TY - JOUR A1 - Kirsch, Wladimir A1 - Kunde, Wilfried T1 - Changes in body perception following virtual object manipulation are accompanied by changes of the internal reference scale JF - Scientific Reports N2 - Changes in body perception often arise when observers are confronted with related yet discrepant multisensory signals. Some of these effects are interpreted as outcomes of sensory integration of various signals, whereas related biases are ascribed to learning-dependent recalibration of coding individual signals. The present study explored whether the same sensorimotor experience entails changes in body perception that are indicative of multisensory integration and those that indicate recalibration. Participants enclosed visual objects by a pair of visual cursors controlled by finger movements. Then either they judged their perceived finger posture (indicating multisensory integration) or they produced a certain finger posture (indicating recalibration). An experimental variation of the size of the visual object resulted in systematic and opposite biases of the perceived and produced finger distances. This pattern of results is consistent with the assumption that multisensory integration and recalibration had a common origin in the task we used. KW - human behaviour KW - perception Y1 - 2023 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-357876 VL - 13 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kirsch, Wladimir A1 - Kitzmann, Tim A1 - Kunde, Wilfried T1 - Action affects perception through modulation of attention JF - Attention, Perception & Psychophysics N2 - The present study explored the origin of perceptual changes repeatedly observed in the context of actions. In Experiment 1, participants tried to hit a circular target with a stylus movement under restricted feedback conditions. We measured the perception of target size during action planning and observed larger estimates for larger movement distances. In Experiment 2, we then tested the hypothesis that this action specific influence on perception is due to changes in the allocation of spatial attention. For this purpose, we replaced the hitting task by conditions of focused and distributed attention and measured the perception of the former target stimulus. The results revealed changes in the perceived stimulus size very similar to those observed in Experiment 1. These results indicate that action's effects on perception root in changes of spatial attention. KW - perception KW - action KW - attention Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-273176 SN - 1943-393X VL - 83 IS - 5 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Glémarec, Yann A1 - Lugrin, Jean-Luc A1 - Bosser, Anne-Gwenn A1 - Collins Jackson, Aryana A1 - Buche, Cédric A1 - Latoschik, Marc Erich T1 - Indifferent or Enthusiastic? Virtual Audiences Animation and Perception in Virtual Reality JF - Frontiers in Virtual Reality N2 - In this paper, we present a virtual audience simulation system for Virtual Reality (VR). The system implements an audience perception model controlling the nonverbal behaviors of virtual spectators, such as facial expressions or postures. Groups of virtual spectators are animated by a set of nonverbal behavior rules representing a particular audience attitude (e.g., indifferent or enthusiastic). Each rule specifies a nonverbal behavior category: posture, head movement, facial expression and gaze direction as well as three parameters: type, frequency and proportion. In a first user-study, we asked participants to pretend to be a speaker in VR and then create sets of nonverbal behaviour parameters to simulate different attitudes. Participants manipulated the nonverbal behaviours of single virtual spectator to match a specific levels of engagement and opinion toward them. In a second user-study, we used these parameters to design different types of virtual audiences with our nonverbal behavior rules and evaluated their perceptions. Our results demonstrate our system’s ability to create virtual audiences with three types of different perceived attitudes: indifferent, critical, enthusiastic. The analysis of the results also lead to a set of recommendations and guidelines regarding attitudes and expressions for future design of audiences for VR therapy and training applications. KW - virtual reality KW - perception KW - nonverbal behavior KW - interaction KW - virtual agent KW - virtual audience Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-259328 VL - 2 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wermke, Kathleen A1 - Robb, Michael P. A1 - Schulter, Philip J. T1 - Melody complexity of infants’ cry and non-cry vocalisations increases across the first six months JF - Scientific Reports N2 - In early infancy, melody provides the most salient prosodic element for language acquisition and there is huge evidence for infants’ precocious aptitudes for musical and speech melody perception. Yet, a lack of knowledge remains with respect to melody patterns of infants’ vocalisations. In a search for developmental regularities of cry and non-cry vocalisations and for building blocks of prosody (intonation) over the first 6 months of life, more than 67,500 melodies (fundamental frequency contours) of 277 healthy infants from monolingual German families were quantitatively analysed. Based on objective criteria, vocalisations with well-identifiable melodies were grouped into those exhibiting a simple (single-arc) or complex (multiple-arc) melody pattern. Longitudinal analysis using fractional polynomial multi-level mixed effects logistic regression models were applied to these patterns. A significant age (but not sex) dependent developmental pattern towards more complexity was demonstrated in both vocalisation types over the observation period. The theoretical concept of melody development (MD-Model) contends that melody complexification is an important building block on the path