Visual attention in complex, dynamic scenes is attracted to locations that contain socially relevant features, such as faces, and to areas that are visually salient. Previous work suggests that there is a "global shift" over development such that observers increasingly attend to faces with age. However, no prior work has tested whether…

How are scene representations stored in memory? Researchers have often posited that scene representations have a hierarchical structure with background elements providing a scaffold for more detailed foreground elements. To further investigate scene representation and the role of background and foreground information, we introduced a new stimulus…

It is difficult to recognize the identity of a face presented in negative contrast. This difficulty, however, is substantially reduced when only the eye region is contrast positive in an otherwise negative face image, and recognition of these so-called contrast chimeras approaches performance with full positive faces. This apparently similar…

Objective: Individuals with Down syndrome have impaired linguistic ability but relatively good visuospatial cognition. A verbal-with-visual presentation enhanced the semantic grouping in individuals with Down syndrome, whereas a verbal presentation did not have this effect. This study aims to examine the influence of visual presentation on…

This study measured event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to test competing hypotheses regarding the effects of anger and race on early visual processing (N1, P2, and N2) and error recognition (ERN and Pe) during a sequentially primed weapon identification task. The first hypothesis was that anger would impair weapon identification in a biased…

Visual expertise is a fundamental proficiency in many vocations and many questions have risen on the topic, with studies looking at experts and novices differences' in observation (e.g., radiologists) or at ways to help novices achieve visual expertise (e.g., through annotations). However, most of these studies focus on white-collar professions…

Autism spectrum disorder is a pervasive neurodevelopmental disorder that has been linked to a range of perceptual processing alterations, including hypo- and hyperresponsiveness to sensory stimulation. A recently proposed theory that attempts to account for these symptoms, states that autistic individuals have a decreased ability to anticipate…

Recent studies have suggested that individuals who exhibit heightened sensitivity also exhibit higher rates and severity of restricted interests and repetitive behaviours. This line of research has been conducted almost exclusively through caregiver reports of sensitivity. Here, a more rigorous psychophysics paradigm was applied to assess sensory…

On forced-choice tests of recognition memory, performance is best when targets are paired with novel foils (A-X), followed by corresponding lures (A-A'), and then noncorresponding lures (A-B'). The current study tested the prediction that encoding variability accounts for reduced performance on A-B' trials. Young adults (n = 43) completed the…

This study investigates how task-irrelevant auditory information is processed in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Eighteen children with ASD and 19 age- and IQ-matched typically developing (TD) children were presented with semantically-congruent and incongruent picture-sound pairs, and in separate tasks were instructed to attend to…

The present study investigated how the eye contact perception of ingroup and outgroup faces by Japanese adults with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder differed from that of age-, sex-, and IQ-matched typically developing individuals. The autism spectrum disorder and typically developing individuals were equally likely to perceive subtly…

The development of the ability to anticipate--as manifested by preparatory actions and neural activation related to the expectation of an upcoming stimulus--may play a key role in the ontogeny of cognitive skills more broadly. This preregistered study examined anticipatory brain potentials and behavioral responses (reaction time; RT) to…

Being able to follow the direction of another person's line-of-sight facilitates social communication. To date, much research on the processes involved in social communication has been conducted using computer-based tasks that lack ecological validity. The current paradigm assesses how accurately participants can follow a social partner's…

We investigated whether clustering based on feature similarity improves the representational quality of visual working memory (VWM). We hypothesized that similar items are organized into clusters, and their recall precision increases with fewer clusters because of reduced memory load. In a series of 6 experiments, participants remembered…

Visual inspection of luggage using X-ray technology at airports is a time-sensitive task that is often supported by automated systems to increase performance and reduce workload. The present study evaluated how time pressure and automation support influence visual search behavior and performance in a simulated luggage screening task. Moreover, we…