Numerosity and cumulative surface area are perceived holistically as integral dimensions.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Aulet LS
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7752852 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Similar Datasets
Project description:Although luminance is the main determinant of pupil size, the amplitude of the pupillary light response is also modulated by stimulus appearance and attention. Here we ask whether perceived numerosity modulates the pupillary light response. Participants passively observed arrays of black or white dots of matched physical luminance but different physical or illusory numerosity. In half the patterns, pairs of dots were connected by lines to create dumbbell-like shapes, inducing an illusory underestimation of perceived numerosity; in the other half, connectors were either displaced or removed. Constriction to white arrays and dilation to black were stronger for patterns with higher perceived numerosity, either physical or illusory, with the strength of the pupillary light response scaling with the perceived numerosity of the arrays. Our results show that even without an explicit task, numerosity modulates a simple automatic reflex, suggesting that numerosity is a spontaneously encoded visual feature.
| S-EPMC8511033 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Humans share with many animals a number sense, the ability to estimate rapidly the approximate number of items in a scene. Recent work has shown that like many other perceptual attributes, numerosity is susceptible to adaptation. It is not clear, however, whether adaptation works directly on mechanisms selective to numerosity, or via related mechanisms, such as those tuned to texture density. To disentangle this issue we measured adaptation of numerosity of 10 pairs of connected dots, as connecting dots makes them appear to be less numerous than unconnected dots. Adaptation to a 20-dot pattern (same number of dots as the test) caused robust reduction in apparent numerosity of the connected-dot pattern, but not of the unconnected dot-pattern. This suggests that adaptation to numerosity, at least for relatively sparse dot-pattern, occurs at neural levels encoding perceived numerosity, rather than at lower levels responding to the number of elements in the scene.
| S-EPMC5040501 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Visualizing the interior (lumen) of a tubular structure within tissue can provide a unique perspective on anatomical organization of the tissue. Portal tracts of the liver contain several vessels and ducts in various patterns of intertwining branches and are an example of such spaces. An inexpensive method, using light microscopy and a sample of conventionally stained canine livers, was used to colorize and allow visualization of the lumens of vessels within the portal tract in three dimensions. When the colour of the background was digitally cleared and the lumen filled with a solid colour, it was possible to measure areas and volumes of the portal vein, arteries, bile ducts and lymphatics. Significant differences between vessels and ducts across lobes and gender in control samples are discussed. Differences were also found between control and mixed breed dogs and between controls and a dog that died of accidental traumatic haemorrhage. These differences are discussed in relation to visualizing lumens using images generated from a light microscope. Vessels in plants such as xylem and continuously formed spaces resulting from ice formation are other examples where this technique could be applied.
| S-EPMC4460994 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Humans can quickly and intuitively represent the number of objects in a scene using visual evidence through the Approximate Number System (ANS). But the computations that support the encoding of visual number-the transformation from the retinal input into ANS representations-remain controversial. Two types of number encoding theories have been proposed: those arguing that number is encoded through a dedicated, enumeration computation, and those arguing that visual number is inferred from nonnumber specific visual features, such as surface area, density, convex hull, etc. Here, we attempt to adjudicate between these two theories by testing participants on both a number and a cumulative area task while also tracking their eye-movements. We hypothesize that if approximate number and surface area depend on distinct encoding computations, saccadic signatures should be distinct for the two tasks, even if the visual stimuli are identical. Consistent with this hypothesis, we find that discriminating number versus cumulative area modulates both where participants look (i.e., participants spend more time looking at the more numerous set in the number task and the larger set in the cumulative area task), and how participants look (i.e., cumulative area encoding shows fewer, longer saccades, while number encoding shows many short saccades and many switches between targets). We further identify several saccadic signatures that are associated with task difficulty and correct versus incorrect trials for both dimensions. These results suggest distinct encoding algorithms for number and cumulative area extraction, and thereby distinct representations of these dimensions.
| S-EPMC4654224 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Facial expressions play a leading role in human interactions because they provide signaling information of emotion and create social perceptions of an individuals' physical and personality traits. Smiling increases socially perceived attractiveness and is considered a signal of trustworthiness and intelligence. Despite the ample information regarding the social importance of an attractive smile, little is known about the association between smile characteristics and self-assessed smile attractiveness. Here we investigate the effect of smile dimensions on ratings of self-perceived smile attractiveness, in a group of 613 young adults using 3D facial imaging. We show a significant effect of proportional smile width (ratio of smile width to facial width) on self-perceived smile attractiveness. In fact, for every 10% increase in proportional smile width, self-perceived attractiveness ratings increased by 10.26%. In the present sample, this association was primarily evident in females. Our results indicate that objective characteristics of the smile influence self-perception of smile attractiveness. The increased strength of the effect in females provides support to the notion that females are overall more aware of their smile and the impact it has on their public image.
| S-EPMC7854600 | biostudies-literature
Project description:While seminal theories suggest that nonsymbolic visual numerosity is mainly extracted from segmented items, more recent views advocate that numerosity cannot be processed independently of nonnumeric continuous features confounded with the numerical set (i.e., such as the density, the convex hull, etc.). To disentangle these accounts, here we employed two different visual illusions presented in isolation or in a merged condition (e.g., combining the effects of the two illusions). In particular, in a number comparison task, we concurrently manipulated both the perceived object segmentation by connecting items with Kanizsa-like illusory lines, and the perceived convex-hull/density of the set by embedding the stimuli in a Ponzo illusion context, keeping constant other low-level features. In Experiment 1, the two illusions were manipulated in a compatible direction (i.e., both triggering numerical underestimation), whereas in Experiment 2 they were manipulated in an incompatible direction (i.e., with the Ponzo illusion triggering numerical overestimation and the Kanizsa illusion numerical underestimation). Results from psychometric functions showed that, in the merged condition, the biases of each illusion summated (i.e., largest underestimation as compared with the conditions in which illusions were presented in isolation) in Experiment 1, while they averaged and competed against each other in Experiment 2. These findings suggest that discrete nonsymbolic numerosity can be extracted independently from continuous magnitudes. They also point to the need of more comprehensive theoretical views accounting for the operations by which both discrete elements and continuous variables are computed and integrated by the visual system.
