinetic Nystagmus

When stimuli presented to the two eyes differ considerably, stable binocular fusion fails, and the subjective percept alternates between the two monocular images, a phenomenon known as binocular rivalry. The influence of attention over this perceptual switching has long been studied, and although there is evidence that attention can affect the alternation rate, its role in the overall dynamics of the rivalry process remains unclear. The present study investigated the relationship between the attention paid to the rivalry stimulus, and the dynamics of the perceptual alternations. Specifically, the temporal course of binocular rivalry was studied as the subjects performed difficult nonvisual and visual concurrent tasks, directing their attention away from the rivalry stimulus. Periods of complete perceptual dominance were compared for the attended condition, where the subjects reported perceptual changes, and the unattended condition, where one of the simultaneous tasks was performed. During both the attended and unattended conditions, phases of rivalry dominance were obtained by analyzing the subject"s optokinetic nystagmus recorded by an electrooculogram, where the polarity of the nystagmus served as an objective indicator of the perceived direction of motion. In all cases, the presence of a difficult concurrent task had little or no effect on the statistics of the alternations, as judged by two classic tests of rivalry, although the overall alternation rate showed a small but significant increase with the concurrent task. It is concluded that the statistical patterns of rivalry alternations are not governed by attentional shifts or decision-making on the part of the subject.

How do Humans Determine Reflectance Properties under Unknown Illumination?

Under normal viewing conditions, humans find it easy to distinguish between objects made out of different materials such as plastic, metal, or paper. Untextured materials such as these have different surface reflectance properties, including lightness and gloss. With single isolated images and unknown illumination conditions, the task of estimating surface reflectance is highly underconstrained, because many combinations of reflection and illumination are consistent with a given image. In order to work out how humans estimate surface reflectance properties, we asked subjects to match the appearance of isolated spheres taken out of their original contexts. We found that subjects were able to perform the task accurately and reliably without contextual information to specify the illumination. The spheres were rendered under a variety of artificial illuminations, such as a single point light source, and a number of photographically-captured real-world illuminations from both indoor and outdoor scenes. Subjects performed more accurately for stimuli viewed under real-world patterns of illumination than under artificial illuminations, suggesting that subjects use stored assumptions about the regularities of real-world illuminations to solve the ill-posed problem.