The Perception Room

De Leoz l Geronimo l Inciong l Macaibay l Payuyo

Hey there! Ready for one last blog?

This research group has been doing a pretty cool study on typefaces, pubmats and persuasion. Let’s start with some trivia!

Do you know that typefaces have special abilities?

Yes, they do! In fact, according to research, how typefaces look like are very important contributors to how texts are perceived. Typefaces are actually tools capable of conveying  images and messages to people, encouraging researchers to explore effective ways on how they can be utilized, especially in the fields of marketing and advertising.

A study on typefaces found that round typefaces are liked more than angular ones. They are considered to be easier to read and are even associated with the taste of sweetness. Angular typefaces, on the other hand, were found to be harder to read and are associated with other tastes such as sour, salty, and bitter. Whoa, fonts and taste? That is pretty cool, huh.

But there’s actually something cooler than that! Do you know that font typefaces also have traits, moods and personalities?

Oh, they do! In fact, a survey of 561 participants found that Serif fonts (the ones with small lines that are attached to the main strokes of characters within the face) were rated high in traits such as: mature, stable, practical and formal while Sans Serif fonts (the ones that lack serif details on characters) were not scored as either high or low in any personality trait. They also found out that Script fonts (the ones with very fluid letterform and usually appear cursive) had high ratings on traits such as Youthful, Happy, Creative, Rebellious, Feminine, Casual, and Cuddly. Hmm, interesting, isn’t it?

If that still doesn’t pique your interest, let me tell you about another research stating that certain typefaces actually convey certain emotional signals. Typefaces have emotions,  too. According to this study, rounded cap typefaces (Sans Serif with rounded edges)  indicated happiness while slanted (italicized) or light fonts indicated sadness. Also, those with varying thickness and thinness in the stroke of a letter (Serif fonts) evoked fear and those with distinctive characteristics (being in bold or script form) evoked surprise. Moreover, short and fat or sharp Sans Serif fonts appeared as angry while slanted (italicized) and condensed fonts conveyed disgust.  

These traits and moods associated with typefaces may create some kind of a chain reaction. As mentioned in a study of Dillard and Pfau (2002), happiness promotes trusting and sharing behavior. Thus, evoking the feeling of happiness in advertisements, with the use of these typefaces, could also increase the likelihood that people may share and be engaged with the material.

From what was said above, we could see that fonts then no longer become simple tools used in visual communication because through manipulating their attributes, such as shape and size, and overall appearance, it is able to project its own traits that could influence the moods, feelings, and even the behavior of the people, or rather, consumers.

To further extend the research on typefaces and advertising, our group decided to measure how different typeface categories, particularly the Serif, Sans Serif and Script typefaces,  affect a participant’s perception of a publication material based on the font typeface category used.

Since, Sans Serif typefaces were closely linked to evoking feelings of happiness and could also make it more likely to be shared to other people,we  hypothesized that the Sans Serif typeface will be significantly more persuasive than the Serif or Script typefaces.

Sixty students from the University of Philippines Diliman participated in an online survey which presented three publication materials of differing set of typeface categories, and two other publication materials that act as distractors in between. The sample of the main publication materials is presented below:

    Sans Serif Category                Serif  Category                      Script Category

After presenting each publication material (including the two distractors), participants were asked to rate the likelihood of them attending the event, sharing the event to their friends as well as the likelihood of them going to the event which served as our measures for persuasion.

After doing statistical analyses, we found that when it comes to the aspect of persuasion, the Script and Sans Serif groups had significantly higher ratings than the Serif category. This result matched with the previous literature stating that Serif fonts were rated high in traits such as mature, stable, practical and formal which may not be appropriate for publication materials that aim to persuade people into going to an event. The traits associated with Serif fonts actually make them more suitable for formal documents and the like.

The same study, however, has found out that Script fonts had high ratings on traits such as Youthful, Happy, Creative, Rebellious, Feminine, Casual, and Cuddly. In addition, Sans Serif fonts has been found to convey happiness or anger depending on its shape and edge.

Furthermore, the results of our study with Sans Serif and Script typeface categories  reflect the conclusion that evoking the feeling of happiness increase the likelihood of sharing the material to other people. Sans Serif typeface category had a higher likelihood to invite rating than the Serif typeface category and had a higher likelihood to share rating than the other typeface categories.

Even though it was found out that there were significant differences in the aspect of sharing and inviting friends to go depending on the typeface category used, we did not find any significant difference in persuasion to attend the event advertised based on the typeface category. This is probably because ,actually going to the event takes a more conscious decision and consideration rather than just because of cue associations such as the appropriateness of the typeface utilized in the material.

References:

Choi, S., Yamasaki, T., & Aizawa, K. (2016, October 16). Typeface Emotion Analysis for Communication on Mobile Messengers. AltMM '16 Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Multimedia Alternate Realities, 37-40. doi:10.1145/2983298.2983305

Desteno, D., Petty, R. E., Rucker, D. D., Wegener, D. T., & Braverman, J. (2004). Discrete Emotions and Persuasion: The Role of Emotion-Induced Expectancies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86(1), 43-56. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.86.1.43

Dillard, J. P., & Pfau, M. (2002). The persuasion handbook: Developments in theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Doyle, J. and Bottomley, P. (2004). Font Appropriateness and brand choice . Journal of Business Research Volume 57, Issue 8, August 2004, Pages 873–880

Doyle, J. R., & Bottomley, P. A. (2006). Dressed for the occasion: Font-product congruity in the perception of logotype. Journal of consumer psychology, 16(2), 112-123.

