Showing papers in "Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance in 2010"

Seeing it their way : evidence for rapid and involuntary computation of what other people see

Abstract: In a series of three visual perspective-taking experiments, we asked adult participants to judge their own or someone else's visual perspective in situations where both perspectives were either the same or different. We found that participants could not easily ignore what someone else saw when making self-perspective judgments. This was observed even when participants were only required to take their own perspective within the same block of trials (Experiment 2) or even within the entire experiment (Experiment 3), i.e. under conditions which gave participants a clear opportunity to adopt a strategy of ignoring the other person's irrelevant perspective. Under some circumstances, participants were also more efficient at judging the other person's perspective than at judging their own perspective. Collectively, these results suggest that adults make use of rapid and efficient processes to compute what other people can see.

Representations of the magnitudes of fractions.

Abstract: We tested whether adults can use integrated, analog, magnitude representations to compare the values of fractions. The only previous study on this question concluded that even college students cannot form such representations and instead compare fraction magnitudes by representing numerators and denominators as separate whole numbers. However, atypical characteristics of the presented fractions might have provoked the use of atypical comparison strategies in that study. In our 3 experiments, university and community college students compared more balanced sets of single-digit and multi-digit fractions and consistently exhibited a logarithmic distance effect. Thus, adults used integrated, analog representations, akin to a mental number line, to compare fraction magnitudes. We interpret differences between the past and present findings in terms of different stimuli eliciting different solution strategies.

Motivational influences on response inhibition measures

Abstract: Psychological research has placed great emphasis on inhibitory control due to its integral role in normal cognition and clinical disorders. The stop-signal task and associated measure--stop-signal reaction time (SSRT)--provides a well-established paradigm for measuring response inhibition. However, motivational influences on stop-signal performance and SSRT have not been examined. We conceptualize the stop-signal paradigm as a decision-making task involving the trade-off between fast responding and accurate inhibition. In 4 experiments, we demonstrate that performance trade-offs are influenced by inherent motivational biases and explicit strategic control. As a result, SSRT was lower when participants favored correct stopping over fast responding than when the same participants favored fast responding over correct stopping. We present a novel variant of the stop-signal task that uses monetary incentives to manipulate motivated speed-accuracy trade-offs. By sampling performance at multiple-trade-off settings, we obtain a measure of inhibitory ability that is independent of trade-off bias, and thus, more easily interpretable when comparing across participants. We present a working theoretical model to explain the effects of motivational context on response inhibition.

Why we respond faster to the self than to others? An implicit positive association theory of self-advantage during implicit face recognition

Abstract: Human adults usually respond faster to their own faces rather than to those of others. We tested the hypothesis that an implicit positive association (IPA) with self mediates self-advantage in face recognition through 4 experiments. Using a self-concept threat (SCT) priming that associated the self with negative personal traits and led to a weakened IPA with self, we found that self-face advantage in an implicit face-recognition task that required identification of face orientation was eliminated by the SCT priming. Moreover, the SCT effect on self-face recognition was evident only with the left-hand responses. Furthermore, the SCT effect on self-face recognition was observed in both Chinese and American participants. Our findings support the IPA hypothesis that defines a social cognitive mechanism of self-advantage in face recognition.

The impact of facial emotional expressions on behavioral tendencies in women and men.

Abstract: Emotional faces communicate both the emotional state and behavioral intentions of an individual. They also activate behavioral tendencies in the perceiver, namely approach or avoidance. Here, we compared more automatic motor to more conscious rating responses to happy, sad, angry and disgusted faces in a healthy student sample. Happiness was associated with approach and anger with avoidance. However, behavioral tendencies in response to sadness and disgust were more complex. Sadness produced automatic approach but conscious withdrawal, probably influenced by interpersonal relations or personality. Disgust elicited withdrawal in the rating task whereas no significant tendency emerged in the joystick task, probably driven by expression style. Based on our results it is highly relevant to further explore actual reactions to emotional expressions and to differentiate between automatic and controlled processes since emotional faces are used in various kinds of studies. Moreover, our results highlight the importance of gender of poser effects when applying emotional expressions as stimuli.

Grasping beer mugs: on the dynamics of alignment effects induced by handled objects.

