Although the brain enables us to perceive the external world and our body, it remains unknown whether brain processes themselves can be perceived. Brain tissue does not have receptors for its own activity. However, the ability of humans to acquire self-control of brain processes indicates that the perception of these processes may also be achieved by learning. In this study patients learned to ...

In contrast to the previously held notion that mice have a weak visual system, it is now generally accepted that mice can perceive rather complicated figures in various contexts such as in cognitive experiments and in social settings. Here, we show that mice could even be capable of perceiving a visual illusion--subjective contours. This illusion requires the visual system to compensate for a l...

Eleanor Jack Gibson built her theory of perceptual learning over a 70-year research career. She published her first paper on perceptual learning in 1932 (J. J. Gibson, Jack, & Raffel, 1932) and her last book in 2002 (E. J. Gibson, 2002). There is a clear thread from beginning to end, but she was not dogmatic in her ideas; her theories were always informed by data, and data collection was often ...

Neurobiological accounts of the dopaminergic reward system and psychophysiological explanations of the error-related negativity (ERN) both emphasize the comparison of expected versus actual outcome for voluntary actions. The stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN) constitutes a valuable index of that expectation, in that it has high temporal resolution and its anatomical, cognitive and affective co...

Ever since the days of René Descartes, in the seventeenth century, the search for the relationship between subjective perception and neural activity has been an ongoing challenge. In neuroscience, an approach to the problem via the visual system has produced a paradigm using perceptual suppression, changing with time. Cortical areas in which the neural activity was modulated in temporal correla...

Most research on embryonic learning and behavior in aquatic vertebrates has focused fitness benefits after hatching, but the ability of embryos to perceive respond environmental stimuli may also have immediate adaptive value. Here, we examined whether fathead minnow embryos, Pimephales promelas, detect cues indicative predation risk, environment influences hatching. We compared 5-day-old post-f...

There are a variety of reasons someone might engage in risky behaviors, such as perceived invulnerability to harm or a belief that negative outcomes are more likely for others than for oneself. However, these risk-taking biases are often measured at a decision-making level or from the developmental perspective. Here we assessed whether or not risk-taking influenced perceptual judgments associat...

This study draws upon concepts of institutional trust and expendability to examine perceptions risk associated with hydraulic fracturing or “fracking.” To risk, we collected data from a nationally representative sample U.K. residents analyzed it using multivariate regression. Perceptions are measured for the oil gas industry, central government, local regulators while perceived risks seismicity...

Although self-harming behavior is a common and costly problem for psychiatric inpatients released from the hospital, standardized tools that assess patients' risk for self-harm are rarely used in clinical settings. In this study of dually diagnosed psychiatric inpatients (N = 147), we assessed the utility of patients' self-perceptions of risk in predicting self-harm in the community. Patients' ...