Emanuel, B. (2010). Rhetoric in graphic design. a thesis in Master of Arts in Integrated Design at Anhalt University of Applied Sciences.

Gump, J. E. (2001). The readability of typefaces and the subsequent mood or emotion created in the reader. Journal of education for business, 76(5), 270-273.

Josephson, S. (2008). Keeping your readers' eyes on the screen: An eye-tracking study comparing sans serif and serif typefaces. Visual communication quarterly, 15(1-2), 67-79.

Juni, S., & Gross, J. S. (2008). Emotional and persuasive perception of fonts. Perceptual and motor skills, 106(1), 35-42.

Mackiewicz, J., & Moeller, R. (2004, September). Why people perceive typefaces to have different personalities. In Professional Communication Conference, 2004. IPCC 2004. Proceedings. International (pp. 304-313). IEEE.

Myers, D. G. (2010). Social psychology. Holland, MI: McGraw Hill.

Ray, M. L., & Batra R. (1983). Emotion and Persuasion in Advertising: What We Do and Don't Know About Affect. NA - Advances in Consumer Research, 10, pp. 543-548. Retrieved from

http://acrwebsite.org/volumes/6177/volumes/v10/NA-10

Shaikh, A. D., Chapparo, B. S., & Fox, D. (2006, February 14). Perception of Fonts: Perceived Personality Traits and Uses. Usability News.

Kat Geronimo                  

     Remember my last blog on musical hallucinations? Well, while patient K is still taking her medications for her hallucinations, a new patient has written an email to me asking about why the smell of baby cologne makes her remember her mother whom she hasn’t seen in quite a while. After doing some research, I found a very interesting phenomenon that could explain what was happening to her.

Let me tell you something about the Proust phenomenon.

           The Proust phenomenon shows us the ability of odors to trigger autobiographical memories. Researchers have been looking at a very important implication of it, specifically on how odors could trigger strong emotional memories. And yes, it has already been found that specific trauma-related smells such as diesel and blood could actually trigger traumatic memories for patients with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. But aside from that, research has also found that music could also evoke intense emotional memories, providing equally powerful cues as odours.

           To examine the validity of the Proust phenomenon which involves olfaction, and compare it to musical and visual cues, Toffolo and her colleagues conducted a study that investigated whether aversive memories evoked by olfactory cues were more emotional, vivid, detailed and arousing than memories evoked by musical or visual cues.

           Seventy female student participants with normal visual, auditory and olfactory functions were asked to participate in a two-session experimental study.  On the first session, they were tested individually in a soundproof laboratory where they watched a 12-minute aversive film of real life footage  containing several dreadful scenes,such as road traffic accidents, live human surgeries,   and a video about a terrible accident in the circus about an elephant  stepping on people. During the film, the participants were simultaneously being exposed to  auditory, visual and olfactory triggers. The participants were not made aware of these stimuli nor of the connection between the stimuli and the film. After watching the film, they rated the film on emotionality, vividness, pleasantness, and arousal. On the second session, 6-8 days following the first, the participants were randomly assigned to the olfactory, visual or auditory condition, in which they were exposed to in the same fashion as during Session 1. They were then asked to think back about the film they watched during the first session and to write down their memory of the aversive film as exactly and completely as possible. Finally, they answered a new set of questionnaires which relates their memory of the film and how they experienced it later.

           Results showed that aversive memories evoked by olfactory triggers were significantly less pleasant, more detailed, and more arousing than memories evoked by auditory triggers. However, memories evoked by a visual trigger did not differ significantly from memories evoked by an odour or by music. Odors, therefore, were not more evocative or emotive than visual triggers.

           Probably the more important finding of this research is the evidence of how odours are strong triggers of detailed and arousing memories--- even stronger than music.

           So the next time you remember a childhood memory after smelling the scent of a particular cologne or baby powder, also remember that without the presence of your olfactory system, you wouldn’t be able to experience this amazing phenomenon. Thank your olfactory senses for that!

 Reference:

With all the stress and anxiety that this year had, there’s something that I suddenly remembered. It has been a while since I last had my taste of weed, cannabis, marijuana or whatever one might call it. It seems that because of all the things that have been going down in the university, the government and the country, there is no more time to chill out, to smoke weed or even bake weed-infused brownies. Yum!

Oh the good times, the chill life, it has been really quite a while.

But looking around, I guess it’s for the better. Nowadays, it’s really scary time to be caught or to be even suspected of dealing or taking prohibited drugs.  A simple accusation, someone giving a tip to the police, surely you’ll either go straight to jail or to the morgue. Such a big difference compared to the time when I first got to experience the magic of cannabis.

