Although often underrated in importance, the human sense of smell has both evolutionary and contemporary significance: our ability to perceive odors provides information that guides our responses to our environments. For example, the rich aromas wafting from a bakery encourage us to linger and savor them, whereas the smell of rotting garbage impels us to move away. No account of the role of sme...

One study was conducted to analyze the effect of perceived control over one’s life on group perception. Participants were presented with abstract and exemplar information regarding a group of 100 lawyers and answered a questionnaire with questions regarding group perception and perceived control. Considering that lack of control leads to effortful information seeking, it was expected, and found...

The positive effects of the music of Wolfgang Amadaus Mozart on spatial reasoning ability have become a popular topic. Some studies suggest that listening to Mozart has a short-term positive effect on spatial IQ. Others suggest that prenatal and early childhood exposure to music can lead to long-term positive effects. However, some attempts to duplicate and generalize these findings have failed...

A chief goal of perception is to help us navigate our environment. According to a rich and ambitious theory of spatial perception, the visual system achieves this goal not by aiming to accurately depict the external world, but instead by actively distorting the environment's perceived spatial layout to bias action selection toward favorable outcomes. Scores of experimental results have supporte...

In 3D worlds, the added dimension gives users the feeling of perceiving a more realistic presentation. Therefore, 3D is very attractive for different research and development areas like in the field of Games and Serious Games. The spatial perception and spatial presence experience of the user are different when using 3D in contrast to 2D applications. In the context of the project ‘Sports in th...

Auditory and visual information is integrated when perceiving speech, as evidenced by the McGurk effect in which viewing an incongruent talking face categorically alters auditory speech perception. Audiovisual integration in speech perception has long been considered automatic and pre-attentive but recent reports have challenged this view. Here we study the effect of visual spatial attention on...