When briefly presented with global and local visual information, individuals report global information more quickly and more accurately than local information, a phenomenon known as the global precedence effect (GPE; Navon, 1977). We investigated whether a bias toward global information persists in visual working memory (VWM) and whether the VWM representations for global and local features inc...

The body image concern (BIC) continuum ranges from a healthy and positive body image, to clinical diagnoses of abnormal body image, like body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). BDD and non-clinical, yet high-BIC participants have demonstrated a local visual processing bias, characterised by reduced inversion effects. To examine whether this bias is a potential marker of BDD, the visual processing of in...

People with eating disorders (EDs) are reported to have set-shifting difficulties, strengths in local or detailed information processing and weak central coherence or global processing. This study aimed to explore the validity of a novel, brief, global, neurocognitive task which has not previously been utilised in an ED population, the Navon Figures Task (NFT). The NFT is substantially quicker ...

Systemizing ability exists on a spectrum, with a high systemizing style meaning proficiency in analysing the rules of a system, to predict how that system works. This study uses fMRI to investigate a spectrum of low to high systemizing, to assess whether individuals with a high systemizing style exhibit an attentional bias towards local details. This is the first study to test for the neural co...

Research, directly assessing sex-dependent differences in global versus local processing is sparse, but predominantly suggesting that men show a stronger global processing bias than women. Utilizing the Kimchi-Palmer task however, sex differences in the number of global choices can only be found in children, but not in adults. In the current study 52 men and 46 women completed a computerized ve...

Ethanol exerts its actions in the central and peripheral nervous systems through the direct interactions with several proteins, including ligand-gated ion channels such as the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR). The binding interaction between ethanol and sodium cholate solubilized nicotinic acetylcholine receptor protein can be detected through either NMR line broadening or T1 titration....

Visuo-spatial skills are believed to be enhanced in autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). This meta-analysis tests the current state of evidence for Figure Disembedding, Block Design, Mental Rotation and Navon tasks in ASD and neurotypicals. Block Design (d = 0.32) and Figure Disembedding (d = 0.26) showed superior performance for ASD with large heterogeneity that is unaccounted for. No clear diffe...

Left-right asymmetries have been noted in tasks requiring the classification of many visual stimuli, including Navon figures, spatial frequency gratings, and faces. The Double Filtering by Frequency (DFF) model (Ivry & Robertson, 1998), which postulates asymmetric frequency filtering on task-relevant frequency bands, has been implemented to account for asymmetric processing of each stimulus typ...