Abstract: We examined automatic spatial alignment effects evoked by handled objects. Using color as the relevant cue carried by an irrelevant handled object aligned or misaligned with the response hand, responses to color were faster when the handle aligned with the response hand. Alignment effects were observed only when the task was to make a reach and grasp response. No alignment effects occurred if the response involved a leftright key press. Alignment effects emerged over time, becoming more apparent either when the color cue was delayed or when relatively long, rather than short, response times were analyzed. These results are consistent with neurophysiological evidence indicating that the cued goal state has a modulatory influence on sensorimotor representations, and that handled objects initially generate competition between neural populations coding for a left- or right-handed action that must be resolved before a particular hand is favored.

Diluting the burden of load: perceptual load effects are simply dilution effects.

Abstract: The substantial distractor interference obtained for small displays when the target appears alone is reduced in large displays when the target is embedded among neutral letters. This finding has been interpreted as reflecting low-load and high-load processing, respectively, thereby supporting the theory of perceptual load (Lavie & Tsal, 1994). However, a possible alternative interpretation of this effect is that the distractor is similarly processed in both displays, yet its interference in the large ones is diluted by the presence of the neutral letters. We separated the effects of load and dilution by introducing dilution displays. They contained as many letters as the high-load displays but were clearly distinguished from the target, thus allowing for a low-load processing mode. Distractor interference obtained under both the low-load and high-load conditions disappeared under the dilution condition. Hence, the display size effect traditionally misattributed to perceptual load is fully accounted for by dilution. Furthermore, when dilution is controlled for, it is high load not low load producing greater interference.

Analyzing the Generality of Conflict Adaptation Effects.

Abstract: Conflict adaptation effects refer to the reduction of interference when the incongruent stimulus occurs immediately after an incongruent trial, compared with when it occurs after a congruent trial. The present study analyzes the key conditions that lead to adaptation effects that are specific to the type of conflict involved versus those that are conflict general. In the first 2 experiments, we combined 2 types of conflict for which compatibility arises from clearly different sources in terms of dimensional overlap while keeping the task context constant across conflict types. We found a clear pattern of specificity on conflict adaptation across conflict types. In subsequent experiments, we tested whether this pattern could be accounted in terms of feature integration processes contributing differently to repetition versus alternation of conflict types. The results clearly indicated that feature integration was not key to generating conflict type specificity on conflict adaptation. The data are consistent with there being separate modes of control for different types of cognitive conflict.

Distributional effects of word frequency on eye fixation durations.

Abstract: Recent research using word recognition paradigms, such as lexical decision and speeded pronunciation, has investigated how a range of variables affect the location and shape of response time distributions, using both parametric and non-parametric techniques. In this article, we explore the distributional effects of a word frequency manipulation on fixation durations in normal reading, making use of data from two recent eye movement experiments (Drieghe, Rayner, & Pollatsek, 2008; White, 2008). The ex-Gaussian distribution provided a good fit to the shape of individual subjects' distributions in both experiments. The frequency manipulation affected both the shift and skew of the distributions, in both experiments, and this conclusion was supported by the nonparametric vincentizing technique. Finally, a new experiment demonstrated that White's (2008) frequency manipulation also affects both shift and skew in response-time distributions in the lexical decision task. These results argue against models of eye movement control in reading that propose that word frequency influences only a subset of fixations and support models in which there is a tight connection between eye movement control and the progress of lexical processing.

Are attractive men's faces masculine or feminine? The importance of controlling confounds in face stimuli.

Abstract: Women's preferences for male masculinity are highly variable. Although many researchers explain this variability as reflecting systematic individual differences in how women resolve the tradeoff between the costs and benefits of choosing a masculine partner, others suggest that methodological differences between studies are responsible. A recent study found general femininity preferences for judgments of faces that were manipulated in sexual dimorphism of shape but general masculinity preferences for judgments of faces that were based on perceived masculinity. Using the original stimuli, we replicated these previous results but found equivalent general femininity preferences for both types of faces when nonface confounds in the stimuli (e.g. hairstyle) were eliminated through masking. We conclude that care must be taken to control potential confounds in stimuli and that the influence of nonface cues on preferences for facial masculinity deserves further study.

The Object-Based Simon Effect: Grasping Affordance or Relative Location of the Graspable Part?.