towards language. Recognition of this developmental process will considerably improve not only our understanding of early preparatory processes for language acquisition, but most importantly also allow for the creation of clinically robust risk markers for developmental language disorders. KW - fundamental frequency variation KW - language acquisition KW - newborn infants KW - speech discrimination KW - perception KW - intonation KW - term patterns KW - preterm KW - evolution KW - psychology Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-258669 SN - 2045-2322 VL - 11 IS - 1 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Herget, Ann-Kristin A1 - Bötzl, Franziska T1 - Sounds Like Respect. The Impact of Background Music on the Acceptance of Gay Men in Audio-Visual Advertising JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - Companies increasingly seek to use gay protagonists in audio-visual commercials to attract a new affluent target group. There is also growing demand for the diversity present in society to be reflected in media formats such as advertising. Studies have shown, however, that heterosexual consumers (especially men), who may be part of the company's loyal consumer base, tend to react negatively to gay-themed advertising campaigns. Searching for an instrument to mitigate this unwanted effect, the present study investigated whether carefully selected background music can shape the perceived gender of gay male advertising protagonists. In a 2 × 2 between-subjects online experiment (musical connotation × gender of the participant), 218 heterosexual participants watched a commercial promoting engagement rings that featured gay male protagonists, scored with feminine- or masculine-connoted background music. As expected, women generally reacted more positively than men to the advertising. Men exposed to the masculine-connoted background music rated the promoted brand more positively, and masculine music also enhanced (at least in the short term) these men's acceptance of gay men in general (low and medium effect sizes) more than was the case for feminine background music. Carefully selected background music affecting the perceived gender of gay male advertising protagonists may prevent negative reactions from heterosexual audiences and, therefore, motivate companies to use gay protagonists in television commercials on a more regular basis. KW - music KW - perception KW - advertising KW - musical stereotypes KW - acceptance of gay men Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-237236 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 12 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kirsch, Wladimir A1 - Ullrich, Benjamin A1 - Kunde, Wilfried T1 - Are Effects of Action on Perception Real? Evidence from Transformed Movements JF - PLoS ONE N2 - It has been argued that several reported non-visual influences on perception cannot be truly perceptual. If they were, they should affect the perception of target objects and reference objects used to express perceptual judgments, and thus cancel each other out. This reasoning presumes that non-visual manipulations impact target objects and comparison objects equally. In the present study we show that equalizing a body-related manipulation between target objects and reference objects essentially abolishes the impact of that manipulation so as it should do when that manipulation actually altered perception. Moreover, the manipulation has an impact on judgements when applied to only the target object but not to the reference object, and that impact reverses when only applied to the reference object but not to the target object. A perceptual explanation predicts this reversal, whereas explanations in terms of post-perceptual response biases or demand effects do not. Altogether these results suggest that body-related influences on perception cannot as a whole be attributed to extra-perceptual factors. KW - vision KW - preprocessing KW - analysis of variance KW - sensory perception KW - hands KW - fingers KW - experimental design KW - perception Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-178574 VL - 11 IS - 12 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Reber, Elisabeth T1 - Constructing evidence at Prime Minister's Question Time: An analysis of the grammar, semantics and pragmatics of the verb see JF - Intercultural Pragmatics N2 - Abstract Constructing evidence constitutes a practice to establish the speaker's authority at Prime Minister's Question Time (PMQT), a weekly half-hour session in the British House of Commons. Here the verb see constitutes a resource for both the questioning Leader of the Opposition (LO) and Members of Parliament (MP) as well as for the responding Prime Minister (PM) to claim first-hand perceptual experience. This paper takes an integrated approach, offering a combined analysis of the grammatical formatting, semantics and pragmatics of the verb see in the context of evidential moves at PMQT. It shows how the verb see is functional in referring to the perceptual basis of a claim made and how its grammatical formatting is reflective of the contingencies of the local interactional context. The analysis is grounded in 32 sessions of PMQT (ca. 16 hrs of video-recordings). The results can be summarised as follows: 1) The evidential function of the verb is achieved through its context-specific grammatical formatting and semantics. 2) The reference to the perceptual basis of a claim evoked by see may co-occur with epistemic qualification and evaluative expressions. 