I can still remember that night, my eyes gradually turned red, my mouth actually feeling dry, and things seemed to be somehow in slow motion. Aside from these, I would say that it was a calming experience as I laughed at almost anything throughout that night even at the simplest of things. I also remember that during that night, we were still worried that someone might find out what we’re doing. Probably even smell us smoking weed, but the night ended well and we had a peaceful sleep.

On the following months, I stumbled upon an article saying that police in the US had searched a house because they sensed marijuana odor coming from its chimney. It turns out that there is indeed marijuana found inside the house.

This got me thinking, what was the probability that we smelled of marijuana that fateful night?  

It worried me as I don’t really want to get caught smoking marijuana, so I tried to look for answers. As I remember, just like in vision there is also a threshold wherein there is a minimum concentration needed for an odor to be detectable. And more than that there could also be other factors that may affect the process of perceiving odor.

Stumbling upon the study of Doty, Wudarski, Marshall, and Hastings (2004), they looked into the probabilities of being able to perceive marijuana odor in two situations. First, when it is hidden in the glove compartment of car while in a plastic container. And second, when an immature cannabis plant is burned together with diesel. During the experiment, they took measures to ensure that in the numerous trials in each situation the participants wouldn’t undergo adaptation. This is like having a fresh palate, to be able to sense possible, non-constant odors present in the environment. They also made use of the process of sniffing so that participants may have increased ability to detect odors.

After doing numerous trials and experiments, they found out that in both situations, the odor of marijuana was not reliably discernable by people even if they have an excellent sense of smell.

With this, it turns out that I shouldn’t be worried that people would be able to detect the odor of marijuana during our pot sessions especially as we do it in a safe confined space. But I should be wary that the odor might get stuck on me or my shirt because in that way, people might smell the odor of marijuana.

Lovely things to keep in mind on our next pot sessions. Since it’s the yuletide season, maybe it’s time again to get high. - Franco Payuyo

Source:

Gianina Macaibay

We thought we’d get out soon. We’re here because we should be punished. We’re a bad person and we should be here.

… … … … …

WHAT AM I SAYING?! NO! LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! They put me in solitary, I don’t really know for how long. I’ve really feel like I’ve lost it sometimes. I refer to myself as we just so I wouldn’t feel so alone in this tiny cell. I’m a prisoner now. In the time that I’ve been here I’ve learned to accept that I’m no longer an innocent man wrongly jailed; I’m the scum of society put away for the better. Looking at these walls I just want to vomit. I’ve memorized every crack and crevice of my cell that I could describe it you even with my eyes closed. What have I become? From an esteemed officer to a degenerate. I’ve spent a quarter of my life here, and it’ll be ‘til the end of my life. 

To prepare for my prison life I think I read an article before about what it’s like being in solitary. It was actually more on social exclusion, but what would make you feel more rejected than if they lock you up in a box all alone!? I know there are officers out there protected so they could just throw any one in solitary with a snap of their fingers. Why couldn’t I just be a dirty cop? I could’ve saved myself all this trouble. Going back, it was a study by Twenge and colleagues (2003). They were exploring the negative effects of people who are isolated from others. They labelled it as a “Deconstructed State”. The “Deconstructed State” tackled five main component effects of social exclusion: lethargy, emotionlessness, distorted time perception, meaninglessness and (lack of) self-awareness. 

The first two parts of their experiment tackled the effect of rejection on time perception and feelings of meaninglessness. It was performed on Psychology undergraduate students who were asked to socialize. Afterwards there was to be a “project” for them to work on and no one (or everyone) would want to work with them. After this event the “rejected” and “accepted” participants were asked to evaluate 40-second time intervals on which they said that it lasted 1 minute. The experimenters were able to prove that time lasts longer in the “deconstructed state”. The next part is similar to the first part after they were asked to socialize they would be given the project and they would either be accepted or rejected. They were asked to answer multiple questionnaires after the event to which people who were rejected were more likely to agree with the “Life is meaningless.” statement.  

The second two parts tackled lethargy. The first part assigned participants to a vignette condition in which they could be alone in the future, not be alone in the future and experience misfortune in the future. After this participants were asked to interpret simple proverbs for 10 minutes then the experimenters counted the words they generated. The future alone condition had significantly generated less words than the other two conditions. The experimenters speculate that this lethargy was mediated by the ideal that they were bad to have come across such a future. But they acknowledged that they could not scale this perceived “badness” and it was purely conjecture. Similar to the first two parts the next part also had an “accepted” or “rejected” group condition through either being chosen or not chosen for a group activity. These participants were asked to play a reaction game. People in the rejected condition showed a slower reaction during the first and second trials. But was just as fast as the accepted condition participants in the following trials. The experimenters found that lethargy only affects unfamiliar tasks (as the task was to the participant during the first two trials). The automatic processes leading to automatic responses had taken over for the following trials.