Abstract: Reaction time is often shorter when the irrelevant graspable handle of an object corresponds with the location of a keypress response to the relevant attribute than when it does not. This object-based Simon effect has been attributed to an affordance for grasping the handle with the hand to the same side. Because a grasping affordance should differentially affect keypress responses only when they are made with different hands, we conducted three experiments that measured the object-based Simon effect for frying pan stimuli using between- and within-hand response sets. When the relevant stimulus dimension was color, neither the object-based Simon effect nor the location-based Simon effect varied across response sets. When upright-inverted orientation judgments were made for the frying pan and for nongraspable stimuli derived from it, there again was no significant difference in size of the between- and within-hand Simon effects for any of the stimuli. The results provide evidence that the Simon effect for graspable frying pan stimuli is because of relative location of the handle and not to a grasping affordance.

The role of expertise in tool use: skill differences in functional action adaptations to task constraints.

Abstract: Tool use can be considered a particularly useful model to understand the nature of functional actions. In 3 experiments, tool-use actions typified by stone knapping were investigated. Participants had to detach stone flakes from a flint core through a conchoidal fracture. Successful flake detachment requires controlling various functional parameters simultaneously. Accordingly, our goals were twofold: (a) to examine the regulation of kinetic energy by varying the properties of the hammers and the goal, and (b) to characterize the difference in action regulation across skill levels. All groups were able to modify their actions according to changes in task goals, but only experts displayed fine-tuning to functional parameters (i.e., regulate actions according to changes in hammer weight in a manner that left kinetic energy unchanged). Expertise is considered to depend on the identification of the interactions between functional parameters.

Thinking about the future moves attention to the right.

Abstract: Previous studies have shown that past and future temporal concepts are spatially represented (past being located to the left and future to the right in a mental time line). This study aims at further investigating the nature of this space‐time conceptual metaphor, by testing whether the temporal reference of words orient spatial attention or rather prime a congruent left/right response. A modified version of the spatial cuing paradigm was used in which a word’s temporal reference must be kept in working memory whilst participants carry out a spatial localization (Experiment 1) or a direction discrimination, spatial Stroop task (Experiment 2). The results showed that the mere activation of the past or future concepts both oriented attention and primed motor responses to left or right space, respectively, and these effects were independent. Moreover, in spite of the fact that such time-reference cues were nonpredictive, the use of a short and a long stimulus onset asynchrony in Experiment 3 showed that these cues modulated spatial attention as typical central cues like arrows do, suggesting a common mechanism for these two types of cuing.

A test of motor (not executive) planning in developmental coordination disorder and autism.

Abstract: Grip selection tasks have been used to test "planning" in both autism and developmental coordination disorder (DCD). We differentiate between motor and executive planning and present a modified motor planning task. Participants grasped a cylinder in 1 of 2 orientations before turning it clockwise or anticlockwise. The rotation resulted in a comfortable final posture at the cost of a harder initial reaching action on 50% of trials. We hypothesized that grip selection would be dominated by motoric developmental status. Adults were always biased towards a comfortable end-state with their dominant hand, but occasionally ended uncomfortably with their nondominant hand. Most 9- to 14-year-olds with and without autism also showed this "end-state comfort" bias but only 50% of 5- to 8-year-olds. In contrast, children with DCD were biased towards selecting the simplest initial movement. Our results are best understood in terms of motor planning, with selection of an easier initial grip resulting from poor reach-to-grasp control rather than an executive planning deficit. The absence of differences between autism and controls may reflect the low demand this particular task places on executive planning.

Compatibility of motion facilitates visuomotor synchronization.

Abstract: Prior research indicates that synchronized tapping performance is very poor with flashing visual stimuli compared with auditory stimuli. Three finger-tapping experiments compared flashing visual metronomes with visual metronomes containing a spatial component, either compatible, incompatible, or orthogonal to the tapping action. In Experiment 1, synchronization success rates increased dramatically for spatiotemporal sequences of both geometric and biological forms over flashing sequences. In Experiment 2, synchronization performance was best when target sequences and movements were directionally compatible (i.e., simultaneously down), followed by orthogonal stimuli, and was poorest for incompatible moving stimuli and flashing stimuli. In Experiment 3, synchronization performance was best with auditory sequences, followed by compatible moving stimuli, and was worst for flashing and fading stimuli. Results indicate that visuomotor synchronization improves dramatically with compatible spatial information. However, an auditory advantage in sensorimotor synchronization persists.

The influence of alertness on spatial and nonspatial components of visual attention.

