Motion perception, awareness and attention effects with looming motion

Exogenous Attention to Emotional Stimuli Presenting Realistic (3D) Looming Motion

Previous research shows that dynamic stimuli, on the one hand, and emotional stimuli, on the other, capture exogenous attention due to their biological relevance. Through neural (ERPs) and behavioral measures (reaction times and errors), the present study explored the combined effect of looming motion and emotional content on attentional capture. To this end, 3D-recreated static and dynamic animals assessed as emotional (positive or negative) or neutral were presented as distractors while 71 volunteers performed a line orientation task. We observed a two-phase effect: firstly (before 300 ms), early components of ERPs (P1p and N2po) showed enhanced exogenous attentional capture by looming positive distractors and static threatening animals. Thereafter, dynamic and static threatening distractors received enhanced endogenous attention as revealed by both late ERP activity (LPC) and behavioral (errors) responses. These effects are likely explained by both the emotional valence and the distance of the stimulus at each moment.

Hold It Right There!

Abstract. The approach-aversion effect refers to a devaluation of approaching (vs. static) stimuli and is attributable to the fact that being approached is threatening. However, the explanation and the generalizability of this effect still remain unclear. To fill this gap, we provide a powerful test of the approach-aversion effect using Virtual Reality. Participants evaluated approaching and static virtual individuals for which we manipulated the threatening nature via their emotional facial expressions (Experiment 1), their group membership (Experiment 2), and the agency of their movements (Experiment 3). The results suggest a general approach-aversion effect which is attenuated when the self (vs. the target) initiates the movement. We thus bring convergent evidence that being approached is threatening.

Type of object motion facilitates word mapping by preverbal infants

This study assessed whether specific types of object motion, which predominate in maternal naming to preverbal infants, facilitate word mapping by infants. A total of 60 full-term 8-month-old infants were habituated to two spoken words, /bæf/ and /wem/, synchronous with the handheld motions of a toy dragonfly and a fish or a lamb chop and a squiggly. They were presented in one of four experimental motion conditions-shaking, looming, upward, and sideways-and one all-motion control condition. Infants were then given a test that consisted of two mismatch (change) and two control (no-change) trials, counterbalanced for order. Results revealed that infants learned the word-object relations (i.e., looked longer on the mismatch trials relative to the control trials) in the shaking and looming motion conditions but not in the upward, sideways, and all-motion conditions. Infants learned the word-object relations in the looming and shaking conditions likely because these motions foreground the object for the infants. Thus, the type of gesture an adult uses matters during naming when preverbal infants are beginning to map words onto objects. The results suggest that preverbal infants learn word-object relations within an embodied system involving matches between infants' perception of motion and specific motion properties of caregivers' naming.