The last two parts tackled emotionlessness and lack of self-awareness. The first part banks on a hypothesis that socially excluded people would be less likely to admit their negative feelings to create the illusion that they are unaffected by the social exclusion. Participants were randomly assigned to wither be alone in the future or head straight to the next part. The next part after the assignments (or non-assignment of condition would be they would encircle a word they thought they saw being flashed to them. What was actually flashed was a blank screen. Participants who were told they would be alone in the future circled fewer words pertaining to emotions. This confirms the experimenters’ hypothesis that social exclusion would make a person less likely to give an emotional response. The last part banks on the fact that people who are socially excluded can’t face themselves for fearing the harsh reality of what is wrong with them that they were rejected. Participants were deceived into believing that they would only be filling out personality questionnaires in vignette conditions (being alone in the future, experiencing misfortune in the future, not being alone in the future or not being assigned anything) and that the experiment ended early. They would be led to another experiment to finish the time. This one had chairs either facing the wall or facing a mirror. Another experimenter from this “new” experiment would come and tell them to take a seat (choosing between the two chairs). People in the future alone conditions were significantly more likely to sit in the chair not facing the mirror.

Being isolated caused the participants to act in a lethargic and passive fashion. It’s difficult to accept your faults and really try to understand why you were rejected. It’s hard to think that you are the real root cause of why people can’t accept you. Isolation messes with your mind. It messes with your emotions and cognitions.

… … … … …

We just can’t take it anymore. We can’t be alone with ourselves. We’re sorry. We’re not strong enough. We can’t take it anymore. They say you can’t drown yourself but I’ve always thought it was because you weren’t desperate enough to go through with it. We’ll think it’s the ocean. We’re walking towards the ocean and not dunking our head in the putrid toilet bowl of our cell. To drown yourself in a toilet bowl, how pathetic. But anything is better than the hell we’re living in now. This is it. We’re sorry. 

We’re sorry.

Goodbye.

I’m sorry.

Goodbye.

-Blue De Leoz

Chief,

I heard that we’re having a problem about some of our people trying to find ways to creatively sell products. While quietlydistributing and selling them would be a very feasible and efficient alternative, as of now, I wouldn’t recommend being contented with this. We need to utilize our connections well. All of the other groups are simply selling them and we have to find ways to be a step ahead of them. Since our syndicate own quite a few important companies and businesses here in the country, it would be a shame if we let them go to waste.

As we all know, some of our products let our customers get cravings for specific types of food. A very recent study focused on recreational drug users instead of dependents, which is also a very important demographic for us. They had 250 recreational drug users take psychometric questionnaries such as the Food and General Neophobia Scales, Drug Use questionnaire, form V of Sensation-Seeking Scale, and others. They were also grouped into three: abstainers, cannabis users only, and those using multiple drugs. There is also a taste test in which five different ingredients with five levels of intensities represents preference for certain tastants: the five used are table salt, granulated sugar, lemon juice, tabasco sauce, and angostura bitters to 20 mL of food items (tomato soup [salt], strawberry juice drink [sweet], diet lemonade [sour], salsa sauce [spicy], tonic water [bitter]).

Through the first experiment, there were significant differences in sour taste preference between the three groups: abstainers prefer low concentrations, cannabis only users prefer moderate concentrations, and multiple drug users prefer high concentrations. They also were able to correlate the three groupings with impulsivity differences, thrill seeking differences, experience-seeking, disinhibition, and boredom susceptibility. With these five qualities, abstainers always are significantly lower than the other two. Experience-seeking was also the only category where all three groups are significantly different from each other: with multiple drug users having the highest and the abstainers having the lowest scores.

They conducted a second study, which is a modified version of the first study in which they differed in recruitment strategies. They recruited from a community sample and made sure that the individuals participating only have specific histories of drug use. Four groups were forms: controls, daily tobacco users, recreational cannabis users, and daily cannabis users. The same tests were done from the first experiment and they found out that daily cannabis and tobacco users were found to like significantly higher concentrations of sweet and spicy tastants than the control group.

So how can we utilize this study to improve what we sell? This study shows that the use of these drugs either make them prefer specific tastes and/ or dull their taste perception so that they would lean towards higher concentrations. Since we have these sort of studies and we are familiar with our demographic, we can definitely cater to them through the various food and drinks that we offer in our clubs and dens. Though this study seems too easy, we also have to take into consideration how they take in drugs, how long, and how often they use. In this experiment, especially in the second study, it is important to note that both cannabis and tobacco were use through smoking which could definitely affect their taste perception. The study also was focused on long-term taste preference changes and not the more immediate taste preference after taking in drugs. They also found out that the personality traits they correlated do not have any connection with taste preference. I look forward to seeing the results of our new food venture along with our usual business.

Head Intelligence Officer

Blue

Kat Geronimo

“12:03 am. I was halfway through my cigarette when I suddenly started hearing a very unfamiliar tune. At first, I thought it was coming from my sister’s room who usually play her favourite classical songs before she goes to sleep. I kept hearing the tune so I decided to check if it was her doing, but no, I was wrong. Her bedroom was empty which reminded me that she slept over at her best friend’s house. I continued searching, hoping to find where the music was coming from. It was a challenge because the loudness was constant, and after some time, I realized it was in my head. I was hallucinating. I was so surprised with what was happening to me so I immediately called Sara who told me to write an email to you and describe what was happening. So I did. I am still hearing the tune that keeps repeating on my head and I am sending you a recording of myself humming the tune as an attachment. I don’t remember having any experience like this before nor have I taken any psychoactive drug before or during this experience. 