| S-EPMC8356546 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Translating a perceived number into a matching number of self-generated actions is a hallmark of numerical reasoning in humans and animals alike. To explore this sensorimotor transformation, we trained crows to judge numerical values in displays and to flexibly plan and perform a matching number of pecks. We report number selective sensorimotor neurons in the crow telencephalon that signaled the impending number of self-generated actions. Neuronal population activity during the sensorimotor transformation period predicted whether the crows mistakenly planned fewer or more pecks than instructed. During sensorimotor transformation, both a static neuronal code characterized by persistently number-selective neurons and a dynamic code originating from neurons carrying rapidly changing numerical information emerged. The findings indicate there are distinct functions of abstract neuronal codes supporting the sensorimotor number system.
| S-EPMC9663431 | biostudies-literature
Project description:It is well documented that people are good at the rapid representation of multiple objects in the form of ensemble summary statistics of different types (numerosity, the average feature, the variance of features, etc.). However, there is not enough clarity regarding the links between statistical domains. The relations between different-type summaries (numerosity and the mean) are of particular interest, since they can shed light on (1) a very general functional organization of ensemble processing and (2) mechanisms of statistical computations (whether averaging takes into account numerical information, as in regular statistics). Here, we show no correlation between the precision of estimated numerosity and that of the estimated mean. We also found that people are very good at dividing attention between numerosity and the mean size of a single set (Experiment 1); however, they show some cost of dividing attention between two same-type (two numerosities or two mean sizes, Experiment 2) and two different-type (one numerosity and one mean size, Experiment 3) summaries when each summary is ascribed to a different set. These results support the idea of domain specificity of numerosity and mean size perception, which also implies that, unlike regular statistics, computing the mean does not require numerosity information. We also conclude that computational capacity of ensemble statistics is more limited by encoding several ensembles than computing several summaries.
| S-EPMC5619754 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The number of elements in two stereo-surfaces parallelly overlapped in depth is overestimated compared to that in a single flat surface, even when both have the same number of elements. Using stereoscopic pairs of elements, we evaluated two hypotheses on the overestimation: one that a higher-order process, forming a background surface, increases the number of perceived elements, and the other that the number of elements potentially occluded by the elements on a front surface is taken accounted for. The data from four experiments showed that (a) when binocular disparity between (or among) stereoscopic elements was small, the overestimation occurred for the stimuli we used-a two-surface-overlapping stimulus, where the likelihood for the process to operate was manipulated by changing the averaged luminance of each surface, a volumetric stimulus, where the likelihood for the background surface to be formed would decrease, and a two-non-overlapping-surface stimulus, where the surfaces in depth were not overlapped-, and (b) when binocular disparity was large, the overestimation occurred for the two-surfaces-overlapping stimulus, when the averaged luminance of the two surfaces were the same, and for the volumetric stimulus, but diminished for the surface-overlapping stimulus, when the averaged luminance differed between the surfaces and for the surfaces-non-overlapping stimulus. These results cannot be explained either hypothesis only. We explain the results by postulating that the sensory system processing disparities of elements interferes with that estimating the number of elements, resulting in an overestimation of the elements in a stereo-stimulus, and the disparity range within which the interference occurs may depend on the stimulus depth structure.
| S-EPMC7117681 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The height growth of the trees depends on sufficient mechanical support given by the stem and an effective hydraulic system. On unstable slopes, tree growth is affected by soil pressure from above and potential soil erosion from below the position of tree. The necessary stabilization is then provided by the production of mechanically stronger wood of reduced hydraulic conductivity. Unfortunately, the interaction between tree growth (both radial and axial) and stabilization in the soil is still insufficiently understood. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to quantify the impact of hillslope dynamics on the degree of tree growth and hydraulic limitation, and the potential effect on tree height growth and growth plasticity. To evaluate this effect, we took four cores from 80 individuals of Quercus robur and Fraxinus excelsior and measured tree-ring widths (TRWs) and vessel lumen areas (VLAs). The tree heights were evaluated using a terrestrial laser scanner, and local soil depth was measured by a soil auger. Our data showed a significant limitation of the tree hydraulic system related with the formation of eccentric tree-rings. The stem eccentricity decreased with increasing stem diameter, but at the same time, the negative effect of stem eccentricity on conduit size increased with the increasing stem diameter. Even though this anatomical adaptation associated with the effect of stem eccentricity differed between the tree species (mainly in the different degree of limitations in conduit size), the trees showed an increase in the proportion of hydraulically inactive wood elements and a lowered effectiveness of their hydraulic system. In addition, we observed a larger negative effect of stem eccentricity on VLA in Quercus. We conclude that the stabilization of a tree in unstable soil is accompanied by an inability to create sufficiently effective hydraulic system, resulting in severe height-growth limitation. This affects the accumulation of aboveground biomass and carbon sequestration.
| S-EPMC8678277 | biostudies-literature