he Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect is considered evidence of the a... more he Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect is considered evidence of the association between number magnitude and space, and consists of faster left key-press responses to small numbers and faster right key-press responses to large numbers [1]. Recent studies found that this association extends to non-numerical magnitudes, such as to luminance [2] and to the physical size of pictorial surfaces[3]. Sarcetta, Prpic, Murgia, Galmonte & Agostini (2015) [4] investigated whether this effect extends to phenomenal size of two-dimensional figures. Authors found a SNARC-like effect associated to the physical size of the inducers used in the Delboeuf size-contrast configuration (i.e., closed rings) and the Kaniza’s triangle (i.e., pacmans). No SNARC-like effect was instead observed for the phenomenal size of the two-dimensional figures (i.e., filled circle and illusory triangle). The present study further extends this line of research aiming at investigating if a SNARC-l...
A large number of studies have focused on the aesthetic value of smoothly curved objects. By cont... more A large number of studies have focused on the aesthetic value of smoothly curved objects. By contrast, angular shapes tend to be associated with tertiary qualities such as threat, hardness, loudness, nervousness, etc. The present study focuses on the effect of curvilinearity vs angularity on the aesthetic experience of design artefacts. We used the drawings of everyday objects with novel shapes created by 56 designers (IUAV image dataset). Each drawing had two versions: a smooth and an angular version. To test new tertiary associations, beyond aesthetic value, we obtained ratings for seven characteristics (‘soft/hard, sad/cheerful, male/female, bad/good, aggressive/peaceful, agitated/serene, useless/useful’) from 174 naïve observers. Importantly, each naïve rater saw only one of the two versions of an object. The results confirmed a significant relation between smoothness and hardness as well as other (tertiary) associations. The link between smoothness and usefulness confirms that ...
Spatial cueing of attention occurs when attention is oriented by the onset of a stimulus or by ot... more Spatial cueing of attention occurs when attention is oriented by the onset of a stimulus or by other information that creates a bias towards a particular location. The presence of a cue that orients attention can also interfere with participants' reporting of what they see. It has been suggested that this type of interference is stronger in the presence of socially-relevant cues, such as human faces or avatars, and is therefore indicative of a specialised role for perspective calculation within the social domain. However, there is also evidence that the effect is a domain-general form of processing that is elicited equally with non-social directional cues. The current paper comprises four experiments that systematically manipulated the social factors believed necessary to elicit the effect. The results show that interference persists when all social components are removed, and that visual processes are sufficient to explain this type of interference, thus supporting a domain-gen...
The term simultaneous lightness constancy describes the capacity of the visual system to perceive... more The term simultaneous lightness constancy describes the capacity of the visual system to perceive equal reflecting surfaces as having the same lightness despite lying in different illumination fields. In some cases, however, a simultaneous lightness failure occurs, that is equal reflecting surfaces appear different in lightness when differently illuminated. An open question is if the luminance profile of the illumination edges affects simultaneous lightness constancy even when the ratio invariance property of the illumination edges is preserved. To explore this issue, we run two experiments by using bipartite illumination displays. Both the luminance profile of an illumination edge and the luminance ratio amplitude between the illumination fields were manipulated. Results revealed that the simultaneous lightness constancy increases when the luminance profile of the illumination edge is gradual (rather than sharp) and homogenous (rather than inhomogeneous), whilst it decreases when t...
The Simultaneous Lightness Contrast (SLC) is the condition whereby a grey patch on a dark backgro... more The Simultaneous Lightness Contrast (SLC) is the condition whereby a grey patch on a dark background appears lighter than an equal patch on a light background. Interestingly, the perceptual lightness difference between these patches undergoes to a substantial augment when the two backgrounds – although maintaining the same luminance average – are patterned shaping what can be named the articulated-SLC. Two are the main interpretations of these phenomena. The layer approach claims that the visual system splits the luminance into separate overlapping layers, corresponding to separate physical contributions, whilst the framework approach maintains that the visual system groups the luminance within a set of contiguous frameworks. To contrast these two viewpoints in a psychophysics experiment run in Virtual Reality conditions, the articulated-SLC phenomenon has been measured by systematically manipulating the belongingness of pairs of luminance ratios sharing the same polarity. This is a...