This is madness, please call me immediately if you know anything about this matter.”                                                                

               I received this letter from patient K a few days ago---one of the very rare cases of musical hallucinations which reminded me of a similar case about a woman, 60 years of age who also started hearing unfamiliar tunes one evening while she was trying to sleep. It was described as unfamiliar music playing from a radio at the back of her head, but then, her husband was able to recognize the music she was humming as parts of popular songs. At first, she only heard the music on the evening until 4 months later, she was hearing tunes all the time. There were times when she would hear an unfamiliar song for three weeks in a row before it changes into another song. The intriguing thing was that results of her brain scans were all normal. There was also no history of head trauma and changes in mood, energy, appetite, or even cognitive functioning. Her neurologic examination was pretty unremarkable except for a history of hearing impairment.

               Like patient K, this woman heard the songs in constant loudness and she did not have any experience of any other kind of hallucinations (such as visual, olfactory or tactile, even non-musical auditory hallucinations). Even though her hallucinations were present all the time, it did not have a significant effect on her everyday functioning and conversations except for some dull headaches and insomnia.

               However, unlike patient K who was in her mid-20’s, the woman was a 60 year old patient who was diagnosed with mild to moderate hearing loss, around three years before she started experiencing these musical hallucinations. She was advised to use hearing aids which she was not able to obtain because of financial constraints, and her intake of medication was stopped due to side effects. She also had a mild tinnitus, a mild auditory hallucination. There was some improvement of symptoms six months later when the woman started carbamazepine, a medical drug.

               Cases of musical hallucinations such as these are very rare and the cause is usually unknown but the most common predisposing factor are hearing impairments, psychiatric disorders, brain damage or epilepsy. However, only a minority of patients who suffer severe hearing impairment develop musical hallucinations. Psychiatric illnesses, including depression, schizophrenia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder have been associated with musical hallucinations. Research has even opened the possibility of opioid-induced musical hallucinations.

                They usually occur in elderly people, but some cases such as Patient K’s, reported having these sudden hallucinations at an earlier age. Cases such as Patient K and the woman’s experience of hallucinating sounds and tunes that seem unfamiliar but were apparently parts of popular music composed most of the cases of musical hallucinations. Because of this, researchers have assumed the possibility of musical memories.  Since the patients weren’t able to recognize the songs, the researchers involved in the case of the 60 year old woman proposed a case of forgotten music, with musical memories being present but not accessible. They also called on further research about the mechanisms of forgetfulness which posed the question of:  is forgotten information lost or is it just not accessible?

               Currently, there is still no curative treatment for musical hallucinations aside from either removing potential inciting factors (hearing aids, treating underlying psychiatric disorder, treating epileptic seizures, removing focal lesions if possible etc) or starting medications reported to improve symptoms.

Reference:

Blue De Leoz

Chief,

Another intelligence update here. I know this terribly bores you and that you’d rather find ways to one-up our competition but we have to stay sharp and up-to-date with what we can improve on. The whole syndicate knows about our prestige and history, especially in our inner circle: about succeeding legacies and inheriting the family business. We know how you take pride in how we reward our subordinates’ loyalty and how diverse our accepting we are about our people: whatever age, gender, nationality, only loyalty matters. The research I was able to gather is with regards to our older people.

The current research we are interested on aimed to study about how aging may affect the interaction between perceptual saliency (how salient or outstanding an object or signal is in our perception) and attentional focus. They also wanted to see the right-ear advantage on young and older adults. The right-ear advantage is the concept in which the right ear can hear things more clearly. How they conducted the study involved two groups: young adults (23 – 35 years old) and older adults (65 – 76 years old). Before the researchers conducted the experiment, they first tested for the two groups’ perceptual speed and verbal knowledge. The results are that the young adults have better perceptual speed but the older adults have greater verbal knowledge.

The study involved presenting six combinations of six stop consonants (sounds /b/, /d/, /p/, /g/, /t/, and /k/) with the vowel /a/, creating three voiced consonant-vowel pairs (/ba/, /da/, /ga/) and three unvoiced consonant vowel pairs (/pa/, /ta/, /ka/). These voiced and unvoiced sounds involve whether there is vibration in the vocal cords as one says the consonant-vowel pair. By combining the consonant-vowel pairs with the same voicing, these twelve syllable pairs were presented as audio files containing constant aspects such as: young male voice, intonation, and intensity. Individual hearing thresholds of the participants were also measured. There were also individual adjustments on the audio file intensities due to varying hearing thresholds since there are older adults with mild hearing loss. The researchers also insured that the participant can competently discriminate syllables from each other.

The experiment tested for perceptual saliency by reducing intensities in either the left or right ear with a maximum decrease of 20 decibels in one ear. For attentional focus, the experimenters asked the participants to focus their attention on the left ear, the right ear, or both ears. For focus on both ears, the participants were asked to name the syllables they heard the most clearly while for left- or right-ear focus, the participants were asked to report what they heard clearly in the specified ear only.

The results of the experiment are as follows: a) the right-ear advantage is present in younger adults while in older adults, both ears are equally sensitive, b) older adults are not as flexible with regards to controlling their attentional focus compared to young adults and that older adults’ performance relies more on perceptual saliency, and c) when there is conflict between what is salient and what should be the focus of attention, there are more costs or disadvantages for older adults than young adults when they focus on one ear.