Abstract: Three experiments investigated whether spatial and nonspatial components of visual attention would be influenced by changes in (healthy, young) subjects’ level of alertness and whether such effects on separable components would occur independently of each other. The experiments used a no-cue/alertingcue design with varying cue-target stimulus onset asynchronies in two different whole-report paradigms based on Bundesen’s (1990) theory of visual attention, which permits spatial and nonspatial components of selective attention to be assessed independently. The results revealed the level of alertness to affect both the spatial distribution of attentional weighting and processing speed, but not visual short-term memory capacity, with the effect on processing speed preceding that on the spatial distribution of attentional weighting. This pattern indicates that the level of alertness influences both spatial and nonspatial component mechanisms of visual attention and that these two effects develop independently of each other; moreover, it suggests that intrinsic and phasic alertness effects involve the same processing route, on which spatial and nonspatial mechanisms are mediated by independent processing systems that are activated, due to increased alertness, in temporal succession.

Attentional capture with rapidly changing attentional control settings.

Abstract: The classic theory of spatial attention hypothesized 2 modes, voluntary and involuntary. Folk, Remington, and Johnston (1992) reported that even involuntary attention capture by stimuli requires a match between stimulus properties and what the observer is looking for. This surprising conclusion has been confirmed by many subsequent studies. In these studies, however, the observer typically looks for the same property throughout an entire session. Real-world behavior, in contrast, often requires frequent shifts in attentional set. The present study examined whether such shifts weaken attentional settings, allowing task-irrelevant objects to capture attention. Surprisingly, fluctuating control settings did not increase vulnerability to capture by salient stimuli (color singletons and abrupt onsets). We conclude that the attention control system is remarkably flexible, able to rapidly and fully adopt new settings and abandon old settings.

It's all in your head: why is the body inversion effect abolished for headless bodies?

Abstract: It has been recently argued that human bodies are processed by a specialized processing mechanism. Central evidence was that body inversion reduces recognition abilities (body inversion effect; BIE) as much as it does for faces, but more than for other objects. Here we showed that the BIE is markedly reduced for headless bodies and examined the reason for this unexpected finding. Two alternative hypotheses were examined. Either the BIE is reduced for any type of incomplete body, or the head plays a special role in discrimination of body posture. Results show that omission of other body parts (leg or arms) did not influence the magnitude of the BIE relative to complete bodies. Analogous manipulations with faces did not influence the magnitude of the face inversion effect. Importantly, similar to effects we found for headless bodies, discrimination abilities for upright bodies and the BIE were markedly reduced for complete bodies that did not differ in head posture. We conclude that intact discrimination of body posture relies heavily on the head position. Our findings also imply that the BIE and the face inversion effect may be generated by different mechanisms.

Binding Objects to Locations: The Relationship Between Object Files and Visual Working Memory

Abstract: The relationship between object files and visual working memory (VWM) was investigated in a new paradigm combining features of traditional VWM experiments (color change detection) and object-file experiments (memory for the properties of moving objects). Object-file theory was found to account for a key component of object-position binding in VWM: With motion, color memory came to be associated with the new locations of objects. However, robust binding to the original locations was found despite clear evidence that the objects had moved. This latter binding appears to constitute a scene-based component in VWM, which codes object location relative to the abstract spatial configuration of the display and is largely insensitive to the dynamic properties of objects.

The Role of Relational Information in Contingent Capture

Abstract: On the contingent capture account, top-down attentional control settings restrict involuntary attentional capture to items that match the features of the search target. Attention capture is involuntary, but contingent on goals and intentions. The observation that only target-similar items can capture attention has usually been taken to show that the content of the attentional control settings consists of specific feature values. In contrast, the present study demonstrates that the top-down target template can include information about the relationship between the target and nontarget features (e.g., redder, darker, larger). Several spatial cuing experiments show that a singleton cue that is less similar to the target but that shares the same relational property that distinguishes targets from nontargets can capture attention to the same extent as cues that are similar to the target. Moreover, less similar cues can even capture attention more than cues that are identical to the target when they are relationally better than identical cues. The implications for current theories of attentional capture and attentional guidance are discussed.

