Upward and downward motor actions influence subsequent and ongoing emotional processing in accordance with a space-valence metaphor: positive is up/negative is down. In this study, we examined whether upward and downward motor actions could also affect previous emotional processing. Participants were shown an emotional image on a touch screen. After the image disappeared, they were required to drag a centrally located dot towards a cued area, which was either in the upper or lower portion of the screen. They were then asked to rate the emotional valence of the image using a 7-point scale. We found that the emotional valence of the image was more positive when the cued area was located in the upper portion of the screen. However, this was the case only when the dragging action was required immediately after the image had disappeared. Our findings suggest that when somatic information that is metaphorically associated with an emotion is linked temporally with a visual event, retrospective emotional integration between the visual and somatic events occurs.

Clusters of holes, such as those in a lotus seedpod, induce trypophobic discomfort. Previous research has demonstrated that high-contrast energy at midrange spatial frequencies in images causes trypophobic discomfort. The present study examined the effects on discomfort of eliminating various spatial frequency components from the images to reveal how each spatial frequency contributes to the discomfort. Experiment 1 showed that eliminating midrange spatial frequencies did not affect trypophobic discomfort, while Experiment 2 revealed that images of holes that consisted of only high-spatial frequencies evoked less discomfort than other images and that images containing only low or midrange spatial frequencies induced as much trypophobic discomfort as did the original images. Finally, Experiment 3 found that participants with a high level of the trypophobic trait experienced stronger discomfort from the original images and the images containing only low or midrange spatial frequencies than participants with a low level of the trypophobic trait. Our findings thus suggest that trypophobic discomfort can be induced by middle and low spatial frequencies.

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The present study examined whether implicit motion information from static images influences perceived duration of image presentation. In Experiments 1 and 2, we presented observers with images of a human and an animal character in running and standing postures. The results revealed that the perceived presentation duration of running images was longer than that of standing images. In Experiments 3 and 4, we used abstract block-like images that imitated the human figures used in Experiment 1, presented with different instructions to change the observers' interpretations of the stimuli. We found that the perceived duration of the block image presented as a man running was longer than that of the image presented as a man standing still. However, this effect diminished when the participants were told the images were green onions (objects with no implied motion), suggesting that the effect of implied motion cannot be attributed to low-level visual differences. These results suggest that implied motion increases the perceived duration of image presentation. The potential involvement of higher-order motion processing and the mirror neuron system is discussed.

This study examined whether a briefly presented target was mislocalized toward a subjective contour. Observers manually reproduced the position of a briefly presented peripheral target circle above a central fixation cross. A luminance contour, a subjective contour, or a no-contour stimulus was presented in either the left of right visual field, and a no-contour control was presented in the opposite visual field. After these stimuli vanished, a target circle was then presented. Consequently, the degree of mislocalization toward the subjective and luminance contours was the same; this indicated that image integration at a coarse spatial scale cannot explain mislocalization. Experiment 2 revealed that the mislocalization in Experiment 1 was not a result of eye movements. Experiment 3 found that the spatial attention allocated at the location of the luminance and subjective contours was more than that allocated at the no-contour stimulus. An attentional shift toward the task-irrelevant stimulus resulted in a mislocalization of the target.

No abstract

In the scintillating grid illusion, illusory dark spots are perceived on white patches at the intersections of gray bars. Previous studies have suggested that processing related to the orientation of the bars plays a role in this illusion, but the specific underlying mechanisms are unclear.In the present study, we investigated the role of orientation processing across the intersection in generating the scintillating grid illusion. The results revealed that the illusion was attenuated when the patch was located at the intersection of short bars (Experiment 1), irrespective of the spatial distance between patches (Experiment 2). The local cruciform patterns determined the strength of the illusion, even when lateral offset of the patches was employed (Experiment 3). The illusion was observed even when a small spatial gap was introduced around the patches. A larger gap produced a weaker illusion (Experiment 4). Spatial offsets of the bars across the gapped intersection greatly reduced the illusion (Experiment 5). We discuss these findings with regard to the activity of S1-type simple cells that respond to the luminance along an oriented edge across the intersection.

This study investigated how spatial intervals between successive visual flashes are influenced by the temporal intervals between auditory pure tones presented concurrently with the flashes. Three successive visual flashes defined two spatial intervals with different extents as well as two equal temporal intervals. The onsets of the first and third tones were temporally aligned with those of the first and third flashes, while the onset of the second tone was temporally offset to that of the second visual flash, resulting in shorter or longer temporal intervals between pairs of tones. Observers judged which of the first or second spatial intervals between flashes was shorter. The results showed that the shorter temporal interval between tones caused underestimation of the spatial interval between flashes. On the other hand, stimuli without the first and third tones did not result in underestimation of spatial intervals between flashes. These results indicate an audiovisual tau effect, which is triggered by a constant velocity assumption applied to moving objects defined by more than one modality.