So what does this study mean for us? We have to do something about some of our older employees. This study shows that older adults are less flexible with their attentional focus, their ears are less sensitive than before, and that they have a harder time dealing with salience and attentional focus conflicts. I am not suggesting kicking them out as they’ve been with us for how many decades and they’re all still quite fit and sharp but we must make up for the disadvantages aging has done to their hearing. These disadvantages are dangerous when it involves situations such as infiltration, hidden deals, escorts, evidence planting and much more situations. One possibility is to give the older employees less dangerous tasks in which their disadvantages would not affect them as much. Another alternative is that we foster young-old partnerships in order for them to complement one another with one’s experience and the other’s youth and health. We have to face this problem sooner or later. We must find ways in order to better improve how we do things in our syndicate and not compromise how well we treat our people.

Chief Intelligence Officer

Blue

Franco Payuyo

In the silence of the night, the comfort of the dark, two startling gunshot sounds disturb my peaceful sleep. I slowly get up, wary if the source of the sound was near and whether there would be other gunshots that would follow. I waited for seconds, minutes, up to an hour, just to appease my worried feeling.

It’s quite typical nowadays, to hear news of suspected drug pushers, dealers and users to be shot dead. This usually involves unknown men or the police, who has the consistent alibi of people resisting and fighting arrest. It’s kind of frightening knowing that no one is safe in the community and one way or another, a drug pusher or dealer or user will be apprehended or worse, killed.

Knowing that I was once involved in using the prohibited drugs, I am surely not safe in the streets.

I remember back then, in one of our sessions, almost everyone had sensitive hearing. Being always on the lookout as to not get caught, our hearing was impeccable. We knew when someone is coming and where the sound of footsteps is coming from.  Never have we failed to pinpoint where the sound of someone coming generally comes from. We don’t see them, but we know that where they’re coming from.

Looking back, I remembered that this was just another topic I’ve encountered during my stay in the university. To freshen up my knowledge I looked up and searched how we can detect and pinpoint where sounds are coming from. It turns out there’s a term for it, sound localization.

Exploring the study of Middlebrooks and Green (1991), it turns out there were already many studies on sound localization. These studies have a tendency to put a restraint in the responses of the participants by providing initially measured points. Being aware of this, they tried utilizing a new measure to use in the studies of sound localization called the head-pointing response. Various concepts contribute to our ability to locate sound, one of these concept is called the interaural level difference which is the difference of the level of sound received in both of our ears. Applying this to our situation, it makes sense in a way that when we hear a sound we immediately look to where it sounded louder, assuming that there we would find the sound source. This concept usually works when we hear a sound to our left or to our right. Another concept, called spectral cues, helps in determining the source of a sound source along the dimension of up and down.  

These two working together helps in sound localization and somehow gives light on our ability to locate and pinpoint where a sound is coming from. Although our abilities do sometimes disappoint as we are prone to errors to provide an accurate estimate of a sound source as it moves away horizontally but it improves performance in the vertical dimension. Having improved performances compared to previous studies it looks like that the head-pointing response can be used in future studies in sound localization. Anyway, this is the typical response of a person when he/she hears a sound and tries to locate the source.

Giving my mind a break from reading the article, a sudden force broke my door open followed by a gunshot piercing through my head! I immediately sat up, heart beating fast, sweat enveloping my face and body, my head looking around my room making sure there was no real gunshot sound. Making sure all of it was just a nightmare.

Source:

Miggy de Leoz

Chief,

I’ve recently found something of note in recent research. It might help with the espionage problem we’ve been having in our syndicate. We both know how attention isn’t just theoretically but practically important especially in our field. Our expertise in the field requires us to be adept and alert with regards to the people we make deals with and who we sell our product to. The researchers in the study I found believed that relevance of what we see and perceive and how it relates to our objectives and needs can establish emotional attention. This is very applicable, to give one important example, with regards to dangerous stimuli.

For this study, they let participants learn of three groups of faces: their in-group, their out-group, and people not in those two groups. The in-group and out-group of this experiment was based on skin color (African-American and Caucasian). After being familiar with these three groups of faces, the participants were made to look at a monitor and focus on a small white cross in the middle of the screen. After this, two faces were shown for about 100 milliseconds; one face was on the left of the cross while the other one was on the right. After showing the faces, a horizontal or vertical bar would appear either on the left or right side of the cross. When this bar appears, the participants are tasked to press a button in their keyboard which answers whether the bar is horizontal or vertical. The participants’ response times were recorded and analyzed.

These researchers made a total of three experiments with the same methods but with varying details: the first one compared in-group faces and out-group faces. They found that people have faster reaction times with out-group faces than in-group faces. This also means that when we use attend to things quickly, we can still prioritize what is relevant to our motivations.

The second experiment added in-group and out-group familiar and unfamiliar faces. They found that people have faster reaction times with familiar out-group faces. This supports the idea that the ability to prioritize and take into consideration our motives is due to us remembering a certain past experience. Familiarity of faces makes it easier to remember as we can base appraisals from previous experiences while unfamiliar faces might take longer to process and to appraise.