The aim of the current project was to investigate aesthetics in multi-sensorial stimulation and t... more The aim of the current project was to investigate aesthetics in multi-sensorial stimulation and to explore individual differences in the process. We measured the aesthetics of interactive objects (IOs) which are three-dimensional objects with electronic components that exhibit an autonomous behaviour when handled, e.g., vibrating, playing a sound, or lighting-up. The Q-sorting procedure of Q-methodology was applied. Data were analysed by following the Qmulti protocol. The results suggested that overall participants preferred IOs that (i) vibrate, (ii) have rough surface texture, and (iii) are round. No particular preference emerged about the size of the IOs. When making an aesthetic judgment, participants paid more attention to the behaviour variable of the IOs than the size, contour or surface texture. In addition, three clusters of participants were identified, suggesting that individual differences existed in the aesthetics of IOs. Without proper consideration of potential indivi...
In this chapter we introduce the use of GUIDE, which is the MATLAB Graphical User Interface Devel... more In this chapter we introduce the use of GUIDE, which is the MATLAB Graphical User Interface Development Environment. This tool enables the user to create Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) that can be used to facilitate interaction with your programs.
Beauty plays an important role in everyday life. When we shop, for example, our preferences often... more Beauty plays an important role in everyday life. When we shop, for example, our preferences often rely on aesthetic evaluations. This decision-making process is rooted in our brain and is often based on the stimulation of multiple senses at once. To investigate how each of our senses contributes to the overall aesthetic experience Soranzo et al. (2018) studied the aesthetics of the Interactive Objects (IOs); which are objects supplied with electronics that react when handled; e.g. by vibrating, sounding or lightning-up. It emerged that people prefer objects exhibiting a “behaviour” over quiescent objects. Furthermore, interesting different aesthetics “mindsets” emerged: Some people based their aesthetic judgments on the IOs’ behaviour only and other also considered a combination of IOs’ texture and shape. These individual differences are important as the aesthetic response is a subjective and a whimsical experience. To further explore the individual differences in multiple stimulati...
The Mona Lisa is the most-visited, most written about and most parodied work of art in the world... more The Mona Lisa is the most-visited, most written about and most parodied work of art in the world. However, the ‘uncatchable smile’ that makes Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa so special is not unique. In previous research, Soranzo & Newberry (2015, VR) found that the technique which would later give his most famous subject her mysterious allure was first executed in the lesser-known painting, La Bella Principessa, recently claimed to be a "Leonardo" (Kemp & Cotte,2010). Soranzo & Newberry suggested that most of the "mysterious allure" of both Mona Lisa and La Bella Principssa can be explained by an illusion of direction of the mouth of the portrayed subjects which is spatial frequency dependend: When viewed directly the slant of the mouth of the subjects appears to turn downwards, but when viewed from far away the edges of the mouth appear to take an upward turn. At its turn, this perceived change in the mouth slant, generate a perceived change in the facial...
A 3D virtual environment (a VR cave) is an extremely beneficial tool for the examination of visua... more A 3D virtual environment (a VR cave) is an extremely beneficial tool for the examination of visual perception. So far, very little work on Virtual Reality has been specifically dedicated to human perception. Nevertheless, this technology has a number of advantages over traditional computer- or paper-based experiments. Virtual reality provides precise control over the visual scene, to a degree that is extremely difficult to achieve by manipulating physical objects in a room. More specifically, it allows full control of the luminance and of the spatial arrangement of the surfaces in the environment. In addition, within the immersive system, depth perception can be elicited through a combination of binocular stereopsis, head motion parallax and maintaining constant luminance intensity. This chapter outlines how recent studies in visual perception have employed an immersive 3D environment and discusses directions for future research.
This article serves as a step-by-step guide of a new application of Q-methodology to investigate ... more This article serves as a step-by-step guide of a new application of Q-methodology to investigate people’s preferences for multivariate stimuli. Q-methodology has been widely applied in fields such as sociology, education and political sciences but, despite its numerous advantages, it has not yet gained much attention from experimental psychologists. This may be due to the fact that psychologists examining preferences, often adopt stimuli resulting from a combination of characteristics from multiple variables, and in repeated measure designs. At present, Q methodology has not been adapted to accommodate. We therefore developed a novel analysis procedure allowing Q-methodology to handle these conditions. We propose a protocol requiring five analyses of a decision process to estimate: (1) the preference of stimuli, (2) the dominance of variables, (3) the individual differences, (4) the interaction between individual differences and preference, and (5) the interaction between individual...
he Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect is considered evidence of the a... more he Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect is considered evidence of the association between number magnitude and space, and consists of faster left key-press responses to small numbers and faster right key-press responses to large numbers [1]. Recent studies found that this association extends to non-numerical magnitudes, such as to luminance [2] and to the physical size of pictorial surfaces[3]. Sarcetta, Prpic, Murgia, Galmonte & Agostini (2015) [4] investigated whether this effect extends to phenomenal size of two-dimensional figures. Authors found a SNARC-like effect associated to the physical size of the inducers used in the Delboeuf size-contrast configuration (i.e., closed rings) and the Kaniza’s triangle (i.e., pacmans). No SNARC-like effect was instead observed for the phenomenal size of the two-dimensional figures (i.e., filled circle and illusory triangle). The present study further extends this line of research aiming at investigating if a SNARC-l...
A large number of studies have focused on the aesthetic value of smoothly curved objects. By cont... more A large number of studies have focused on the aesthetic value of smoothly curved objects. By contrast, angular shapes tend to be associated with tertiary qualities such as threat, hardness, loudness, nervousness, etc. The present study focuses on the effect of curvilinearity vs angularity on the aesthetic experience of design artefacts. We used the drawings of everyday objects with novel shapes created by 56 designers (IUAV image dataset). Each drawing had two versions: a smooth and an angular version. To test new tertiary associations, beyond aesthetic value, we obtained ratings for seven characteristics (‘soft/hard, sad/cheerful, male/female, bad/good, aggressive/peaceful, agitated/serene, useless/useful’) from 174 naïve observers. Importantly, each naïve rater saw only one of the two versions of an object. The results confirmed a significant relation between smoothness and hardness as well as other (tertiary) associations. The link between smoothness and usefulness confirms that ...
Spatial cueing of attention occurs when attention is oriented by the onset of a stimulus or by ot... more Spatial cueing of attention occurs when attention is oriented by the onset of a stimulus or by other information that creates a bias towards a particular location. The presence of a cue that orients attention can also interfere with participants' reporting of what they see. It has been suggested that this type of interference is stronger in the presence of socially-relevant cues, such as human faces or avatars, and is therefore indicative of a specialised role for perspective calculation within the social domain. However, there is also evidence that the effect is a domain-general form of processing that is elicited equally with non-social directional cues. The current paper comprises four experiments that systematically manipulated the social factors believed necessary to elicit the effect. The results show that interference persists when all social components are removed, and that visual processes are sufficient to explain this type of interference, thus supporting a domain-gen...
The term simultaneous lightness constancy describes the capacity of the visual system to perceive... more The term simultaneous lightness constancy describes the capacity of the visual system to perceive equal reflecting surfaces as having the same lightness despite lying in different illumination fields. In some cases, however, a simultaneous lightness failure occurs, that is equal reflecting surfaces appear different in lightness when differently illuminated. An open question is if the luminance profile of the illumination edges affects simultaneous lightness constancy even when the ratio invariance property of the illumination edges is preserved. To explore this issue, we run two experiments by using bipartite illumination displays. Both the luminance profile of an illumination edge and the luminance ratio amplitude between the illumination fields were manipulated. Results revealed that the simultaneous lightness constancy increases when the luminance profile of the illumination edge is gradual (rather than sharp) and homogenous (rather than inhomogeneous), whilst it decreases when t...
The Simultaneous Lightness Contrast (SLC) is the condition whereby a grey patch on a dark backgro... more The Simultaneous Lightness Contrast (SLC) is the condition whereby a grey patch on a dark background appears lighter than an equal patch on a light background. Interestingly, the perceptual lightness difference between these patches undergoes to a substantial augment when the two backgrounds – although maintaining the same luminance average – are patterned shaping what can be named the articulated-SLC. Two are the main interpretations of these phenomena. The layer approach claims that the visual system splits the luminance into separate overlapping layers, corresponding to separate physical contributions, whilst the framework approach maintains that the visual system groups the luminance within a set of contiguous frameworks. To contrast these two viewpoints in a psychophysics experiment run in Virtual Reality conditions, the articulated-SLC phenomenon has been measured by systematically manipulating the belongingness of pairs of luminance ratios sharing the same polarity. This is a...
