PubMed Health⌕ Search
Home/Archive/PubMed

PubMed · 8133227

Stimulus-driven attentional capture: evidence from equiluminant visual objects.

S Yantis·A P Hillstrom
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Previous work has shown that abrupt visual onsets capture attention. Possible attention. Possible mechanisms for this phenomenon include (a) a luminance-change detection system and (b) a mechanism that detects the appearance of new perceptual objects. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that attention is captured in visual search by the appearance of a new perceptual object even when the object is equiluminant with its background and thus exhibits no luminance change when it appears. Experiment 3 showed that a highly salient luminance increment alone is not sufficient to capture attention. These findings suggest that attentional capture is mediated by a mechanism that detects the appearance of new perceptual objects.

Explore related subjects

AttentionFemaleHumansLightMaleMotion PerceptionPhotic StimulationReaction TimeVision DisparityVisual PerceptionJournal ArticleResearch Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

S Yantis, A P Hillstrom. 1994. Stimulus-driven attentional capture: evidence from equiluminant visual objects.. https://doi.org/10.1037/%2F0096-1523.20.1.95

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related citations

PubMed1998

Letter recognition reveals pathways of second-order and third-order motion.

How are second-order (texture-defined) and third-order (pattern-tracking) motions processed in our brains? As shown here in the context of an ambiguous motion task involving a nominal second-order stimuli first devised by Werkhoven et al., [Werkhoven, P., Sperling, G. & Chubb, C. (1993) Vision Res. 33, 463-485.], the observers fell into two distinct groups based on the direction of perceived motion. The differences were interpreted in terms of the algorithms used to extract motion: one group by using a second-order motion process and the other by using a third-order motion process. This was investigated further using a dual-task paradigm in which the interference between two tasks indicated the nature of processing involved. Observers who used third-order motion processing experienced interference with letter recognition and a more severe interference in dual third-order motion tasks. Observers who used second-order motion processing experienced interference with another second-order motion detection but not with letter recognition. Insofar as task interference implies the need for attention, the complex interference effects and the apparently paradoxical interference effects of second-order motion perception imply that there are multiple forms of attention. Whether two tasks interfere depends on whether they require the same form of attention. Insofar as spatio-temporal processing is assumed to be carried out in the dorsal stream and pattern recognition in the ventral stream, the interference patterns suggest that second-order motion may be computed entirely in the dorsal stream, and third-order motion may involve two computational processes, one of which shares computational resources with the letter recognition task in the ventral stream.

Attention↗
PubMed1997

Neglect: mirror, mirror, on the wall--is the left side there at all?

Visuo-spatial neglect has long been thought of as a disorder of attention, but a recent experiment shows that, when images from the left side are reflected by a mirror into the 'good' hemispace, neglect patients behave as if the object were behind, or in, the mirror - as if the left side of their world did not 'exist'.

Attention↗
PubMed1997

AVERAGE: a Windows program for automated analysis of event related cerebral blood flow.

Functional transcranial Doppler sonography (fTCD) is used to measure changes in brain perfusion during different states of brain activity by evaluating flow velocities within the major brain arteries. We developed a computer program called AVERAGE which can be used with various TCD devices and allows for subtle quantitative off-line analysis of Doppler flow signals. AVERAGE supports data transformation, heart beat analysis, noise reduction, trigger signal and marker modification, artifact analysis and artifact rejection, as well as data reduction. Perfusion differences and their time course within two different arteries can be analyzed by parametric and non parametric statistical methods. This is important, for instance, in studies on hemispherical dominance during mental task processing. Each data processing step is supported by graphical output. If investigated bilaterally with interhemispheric analysis even minimal activations can reliably be detected and quantified with a sensitivity known from positron emission tomography approaches.

Attention↗