The last experiment gave more time in showing to two faces as they turned it from 100 milliseconds to 500 milliseconds. They found that given more time, people have faster reaction times with unfamiliar out-group faces. This is most likely because having more time would lead to better assessment and focus on more specific features.

How can we utilize this? Given a very short amount of time, our attention is like a reflex and focuses on what face is familiar but when given more time, we can be more detailed with our attention and in determining face unfamiliarity. This can be used when taking into consideration the situation right now. Competition is vicious and leads to countless spies. We do our best to make our clothes and appearances low-key and hidden but we definitely should inspect our ranks regularly. We all cannot be complacent. Based on this research, we should know that we have to inspect the appearances of our ranks carefully and thoroughly. While reflexive attention might help with familiar faces, it won’t when it comes to new grunts, disguised cops, or aspiring spies from other syndicates. We must remain vigilant so that our routes, products, and partners are not exposed. They gave us their trust. We pay back with loyalty.

                                                                                                                   Head Intelligence Officer

 Blue

References

Gianina Macaibay

I know that was him, without a doubt I know that was him. Fifteen years I’ve spent looking at the inside of this jail cell. All for a supposed wrongful conviction? I had obviously made a mistake. We encounter so many people in our line of work, how could I be sure? I was obviously just looking to convict. Just because there are dirty cops doesn’t mean we all are.

I’ve been reading up on what it takes to recognize a face in my time here. In a study by Gobbini and Haxby (2007), they proposed that along with the Person Knowledge we have about someone, emotional response has a significant bearing on the recognition of a familiar face. The researchers defined Person Knowledge as

“a broad class of information about an individual that encompasses subjective characteristics, such as personal traits, intentions, attitudes, and transient mental states, and objective information, such as biographical facts and episodic memories” (Gobbini & Haxby, 2007).

This comes from the Theory of Mind which allows us to represent that person in our minds and predict their behavior based on that representation. If I only knew seeing him that day would only cause me this much trouble, I would've forgotten about him a long time ago. The experimenters argued that the emotional response along with the Person Knowledge we have of that person allow for us to easily recognize another person. In their study they reviewed two sets of fMRI scans. One set wherein they were presented with faces familiar to them (family and friends), as against familiar celebrity faces, and complete strangers’ faces. The other set is where mothers were presented with pictures of their children versus children which were not their own (familiar and unfamiliar to them).

In studying the first set of fMRI scans they found that in the area responsible for brain activity during familiarity with the face (extrastriate visual cortex), the face-responsive region (fusiform gyrus area) strongly responded to both familiar faces and strangers’ faces. Activity in the area was less for familiar celebrities’ faces. The second set revealed that familiarity has no effect on the activity in of the fusiform gyrus, as more activity was found for unfamiliar children over familiar children. But their own child evoked activity more so than the former. But what surprised the experimenters most was that the amygdala (part of the brain which processes emotions) showed less activity during the presentation of familiar faces and familiar children. With an exception to mothers who were shown a picture of their own children because maternal instinct may have kicked in to explain high activity in the amygdala.

On the other hand, viewing familiar faces creates strong brain activity in the anterior paracingulate cortex and the posterior superior temporal sulcus (the area responsible for Person Knowledge). The researchers were able to conclude that seeing a familiar face is associated with the spontaneous retrieval of Personal Knowledge one has about that person.

In conclusion, the experimenters were able to see the complex brain activity involved in the recognition of faces. Through the fMRI scans they could see the interplay of Person Knowledge and emotional response (through the activity in the amygdala)in face recognition. Emotional response is mediated by the intensity of a relationship a person has with another (mother looking at her child).

I felt it, I knew in my heart that it was him. Unfortunately gut feelings don’t hold out in court and he had a much better lawyer when they were trying to get him out. Only six months in prison, while I got 35 years. He was  guilty. He was the one I saw in the drug bust. Now he’s free again to continue dealing, ruining the lives of helpless people who see drugs as a life line. I may not be on the force anymore, but when I see him again I know justice will be served.

(1/2) Kat Geronimo

Hey! How are you? My name is Casey. We may not have met but if I could see your face now, I could probably tell how you are feeling.

Just by seeing your facial expression, I can determine if you are happy, angry, sad, or whatever. I could say if you are guilty, depressed, manic or just  feeling plain crazy. That is because I have that special ability to know how people are feeling just by looking at them!

Nah, just kidding! (about the psychic part atleast). But still, you probably won’t believe me right?

But seriously, I am not making this up. This claim is actually backed by scientific research. It has been universally acknowledged by scientists that facial expressions are highly accurate indicators of emotions.  Studies have consistently found relations between facial expression and experience of emotion. Darwin has also suggested that facial expressions of emotion actually tell us information not only about a person’s affective state but also about his or her intentions. Wow, just by looking at someone’s face, you could tell how she’s feeling and even what her intentions could be!

See how powerful facial expressions are?!

(2/2) Kat Geronimo

BUT WAIT!

A new research has come up that challenges this idea! A group of researchers question the predominance of facial expression in emotion and highlights how body language affects how we express and perceive emotions.