The aim of the current project was to investigate aesthetics in multi-sensorial stimulation and t... more The aim of the current project was to investigate aesthetics in multi-sensorial stimulation and to explore individual differences in the process. We measured the aesthetics of interactive objects (IOs) which are three-dimensional objects with electronic components that exhibit an autonomous behaviour when handled, e.g., vibrating, playing a sound, or lighting-up. The Q-sorting procedure of Q-methodology was applied. Data were analysed by following the Qmulti protocol. The results suggested that overall participants preferred IOs that (i) vibrate, (ii) have rough surface texture, and (iii) are round. No particular preference emerged about the size of the IOs. When making an aesthetic judgment, participants paid more attention to the behaviour variable of the IOs than the size, contour or surface texture. In addition, three clusters of participants were identified, suggesting that individual differences existed in the aesthetics of IOs. Without proper consideration of potential indivi...
In this chapter we introduce the use of GUIDE, which is the MATLAB Graphical User Interface Devel... more In this chapter we introduce the use of GUIDE, which is the MATLAB Graphical User Interface Development Environment. This tool enables the user to create Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) that can be used to facilitate interaction with your programs.
Beauty plays an important role in everyday life. When we shop, for example, our preferences often... more Beauty plays an important role in everyday life. When we shop, for example, our preferences often rely on aesthetic evaluations. This decision-making process is rooted in our brain and is often based on the stimulation of multiple senses at once. To investigate how each of our senses contributes to the overall aesthetic experience Soranzo et al. (2018) studied the aesthetics of the Interactive Objects (IOs); which are objects supplied with electronics that react when handled; e.g. by vibrating, sounding or lightning-up. It emerged that people prefer objects exhibiting a “behaviour” over quiescent objects. Furthermore, interesting different aesthetics “mindsets” emerged: Some people based their aesthetic judgments on the IOs’ behaviour only and other also considered a combination of IOs’ texture and shape. These individual differences are important as the aesthetic response is a subjective and a whimsical experience. To further explore the individual differences in multiple stimulati...
The Mona Lisa is the most-visited, most written about and most parodied work of art in the world... more The Mona Lisa is the most-visited, most written about and most parodied work of art in the world. However, the ‘uncatchable smile’ that makes Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa so special is not unique. In previous research, Soranzo & Newberry (2015, VR) found that the technique which would later give his most famous subject her mysterious allure was first executed in the lesser-known painting, La Bella Principessa, recently claimed to be a "Leonardo" (Kemp & Cotte,2010). Soranzo & Newberry suggested that most of the "mysterious allure" of both Mona Lisa and La Bella Principssa can be explained by an illusion of direction of the mouth of the portrayed subjects which is spatial frequency dependend: When viewed directly the slant of the mouth of the subjects appears to turn downwards, but when viewed from far away the edges of the mouth appear to take an upward turn. At its turn, this perceived change in the mouth slant, generate a perceived change in the facial...
A 3D virtual environment (a VR cave) is an extremely beneficial tool for the examination of visua... more A 3D virtual environment (a VR cave) is an extremely beneficial tool for the examination of visual perception. So far, very little work on Virtual Reality has been specifically dedicated to human perception. Nevertheless, this technology has a number of advantages over traditional computer- or paper-based experiments. Virtual reality provides precise control over the visual scene, to a degree that is extremely difficult to achieve by manipulating physical objects in a room. More specifically, it allows full control of the luminance and of the spatial arrangement of the surfaces in the environment. In addition, within the immersive system, depth perception can be elicited through a combination of binocular stereopsis, head motion parallax and maintaining constant luminance intensity. This chapter outlines how recent studies in visual perception have employed an immersive 3D environment and discusses directions for future research.
This article serves as a step-by-step guide of a new application of Q-methodology to investigate ... more This article serves as a step-by-step guide of a new application of Q-methodology to investigate people’s preferences for multivariate stimuli. Q-methodology has been widely applied in fields such as sociology, education and political sciences but, despite its numerous advantages, it has not yet gained much attention from experimental psychologists. This may be due to the fact that psychologists examining preferences, often adopt stimuli resulting from a combination of characteristics from multiple variables, and in repeated measure designs. At present, Q methodology has not been adapted to accommodate. We therefore developed a novel analysis procedure allowing Q-methodology to handle these conditions. We propose a protocol requiring five analyses of a decision process to estimate: (1) the preference of stimuli, (2) the dominance of variables, (3) the individual differences, (4) the interaction between individual differences and preference, and (5) the interaction between individual...
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