Ensemble coding: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 08:03, 9 December 2019

Revision as of 08:19, 9 December 2019

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== History ==

Throughout its history, ensemble coding has taken on many names. Interest in the topic began to emerge in the early 20th century <ref name="Wolfe_2011" />. In its earliest years, ensemble coding was known as [[Gestalt grouping rules|Gestalt grouping]] <ref name="Wolfe_2011" />. In 1923, Max Wertheimer, a [[Gestalt psychology]] theorist, was addressing how wehumans perceive ourtheir visual world holistically rather than individually <ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Wertheimer M | title = Untersuchungen zur Lehre von der Gestalt. II. | trans-title = Investigations into the teaching of the form | language = German | journal = Psychological Research | date = January 1923 | volume = 4 | issue = 1 | pages = 301–50 | doi = 10.1007/BF00410640 }}</ref>. Gestaltists argued that in object perception, the individual object features were either lost or difficult to perceive and therefore the grouped object was the favored percept <ref>Koffka, K. (1935). The Principles of Gestalt

Psychology. London: Routledge and

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Kegan Paul Ltd.</ref>. Although Gestaltists helped define some of the central principles of object perception, research into modern ensemble coding did not occur until many years later.

In 1971, [[Norman H. Anderson|Norman Anderson]] was one of the earliest to conduct explicit ensemble coding research <ref name="Haberman_2012" /><ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Anderson|first=Norman H.|date=1971|title=Integration theory and attitude change.|url=http://content.apa.org/journals/rev/78/3/171|journal=Psychological Review|language=en|volume=78|issue=3|pages=171–206|doi=10.1037/h0030834|issn=0033-295X}}</ref>. Anderson's research into social ensemble coding, showed that individuals described by two positive terms were rated more favorably than individuals described by two positive terms and two negative terms <ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Anderson|first=Norman H.|date=1965|title=Averaging versus adding as a stimulus-combination rule in impression formation.|url=http://doi.apa.org/getdoi.cfm?doi=10.1037/h0022280|journal=Journal of Experimental Psychology|language=en|volume=70|issue=4|pages=394–400|doi=10.1037/h0022280|issn=0022-1015}}</ref>. This research on [[impression formation]] demonstrated that a weighted mean or average captures how information is integrated rather than the summation <ref name=":0" />. Additional research during this time explored ensemble coding in group attractiveness <ref>Anderson, N. H., Lindner, R., & Lopes, L.

L. (1973). Integration Theory Applied

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Information. Memory &

Cognition, 2(4), 786-790.</ref>, and the perceived badness of criminals <ref>Leon, M., Oden, G. C., & Anderson, N. H.

(1973). Functional Measurement of

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== The Current era ==

Seminal findingsFindings by [[Dan Ariely]] in 2001 were the first data to support the modern theories of ensemble coding. Ariely used novel experimental paradigms he labeled "mean discrimination" and "member identification" to examine how sets of objects are perceived. He conducted three studies involving shape ensembles that varied in size. Across all studies participants were able to accurately encode the mean size of the ensemble of objects, but they were inaccurate when asked if a certain circleobject was a part of the set. Ariely's findings were the first that found statistical summary information emerge in the visual perception of grouped objects <ref name="Ariely_2001">{{cite journal | vauthors = Ariely D | title = Seeing sets: representation by statistical properties | journal = Psychological Science | volume = 12 | issue = 2 | pages = 157–62 | date = March 2001 | pmid = 11340926 | doi = 10.1111/1467-9280.00327 | url = https://semanticscholar.org/paper/5494c4ca523c5ef1999941e27c5248cea907c7af | jstor = 40063604 }}</ref>.

Consistent with Ariely's findings <ref name="Ariely_2001" />, follow up research conducted by Sang Chul Chong and Anne Treisman in 2003, provided evidence that participants are engaging in summary statistical processes. Their research revealed that participant's maintained high accuracy in encoding the mean size of the stimuli even with short stimuli presentations (50ms)as low as 50 milliseconds, memory delays, and circleobject distribution differences <ref name="Chong_2003">{{cite journal | vauthors = Chong SC, Treisman A | title = Representation of statistical properties | journal = Vision Research | volume = 43 | issue = 4 | pages = 393–404 | date = February 2003 | pmid = 12535996 | doi = 10.1016/S0042-6989(02)00596-5 }}</ref>.

