Chen, Hsin-Yuan
(2025)
An investigation into human perception highlights the automatic preference and prominence given to hands.
PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.
Abstract
Hand perception, akin to face perception, enables the discernment and communication of human intentions or emotions. Whilst face perception has been extensively investigated in terms of cognitive and neural processes, much less is known about the cognitive processes and neural activations associated with hand perception, which this PhD project aims to study. The project posits two primary questions: (1) Are viewed hands, particularly hands with distorted finger postures, such as those that may occur after an accident, exceptionally salient? Are hands with distorted finger postures quantitatively more salient than hands with natural finger postures? (2) Is there a particular cognitive process underlying this attention, such as the activation of the viewer's sensorimotor cortex as seen in automatic mental simulation, and are there distinct cognitive processes or brain activation patterns involved in processing distorted finger postures compared to natural finger postures? Despite the potential significance of hands in revealing intentions or emotions, as opposed to the potential of faces, this issue has received considerably less research attention, particularly regarding the perception of distorted finger postures, which remains a largely unexplored issue apart from a limited number of studies focusing on brain activation.
The aim of this thesis is to employ visual search and eye movement paradigms to investigate the processing of hands and, in particular, distorted finger postures. By examining how people visually search for and attend to these stimuli, we seek to gain insights into the underlying mechanisms involved in perceiving and processing distorted finger postures. A further aim is to address how salient information is processed by means of automatic mental simulation in the Simon task and motor cognition tasks. In addition to behavioural measures, previously acquired EEG were also analysed in this thesis to detect motor cortex activation as a correlate of automatic mental simulation in the perception of hands with distorted finger postures.
From the results of the visual search and eye movement tasks (Experiments 1, 3 and 5), the main findings of this research are that the hand images were more salient than the whole body images, both in active and passive vision. In addition, in the visual search and eye movement tasks (Experiments 2, 4 and 6), the distorted finger postures were found to be more salient than the natural finger postures, both in active and passive vision. From the control experiments (Control Experiments 1, 2 and 3), the findings are that the salience of hands was not caused by affective reaction and arousal, nor by limbs with similar anatomic structures. Results from the Simon task and the hand laterality judgement tasks (Experiments 7 to 10) both provide consistent evidence supporting the occurrence of automatic mental simulation. It is evident that automatic mental simulation for hands occurs in the Simon task. Additionally, evidence was found in the hand laterality judgement tasks supporting automatic mental simulation for both hands (together) and for a single hand. However, it was not evident that automatic mental simulation occurred for individual finger images when participants were instructed to respond with their corresponding fingers. The analysis of the EEG data revealed no interaction in mu oscillations between the factors of stimulus type (hand and chair, with the chair serving as the control stimulus) and configuration (distorted and natural/standard) and no difference in mu oscillations between the viewing of distorted and natural finger postures; however, a trend in differences in mu oscillations was found between the viewing of distorted and natural shapes (for the factor of configuration).
In conclusion, this PhD research demonstrates that viewed hands, particularly those with distorted finger postures, exhibit heightened salience in visual perception tasks, suggesting the involvement of automatic mental simulation processes. Thus, the PhD project explores the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying hand perception, focusing specifically on distorted fingers. This study aims to elucidate why these distorted finger perceptions occur and what insights or conclusions can be drawn about neural processing and cognitive functions related to these distortions.
| Item Type: |
Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
(PhD)
|
| Supervisors: |
Keeble, David
Hussain Ismail, Ahamed Miflah
Schürmann, Martin |
| Keywords: |
hand perception; distorted finger postures; visual salience; automatic mental simulation; visual search; eye movement; EEG analysis; sensorimotor cortex; cognitive processes |
| Subjects: |
B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology |
| Faculties/Schools: |
University of Nottingham, Malaysia > Faculty of Science and Engineering — Science > School of Psychology |
| Item ID: |
80604 |
| Depositing User: |
Chen, Hsin-Yuan
|
| Date Deposited: |
26 Jul 2025 04:40 |
| Last Modified: |
26 Jul 2025 04:40 |
| URI: |
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/80604 |
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