3) The formatting of the verb may be indexical of the political relationship between the questioner and the responding PM. KW - parliamentary interaction KW - perception KW - evidentiality KW - epistemic modality KW - see Y1 - 2014 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-195549 SN - 1613-365X SN - 1612-295X N1 - Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG-geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich. VL - 11 IS - 3 SP - 357 EP - 387 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Peperkorn, Henrik M. A1 - Diemer, Julia E. A1 - Alpers, Georg W. A1 - Mühlberger, Andreas T1 - Representation of Patients' Hand Modulates Fear Reactions of Patients with Spider Phobia in Virtual Reality JF - frontiers in Psychology N2 - Embodiment (i.e., the involvement of a bodily representation) is thought to be relevant in emotional experiences. Virtual reality (VR) is a capable means of activating phobic fear in patients. The representation of the patient’s body (e.g., the right hand) in VR enhances immersion and increases presence, but its effect on phobic fear is still unknown. We analyzed the influence of the presentation of the participant’s hand in VR on presence and fear responses in 32 women with spider phobia and 32 matched controls. Participants sat in front of a table with an acrylic glass container within reaching distance. During the experiment this setup was concealed by a head-mounted display (HMD). The VR scenario presented via HMD showed the same setup, i.e., a table with an acrylic glass container. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two experimental groups. In one group, fear responses were triggered by fear-relevant visual input in VR (virtual spider in the virtual acrylic glass container), while information about a real but unseen neutral control animal (living snake in the acrylic glass container) was given. The second group received fear-relevant information of the real but unseen situation (living spider in the acrylic glass container), but visual input was kept neutral VR (virtual snake in the virtual acrylic glass container). Participants were instructed to touch the acrylic glass container with their right hand in 20 consecutive trials. Visibility of the hand was varied randomly in a within-subjects design. We found for all participants that visibility of the participant’s hand increased presence independently of the fear trigger. However, in patients, the influence of the virtual hand on fear depended on the fear trigger. When fear was triggered perceptually, i.e., by a virtual spider, the virtual hand increased fear. When fear was triggered by information about a real spider, the virtual hand had no effect on fear. Our results shed light on the significance of different fear triggers (visual, conceptual) in interaction with body representations. KW - virtual reality KW - presence KW - immersion KW - perception KW - fear KW - specific phobia Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-165307 VL - 7 IS - 268 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Chen, Yi-chun A1 - Mishra, Dushyant A1 - Gläß, Sebastian A1 - Gerber, Bertram T1 - Behavioral Evidence for Enhanced Processing of the Minor Component of Binary Odor Mixtures in Larval Drosophila JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - A fundamental problem in deciding between mutually exclusive options is that the decision needs to be categorical although the properties of the options often differ but in grade. We developed an experimental handle to study this aspect of behavior organization. Larval Drosophila were trained such that in one set of animals odor A was rewarded, but odor B was not (A+/B), whereas a second set of animals was trained reciprocally (A/B+). We then measured the preference of the larvae either for A, or for B, or for “morphed” mixtures of A and B, that is for mixtures differing in the ratio of the two components. As expected, the larvae showed higher preference when only the previously rewarded odor was presented than when only the previously unrewarded odor was presented. For mixtures of A and B that differed in the ratio of the two components, the major component dominated preference behavior—but it dominated less than expected from a linear relationship between mixture ratio and preference behavior. This suggests that a minor component can have an enhanced impact in a mixture, relative to such a linear expectation. The current paradigm may prove useful in understanding how nervous systems generate discrete outputs in the face of inputs that differ only gradually. KW - learning KW - memory KW - perception KW - compound conditioning KW - decision-making KW - Drosophila Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-170011 VL - 8 IS - 1923 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pfitzner, Christian A1 - May, Stefan A1 - Nüchter, Andreas T1 - Body weight estimation for dose-finding and health monitoring of lying, standing and walking patients based on RGB-D data JF - Sensors N2 - This paper describes the estimation of the body weight of a person in front of an RGB-D camera. A survey of different methods for body weight estimation based on depth sensors is given. First, an estimation of people standing in front of a camera is presented. Second, an approach based on a stream of depth images is used to obtain the body weight of a person walking towards a sensor. The algorithm first extracts features from a point cloud and forwards them to an artificial neural network (ANN) to obtain an estimation of body weight. Besides the algorithm for the estimation, this paper further presents an open-access dataset based on measurements from a trauma room in a hospital as well as data from visitors of a public event. In total, the dataset contains 439 measurements. The article illustrates the efficiency of the approach with experiments with persons lying down in a hospital, standing persons, and walking persons. Applicable scenarios for the presented algorithm are body weight-related dosing of emergency patients. KW - RGB-D KW - human body weight KW - image processing KW - kinect KW - machine learning KW - perception KW - segmentation KW - sensor fusion KW - stroke KW - thermal camera Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-176642 VL - 18 IS - 5 ER -