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Long, Bria

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Long

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Bria

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Long, Bria
Author's Publications: search.filters.isAuthorOfPublication.2bdb0be8-d3c1-4eb4-8f2d-89062449117a

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    Mid-level perceptual features distinguish objects of different real-world sizes.
    (American Psychological Association (APA), 2016) Long, Bria; Konkle, Talia; Cohen, Michael A.; Alvarez, George
    Understanding how perceptual and conceptual representations are connected is a fundamental goal of cognitive science. Here, we focus on a broad conceptual distinction that constrains how we interact with objects—real-world size. Although there appear to be clear perceptual correlates for basic-level categories (apples look like other apples, oranges look like other oranges), the perceptual correlates of broader categorical distinctions are largely unexplored, i.e., do small objects look like other small objects? Because there are many kinds of small objects (e.g., cups, keys), there may be no reliable perceptual features that distinguish them from big objects (e.g., cars, tables). Contrary to this intuition, we demonstrated that big and small objects have reliable perceptual differences that can be extracted by early stages of visual processing. In a series of visual search studies, participants found target objects faster when the distractor objects differed in real-world size. These results held when we broadly sampled big and small objects, when we controlled for low-level features and image statistics, and when we reduced objects to texforms—unrecognizable textures that loosely preserve an object’s form. However, this effect was absent when we used more basic textures. These results demonstrate that big and small objects have reliably different mid-level perceptual features, and suggest that early perceptual information about broad-category membership may influence downstream object perception, recognition, and categorization processes.
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    Neural dynamics of prediction and surprise in infants
    (Nature Pub. Group, 2015) Kouider, Sid; Long, Bria; Le Stanc, Lorna; Charron, Sylvain; Fievet, Anne-Caroline; Barbosa, Leonardo S.; Gelskov, Sofie V.
    Prior expectations shape neural responses in sensory regions of the brain, consistent with a Bayesian predictive coding account of perception. Yet, it remains unclear whether such a mechanism is already functional during early stages of development. To address this issue, we study how the infant brain responds to prediction violations using a cross-modal cueing paradigm. We record electroencephalographic responses to expected and unexpected visual events preceded by auditory cues in 12-month-old infants. We find an increased response for unexpected events. However, this effect of prediction error is only observed during late processing stages associated with conscious access mechanisms. In contrast, early perceptual components reveal an amplification of neural responses for predicted relative to surprising events, suggesting that selective attention enhances perceptual processing for expected events. Taken together, these results demonstrate that cross-modal statistical regularities are used to generate predictions that differentially influence early and late neural responses in infants.
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    Insights on NIRS Sensitivity from a Cross-Linguistic Study on the Emergence of Phonological Grammar
    (Frontiers Media S.A., 2013) Minagawa-Kawai, Yasuyo; Cristia, Alejandrina; Long, Bria; Vendelin, Inga; Hakuno, Yoko; Dutat, Michel; Filippin, Luca; Cabrol, Dominique; Dupoux, Emmanuel
    Each language has a unique set of phonemic categories and phonotactic rules which determine permissible sound sequences in that language. Behavioral research demonstrates that one’s native language shapes the perception of both sound categories and sound sequences in adults, and neuroimaging results further indicate that the processing of native phonemes and phonotactics involves a left-dominant perisylvian brain network. Recent work using a novel technique, functional Near InfraRed Spectroscopy (NIRS), has suggested that a left-dominant network becomes evident toward the end of the first year of life as infants process phonemic contrasts. The present research project attempted to assess whether the same pattern would be seen for native phonotactics. We measured brain responses in Japanese- and French-learning infants to two contrasts: Abuna vs. Abna (a phonotactic contrast that is native in French, but not in Japanese) and Abuna vs. Abuuna (a vowel length contrast that is native in Japanese, but not in French). Results did not show a significant response to either contrast in either group, unlike both previous behavioral research on phonotactic processing and NIRS work on phonemic processing. To understand these null results, we performed similar NIRS experiments with Japanese adult participants. These data suggest that the infant null results arise from an interaction of multiple factors, involving the suitability of the experimental paradigm for NIRS measurements and stimulus perceptibility. We discuss the challenges facing this novel technique, particularly focusing on the optimal stimulus presentation which could yield strong enough hemodynamic responses when using the change detection paradigm.