Perceptual Discrimination in Static and Dynamic Noise: The Temporal Relation Between Perceptual Encoding and Decision Making

Abstract: The authors report 9 new experiments and reanalyze 3 published experiments that investigate factors affecting the time course of perceptual processing and its effects on subsequent decision making. Stimuli in letter-discrimination and brightness-discrimination tasks were degraded with static and dynamic noise. The onset and the time course of decision making were quantified by fitting the data with the diffusion model. Dynamic noise and, to a lesser extent, static noise, produced large shifts in the leading edge of the response-time distribution in letter discrimination but had little effect in brightness discrimination. The authors interpret these shifts as changes in the onset of decision making. The different pattern of shifts in letter discrimination and brightness discrimination implies that decision making in the 2 tasks was affected differently by noise. The changes in response-time distributions found with letter stimuli are inconsistent with the hypothesis that noise increases response times to letter stimuli simply by reducing the rate at which evidence accumulates in the decision process. Instead, they imply that noise also delays the time at which evidence accumulation begins. The delay is shown not to be the result of strategic processes or the result of using different stimuli in different tasks. The results imply, rather, that the onset of evidence accumulation in the decision process is time-locked to the perceptual encoding of the stimulus features needed to do the task. Two mechanisms that could produce this time-locking are described.

Crowding Affects Letters and Symbols Differently

Abstract: Five experiments examined crowding effects with letter and symbol stimuli. Experiments 1 through 3 compared 2-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) identification accuracy for isolated targets presented left and right of fixation with targets flanked either by 2 other items of the same category or a single item situated to the right or left of targets. Interference from flankers (crowding) was significantly stronger for symbols than letters. Single flankers generated performance similar to the isolated targets when the stimuli were letters but closer to the 2-flanker condition when the stimuli were symbols. Experiment 4 confirmed this pattern using a partial-report bar probe procedure. Experiment 5 showed that another measure of crowding, critical spacing, was greater for symbols than for letters. The results support the hypothesis that letter-string processing involves a specialized system developed to limit the spatial extent of crowding for letters in words.

Does face inversion change spatial frequency tuning

Abstract: The authors examined spatial frequency (SF) tuning of upright and inverted face identification using an SF variant of the Bubbles technique (F. Gosselin & P. G. Schyns, 2001). In Experiment 1, they validated the SF Bubbles technique in a plaid detection task. In Experiments 2a-c, the SFs used for identifying upright and inverted inner facial features were investigated. Although a clear inversion effect was present (mean accuracy was 24% higher and response times 455 ms shorter for upright faces), SF tunings were remarkably similar in both orientation conditions (mean r = .98; an SF band of 1.9 octaves centered at 9.8 cycles per face width for faces of about 6 degrees ). In Experiments 3a and b, the authors demonstrated that their technique is sensitive to both subtle bottom-up and top-down induced changes in SF tuning, suggesting that the null results of Experiments 2a-c are real. The most parsimonious explanation of the findings is provided by the quantitative account of the face inversion effect: The same information is used for identifying upright and inverted inner facial features, but processing has greater sensitivity with the former.

The paired-object affordance effect.

Abstract: We demonstrate that right-handed participants make speeded classification responses to pairs of objects that appear in standard co-locations for right-handed actions relative to when they appear in reflected locations. These effects are greater when participants "weight" information for action when deciding if 2 objects are typically used together, compared with deciding if objects typically occur in a given context. The effects are enhanced, and affect both types of decision, when an agent is shown holding the objects. However, the effects are eliminated when the objects are not viewed from the first-person perspective and when words are presented rather than objects. The data suggest that (a) participants are sensitive to whether objects are positioned correctly for their own actions, (b) the position information is coded within an egocentric reference frame, (c) the critical representation involved is visual and not semantic, and (d) the effects are enhanced by a sense of agency. The results can be interpreted within a dual-route framework for action retrieval in which a direct visual route is influenced by affordances for action.

Synchronizing self and object movement: How child and adult cyclists intercept moving gaps in a virtual environment

Abstract: Two experiments examined how 10- and 12-year-old children and adults intercept moving gaps while bicycling in an immersive virtual environment. Participants rode an actual bicycle along a virtual roadway. At 12 test intersections, participants attempted to pass through a gap between 2 moving, car-sized blocks without stopping. The blocks were timed such that it was sometimes necessary for participants to adjust their speed in order to pass through the gap. We manipulated available visual information by presenting the target blocks in isolation in Experiment 1 and in streams of blocks in Experiment 2. In both experiments, adults had more time to spare than did children. Both groups had more time to spare when they were required to slow down than when they were required to speed up. Participants' behavior revealed a multistage interception strategy that cannot be explained by the use of a monotonic control law such as the constant bearing angle strategy. The General Discussion section focuses on possible sources of changes in perception-action coupling over development and on task-specific constraints that could underlie the observed interception strategy.

