28th International Congress of Psychology August 8 ... - U-netSURF

trajectory through this space. Knowledge and text propositions affect the belief values that
unstated propositions are the case, thus adjusting the trajectory and making inferences. The results
of simulations correspond to empirical data concerning inference, reading time, depth of
processing, story recall, and intrusion.
2007.5 Language processing in monologue and dialogue, S.C. Garrod, University of Glasgow,
Glasgow, UK
Traditionally psychologists have taken monologue as the basis for experiment and theory in
language processing. Yet, there is a strong argument that dialogue is basic (everyone who can
speak can engage in dialogue, language is learned in a dialogue context and so on). This paper will
review recent advances in the study of language processing in dialogue and present the argument
that dialogue supports a special interactive alignment mechanism that explains why it is easier to
engage in a conversation than to prepare or listen to a speech.
2008 INVITED SYMPOSIUM
Perception and attention
Convener and Chair: S. Han, Peking University, Beijing, China
Co-convener: G.W. Humphreys, UK
2008.1 Subitization, pattern recognition, counting and estimating: Neuropsychological evidence
for separable processes, G.W. Humphreys 1 , N. Demeyere 2 , 1 University of Birmingham,
Birmingham, UK; 2 KU Leuven, Belgium
What information can be gained from a scene without the serial scanning of spatial attention? We
investigated this by examining counting and magnitude estimation in GK, a patient with Balint’s
syndrome and poor serial scanning of attention. The data indicate that several separate processes
can be distinguished. First, there is rapid estimation of a small number of objects (subitization)
which is distinct from a pattern recognition process. Second, a process of estimating the statistics
of elements in a scene is distinct from explicit counting. Even with severe impairments in
scanning serial attention, pattern recognition and statistical estimation processes can operate.
2008.2 Complexity reductions by temporal integration in visual perception, E. Poeppel,
Munich University, Muenchen, German
As transduction time in retinal photoreceptors is dependent on stimulus brightness, and as visual
objects usually are defined by areas of different brightness, temporal uncertainty of information
which is necessary to define a percept is introduced at an early stage of processing. Stimulus
triggered neuronal oscillations are probably used to create system states, each period in the range
of 30 to 40 ms representing such a state, i.e. a window of integration overcoming uncertainty. A
further integration mechanisms in the range of 2-3 s is apparently used as an operational platform
to allow the maintenance of identity of a percept.
2008.3 Perception of statistical properties, A. Treisman, S. C. Chong, Princeton University,
Princeton, NJ, USA
Attention limits preclude our perceiving every detail of a complex scene. We must quickly
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