Additional work has demonstrated that ensemble coding isn't limited to the mean size of objects in the ensemble <ref name="Ariely_2001" />, but that additional content is extracted like average line orientation <ref name="Dakin_1997">{{cite journal | vauthors = Dakin SC, Watt RJ | title = The computation of orientation statistics from visual texture | journal = Vision Research | volume = 37 | issue = 22 | pages = 3181–92 | date = November 1997 | pmid = 9463699 | doi = 10.1016/S0042-6989(97)00133-8 }}</ref>, average spatial ___location <ref name="Alvarez_2008">{{cite journal | vauthors = Alvarez GA, Oliva A | title = The representation of simple ensemble visual features outside the focus of attention | journal = Psychological Science | volume = 19 | issue = 4 | pages = 392–8 | date = April 2008 | pmid = 18399893 | pmc = 2587223 | doi = 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02098.x }}</ref>, average number <ref name="Halberda_2006">{{cite journal | vauthors = Halberda J, Sires SF, Feigenson L | title = Multiple spatially overlapping sets can be enumerated in parallel | journal = Psychological Science | volume = 17 | issue = 7 | pages = 572–6 | date = July 2006 | pmid = 16866741 | doi = 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01746.x }}</ref>, and statistical summaries like the variances <ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Solomon JA, Morgan M, Chubb C | title = Efficiencies for the statistics of size discrimination | journal = Journal of Vision | volume = 11 | issue = 12 | pages = 13 | date = October 2011 | pmid = 22011381 | pmc = 4135075 | doi = 10.1167/11.12.13 }}</ref> are detected. Observers are also able to extract accurate perceptual summaries ofhigh-level features like the average direction of eye gaze of grouped faces <ref>{{Cite journal|last=Sweeny|first=Timothy D.|last2=Whitney|first2=David|date=2014-10|title=Perceiving Crowd Attention: Ensemble Perception of a Crowd’s Gaze|url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797614544510|journal=Psychological Science|language=en|volume=25|issue=10|pages=1903–1913|doi=10.1177/0956797614544510|issn=0956-7976|pmc=PMC4192023|pmid=25125428}}</ref> and the average walking direction of a crowd <ref>{{Cite journal|last=Sweeny|first=Timothy D.|last2=Haroz|first2=Steve|last3=Whitney|first3=David|date=2013|title=Perceiving group behavior: Sensitive ensemble coding mechanisms for biological motion of human crowds.|url=http://doi.apa.org/getdoi.cfm?doi=10.1037/a0028712|journal=Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance|language=en|volume=39|issue=2|pages=329–337|doi=10.1037/a0028712|issn=1939-1277}}</ref>.

== Levels of Ensemble Coding ==

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== Social Vision and Ensemble Coding ==

Based on the early work of Anderson <ref name=":1" />, it appears that humans integrate semantic as well as social information using ensemble coding. These findings suggest, that social processes may hinge on the same sort of underlying mechanisms that allow people to perceive average object orientation <ref name="Dakin_1997" /> and average object direction of motion <ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" /><ref name="Haberman_2012" />.

In recent years, ensemble coding in the field of [[social vision]] has emerged. Social vision is a field of research that examines how people perceive one another. With the addition of ensemble coding, the field is able to explore people perception, or how people perceive groups of other people. This specific research area focuses on how observers accurately perceive and extract social information from groups and how that extracted information influences downstream judgments and behaviors <ref name=":4">{{Cite journal|last=Goodale|first=Brianna M.|last2=Alt|first2=Nicholas P.|last3=Lick|first3=David J.|last4=Johnson|first4=Kerri L.|date=2018-11|title=Groups at a glance: Perceivers infer social belonging in a group based on perceptual summaries of sex ratio.|url=http://doi.apa.org/getdoi.cfm?doi=10.1037/xge0000450|journal=Journal of Experimental Psychology: General|language=en|volume=147|issue=11|pages=1660–1676|doi=10.1037/xge0000450|issn=1939-2222}}</ref>. In 2018, seminal research combiningintroducing the use ensemble coding and in the field of social vision was conducted by Briana Goodale. This research examineddiscovered that humans can accurately extract sex ratio summaries from ensembles of faces and howthat this sex ratio provides an early visual cue signaling sense of belonging and fit within group <ref name=":4" />. Specifically, this research found that participants felt a stronger sense of belonging to a given ensemble as members of their own sex increased in the perceived ensemble <ref name=":4" />.

Additional research has discovereduncovered that in as little as 75 milliseconds, participants are able to derive the average sex ratio of an ensemble of faces <ref name=":5" />. Furthermore, within that 75 milliseconds, participants formedwere able to form impressions based on the perceived sex ratio and mademake inferences about the groups perceived threat <ref name=":5" />. Specifically, this research found that groups were judged as more threatening as the ratio of men to women increased <ref name=":5" />.

== References ==