When and How Are Spatial Perceptions Scaled

Abstract: This research was designed to test the predictions of 2 approaches to perception. By most traditional accounts, people are thought to derive general-purpose spatial perceptions that are scaled in arbitrary, unspecified units. In contrast, action-specific approaches propose that the angular information inherent in optic flow and ocular-motor adjustments is rescaled and transformed into units related to intended actions. A number of studies have shown, for example, that the apparent distance to targets is scaled by the effort required to walk the extent. Such studies can be accommodated by the traditional account by asserting that the experimental manipulations of walking effort influenced not perception itself, but rather postperceptual response processes. The current studies were designed to assess when and how action-specific influences on distance perception have their effects. The results supported the action-specific account.

The role of fractality in perceptual learning: exploration in dynamic touch.

Abstract: Perceptual systems must learn to explore and to use the resulting information to hone performance. Optimal performance depends on using information available at many time scales, from the near instantaneous values of variables underlying perception (i.e., detection), to longer term information about appropriate scaling (i.e., calibration), to yet longer term information guiding variable use (i.e., attunement). Fractal fluctuations in explorations would entail fluctuation at all time scales, allowing perceptual systems a flexible way to detect information at all time scales. We tested whether perceptual learning in dynamic touch is related to the fractality of wielding behaviors. A reanalysis of wielding behaviors from Arzamarski, Isenhower, Kay, Turvey, and Michaels (2010) revealed that exploratory movements were fractal and that a fractal-scaling exponent predicts individual differences in haptic judgments.

Acquisition of automatic imitation is sensitive to sensorimotor contingency.

Abstract: The associative sequence learning model proposes that the development of the mirror system depends on the same mechanisms of associative learning that mediate Pavlovian and instrumental conditioning To test this model, two experiments used the reduction of automatic imitation through incompatible sensorimotor training to assess whether mirror system plasticity is sensitive to contingency (ie, the extent to which activation of one representation predicts activation of another) In Experiment 1, residual automatic imitation was measured following incompatible training in which the action stimulus was a perfect predictor of the response (contingent) or not at all predictive of the response (noncontingent) A contingency effect was observed: There was less automatic imitation indicative of more learning in the contingent group Experiment 2 replicated this contingency effect and showed that, as predicted by associative learning theory, it can be abolished by signaling trials in which the response occurs in the absence of an action stimulus These findings support the view that mirror system development depends on associative learning and indicate that this learning is not purely Hebbian If this is correct, associative learning theory could be used to explain, predict, and intervene in mirror system development

Contextual cueing in multiconjunction visual search is dependent on color- and configuration-based intertrial contingencies.

Abstract: Three experiments examined memory-based guidance of visual search using a modified version of the contextual-cueing paradigm (Jiang & Chun, 2001). The target, if present, was a conjunction of color and orientation, with target (and distractor) features randomly varying across trials (multiconjunction search). Under these conditions, reaction times (RTs) were faster when all items in the display appeared at predictive ("old") relative to nonpredictive ("new") locations. However, this RT benefit was smaller compared to when only one set of items, namely that sharing the target's color (but not that in the alternative color) appeared in predictive arrangement. In all conditions, contextual cueing was reliable on both target-present and -absent trials and enhanced if a predictive display was preceded by a predictive (though differently arranged) display, rather than a nonpredictive display. These results suggest that (1) contextual cueing is confined to color subsets of items, that (2) retrieving contextual associations for one color subset of items can be impeded by associations formed within the alternative subset ("contextual interference"), and (3) that contextual cueing is modulated by intertrial priming.

Perceptual and attentional influences on continuous 2:1 and 3:2 multi-frequency bimanual coordination.

Abstract: Two experiments were conducted to determine if multi-frequency (2:1 and 3:2) coordination between the limbs is enhanced when integrated feedback is provided in the form of Lissajous plots, attention demands are reduced, and attempts to consciously coordinate the limbs are not encouraged. To determine the influence of vision of the limbs, covered and uncovered limb groups were provided online Lissajous feedback. To determine the impact of the Lissajous feedback, a control group that was not provided Lissajous feedback was also tested. The data indicated remarkably effective performances after 5 min of practice when limbs were covered and Lissajous feedback was provided. When Lissajous feedback was provided and vision of the limbs was permitted, performance deteriorated. Performance by the group not provided Lissajous feedback was quite poor. The findings suggest that some of the difficulty associated with producing difficult bimanual coordination patterns are due to the less than optimal perceptual information available in various testing situations and the attentional focus imposed by the participant.