Topic1: Unconscious contingency learning enhances conscious visual perception
Speaker: Jiang Yi, Ph.D.
Time: 2014.9.3 9:00 a.m.
Place: 2th floor meeting room, building 7, The Affilated Hospital of Hanzhong Normal University.
Abstract: To adapt to life in an ever-changing world, humans possess an incredible ability to acquire critical contingencies between objects or events in the environment. Here we report that contingency learning can take place in the absence of visual awareness and without external reinforcement (e.g., punishment or reward). In a modified cue-target paradigm, systematic contingency was arranged between a pair of cues that were rendered invisible and a subsequently presented target. Despite the cues`invisibility, observers could nonetheless detect the latent contingency and automatically direct their attention to the invisible cue associated with the target. More importantly, the conscious visual representation was significantly enhanced through the unconscious learning, with the effect highly tuned to biologically prepared stimuli. Our findings shed new light on the mechanisms underlying contingency learning, and provide a potential avenue for attentional bias modification with clinical implications.
个人简介：蒋毅，中国科学院心理研究所研究员、博士生导师、中国科学院“百人计划”入选者、中组部“万人计划”首批青年拔尖人才入选者 。2002年和2004年毕业于北京大学心理学系，获学士和硕士学位；2009年毕业于美国明尼苏达大学心理学系，获博士学位。主要利用心理物理学范式结 合脑功能成像技术系统地研究无意识视觉信息加工的神经机制以及面孔和生物运动的视知觉表征特异性，取得了一系列重要创新性发现，研究成果发表在 Nature Neuroscience, PNAS, Current Biology, Brain, Psychological Science等重要国际学术期刊上。
Topic2: Olfaction warps visual time perception
Speaker: Zhou Wen, Ph.D.
Time: 2014.9.3 9:50 a.m.
Place: 2th floor meeting room, building 7, The Affilated Hospital of Hanzhong Normal University.
Abstract: Our perception of the world builds upon dynamic inputs from multiple senses with different temporal resolutions, and is threaded with the passing of subjective time. How time is attributed to multisensory inputs is not well understood. Utilizing psychophysical testing and electroencephalography (EEG), we have examined the effect of olfaction on visual object sampling and duration perception. We show that olfaction enhances object visibility around critical flicker fusion frequency – the limit at which chromatic flickers become perceived as a stable color – by boosting the oscillatory power of right temporal EEG signals around that frequency. The effect takes place at the stage of object processing in a congruency-based manner without the mediation of visual awareness. In parallel, olfaction lengthens the subjective duration of the corresponding visual object. These findings indicate that the very process of sensory integration twists time perception, hence casting new insights into the neural timing of multisensory events.
个人简介：周雯，博士，中国科学院心理研究所研究员，博士生导师。Rice University 心理学专业博士学位，2011年入选中国科学院“百人”计划，2014年获批优秀青年科学基金。主要从事人类嗅觉的研究，研究兴趣涉及：1)嗅觉知觉的性质；2)嗅觉作为感觉通道在社会情绪信息交流中的作用；3)嗅觉与其他感觉通道（例如视觉）以及情绪系统的交互作用。课题组的网页：http://zhouw.psych.ac.cn/