        Hmmmm, right.  We all know that nonverbal cues, such as how we act when talking to another person, are very important signals in interpersonal communication but how could this study say that body language is more important than facial expression when it comes to expressing and perceiving emotions?

        The study made use of photographs of people who might be experiencing highly intense emotions such as reactions of people who were experiencing intense positive emotions such as victory and pleasure as well as intense negative emotions such as pain and defeat. One group of participants was asked to rate the positivity/negativity and intensity of emotion of full body photographs, another group was asked to rate based on body alone and a third group was asked to rate based on facial expressions alone. And then, the photographs were manipulated in a way that the facial expression was conveying a positive intense emotion but the body was conveying a negative one (for example, the face of victory on a defeated body). Again, the participants were asked to determine if the photograph showed a positive or a negative intense emotion.

        The results of the study showed that the participants were far more accurate in guessing the expressed emotion based on body language and not facial expression alone which challenges the belief that facial expression are highly accurate indicators of emotions.        

        According to one of the researchers, this was because people tend to think subjectively that we can tell the difference between emotions however, when viewed objectively, we have a random chance of predicting emotions correctly.

        In the experiment with manipulated photographs, participants tend to determine the emotion conveyed by the body and not the facial expression of the character. This, again, shows us, that we do not really just base our perception of emotion based on facial expression but, surprise! we actually have the tendency to base it on bodies. This study is of importance because it challenges conventional beliefs on facial expression and emotion, and accounts for the fact that people come into our lives with a face and a body (and not just a face!) This highlights the importance of the information conveyed by our bodies in expressing and perceiving emotions accurately.

However, despite these awesome findings, when participants were asked how they judged the photographs, most of the time they say that they based their ratings on facial expression and none said they based on body language alone. (When in fact, they didn’t!)

      This kind of misconception is termed as the “illusory facial affect”.

References:

Aviezer, H., Trope, Y., Todorov, A. (2012) Body Cues, Not Facial Epressions, Discriminate between intense positive and negative emotions. Science 338, 1225 (2012);

Franco Payuyo

Coming from a small town, it was kind of difficult to adjust living in Manila. So many new things to see, new places to visit, new people to meet, new place to learn and new experiences to discover. It seemed like my first year of college was already finished just as I was just getting started. I don’t know what happened, how I survived this hellish place for a semester. But for sure it wasn’t just because of all that coffee that has been in my system in a daily basis.

It was a daily struggle to fit into your schedule all the academic and org work that you need to do and still wake up early for your 7 am class and be able to actively listen and focus your attention to all of your classes up to 5:30 in the afternoon. I’ve reached a point in that semester that I couldn’t handle it anymore and was just dead tired and sleepy in my classes. One day, a friend of mine invited me to hangout at their house so that we can do our project together and we can help each other to stay awake. He was a seemingly very knowledgeable student, as soon as we got to their house we started working on our project. After working all night and finishing our project, both of us were already sleepy but we had a 7 am class to attend to. I asked if they have coffee, and he said yes but he told me he has something better than coffee. Something better that would help keep us awake during the day. That was the day I felt my first dose of amphetamine. The day went by without any hitch and it was all a blur. Before I know it, the day ends and I’m home.

I was at awe at what happened. It seemed that time flew so fast I was not able to catch up. It reminded me of the saying “time flies when you’re having fun”. I can’t say that I had fun in my classes but for some reason I wasn’t able to notice how time passed until I realized that it was already 5:30 pm and I was on my home. Being the curious kid I was back then, I searched if time does fly when you’re having fun.

It surprised me that there were already a lot of researches dwelling on the topic of perception of time, I was not aware it was already a subject of experimental research. Browsing through several studies, it was kind of obvious that humans do have the ability to accurately perceive time duration although it depends on the situation and individual is in. I even learned that emotion plays a role in it!

It turns out that we have a built-in timer in our bodies which can be influenced by attention and arousal. Both seem to have a contrasting effect. It seemed that as attention is focused on other things, attention given to the processing of time becomes distracted thus making us perceive to have a shorter duration of time. Maybe that’s what happened to me as I was focusing my attention to each of my classes, I wasn’t able to notice how much time have passed by. On the other hand, having a high arousal seems to increase pulses by increasing the speed of the pacemaker making it seem that a longer duration of time have passed.

Looking deeper into the results of an experimental study, it showed that whether we attend or not to our emotions it modulates our perception in the duration of time and arousal, in the physiological sense. It was able to conclude that duration of highly arousing stimuli were perceived to last longer than when attention was focused to time or attention was divided between time and emotion.

So it seems, that time really flew by that day. I was aware that I was so attentive due to that amphetamine intake. It helped me to be attentive and focus on almost everything. Maybe that’s why I thought time just flew by, although I was sure there were lots of arousing stimuli around me as that day was full of downs as everyone seemed to be in an agitated state. Even our professors were kind of easily angered. I don’t know if it was brought about by the mid-sem stress or the disappointing performances in our rehearsals for our class presentation. Anyway, I was focusing my attention to so many things to even notice how time could’ve been dragging that day.

At the end of the day, I was sure that my first wouldn’t be the last.

Source: