Facilitation Of Visual Ensemble Coding By Task Relevance In Action Engagement Contexts

When humans are confronted with a large number of similar objects,our visual system can extract their summary statistics,such as mean,variance,etc.This perceptual ability is called ensemble coding.There are many domestic and international studies on ensemble coding,all of which are based on visual or auditory stimuli and focus on the effects of object factors such as stimulus quantity and stimulus presentation time on ensemble coding.Previous research has found that movement can facilitate cognitive processes such as memory,learning,and problem-solving and that these facilitations produce an embodied effect,which refers to the effect of physical movement on cognitive processing activities,and is influenced by the association of movement with the task.Based on this,three experiments were conducted to explore the effect of active involvement and its task relevance on the visual ensemble coding.Experiment 1 focused on the effect of active involvement on ensemble coding accuracy.Experiment 1 used a two-factor(action: presence,absence;task type: size,location)within-subjects experimental design.The experiment used the classical adjustment method to examine ensemble coding accuracy.During the presentation phase of the stimuli,a set of circles of different sizes and positions was presented to the subject sequence.Then,during the response phase,subjects were presented with a target circle or blank screen and were asked to match the average size or average position of the set of circles during the presentation phase by sliding the horizontal bar of the screen or clicking on the screen.In the action engagement condition,subjects were required to tap sequentially on the screen with their right index finger where the circle was located;in the no-action engagement condition,subjects were simply required to watch.It was found that in the ensemble coding task of position,accuracy was higher with active engagement than without;in the ensemble coding task of size,there was no facilitation effect of active engagement.The results suggest that action involvement affects ensemble coding,but this effect only occurs when the experimental task is associated with an action.Experiment 2 further examined the effect of action-task relevance on the facilitation effect of active engagement when the experimental task was a size ensemble coding.Experiment 2 used a single-factor two-level(action engagement:yes,no)within-subjects experimental design.In the stimulus presentation phase of Experiment 2,subjects were presented with identically positioned but differently sized circles;in the response phase,subjects were presented with a target circle and asked to adjust the size of the circle by sliding the horizontal bar of the screen to match the average size of the set of circles in the presentation phase.In the action participation condition,subjects were asked to trace the size of the circle in a clockwise direction with their right index finger against the screen;in the no-action participation condition,subjects simply watched the presentation of the stimuli.It was found that subjects in the with-motion condition the ensemble coding accuracy of the size was higher than in the without-motion condition.The results of Experiment 2 validated the results of Experiment 1 that actions have to be associated with the type of task in the task response phase informed actions to contribute to the ensemble encoding.As the actions in Experiment 1 and Experiment 2 had multiple practice sessions.To test whether the practice of the action in stimulus presentation also has affected ensemble coding accuracy,Experiment 3 used circles of the same size and different positions as stimulus materials.Experiment 3 used a 3 × 2 mixed experimental design(groups: screen click,button press,control;tests: pre-test,post-test).In the screen-clicking group,subjects were required to use their right index finger to click on the screen at the location of the circle in sequence;in the key-clicking group,subjects were required to press the space bar with their right index finger when the circle was presented;and in the control group,subjects were only required to look at the circle on the screen.The results of Experiment 3 found that the active practice did not have an effective ensemble coding accuracy.In summary,this study explored the effects of task relevance on visual ensemble coding in an active involvement context from three perspectives: action involvement,task relevance,and active practice.The findings can be summarised as follows: the ensemble coding task also has an embodiment effect of action.That is,the accuracy of ensemble encoding is influenced by the actions associated with the visual stimuli.The combination of bodily movements and ensemble perception suggests that we capture and analyze information across multiple channels,allowing for the fusion of information from multiple channels and thus increasing the efficiency of information capture.