Humans have developed excellent capabilities for the detection of biological motion (BM) that facilitate survival and interpersonal interactions. However, whether and how such capabilities allow BM to access our awareness remain unanswered questions. Therefore, this study aimed to explore these questions across four experiments that relied on the breaking continuous flash suppression paradigm (b-CFS). We found that intact BM, which consists of both global-configuration and local BM information, gained preferential access to awareness compared with inverted BM and non-BM (Experiment 1). Subsequently, we tested two opposing hypotheses regarding factors that modulate the prioritized effect: (a) the global-precedence hypothesis (global configuration plays a major role in BM’s preferential access) and (b) the local-precedence hypothesis (local BM information plays a major role in BM’s preferential access). The results showed that scrambled BM consisting of only local BM information—but not limited-lifetime BM consisting of global-configuration information and disrupted local BM information—had the same conscious accessibility level as intact BM (Experiment 2). Moreover, scrambled BM—but not limited-lifetime BM—had preferential access to awareness compared with non-BM (Experiment 3). Furthermore, using a reverse-correlation method, we showed that the conscious accessibility of local BM was not governed by a priori body structure (Experiment 4). This study provides substantial evidence that BM gains preferential access to awareness during b-CFS. Moreover, local BM information rather than global configuration plays a major role in conscious accessibility. These findings support the local-precedence hypothesis and suggest that local BM information can serve as a “life detector” in the visual system.
Controversy exists regarding the distraction resistance of priority items in visual working memory (VWM). The protection account proposes that high-priority items resist distraction more than low-priority items, while the vulnerability account proposes that distractors impair high-priority items more. We proposed another available resource threshold account: distraction will not impair items if available resources exceed their threshold needed for sufficient processing. Using a change-detection paradigm, we manipulated item priority by color similarity and inserted distractors during VWM retention. We investigated the effect of similarity on distraction resistance of relevant (color) and irrelevant (shape) feature representations (Experiments 1-2), and the neural mechanism of this effect using event-related potentials (ERPs; Experiment 3). Behavioral results showed distractors impaired the accuracy of dissimilar items when relevant features were memorized and of similar items when irrelevant features were memorized under simultaneous presentation of similar and dissimilar items. Moreover, distractors impaired the accuracy of dissimilar items when relevant features were memorized and of both similar and dissimilar items when irrelevant features were memorized under separate presentation of items. ERP results showed a smaller negative slow wave and P2 but larger N2 under the similar condition.Similarity protected relevant features of similar items against distraction by reducing memory load, decreasing attentional resources allocated to distractors, and strengthening inhibition of distractors. However, similarity did not protect irrelevant features of similar items. Our results support the available resource threshold account, suggesting that VWM is a flexible and intelligent system despite its limited capacity.
Attentional selection can be based on a particular location, feature, or object. In this study, we used a monocular cuing paradigm to investigate whether selective attention is based on the input’s eye-of-origin. We found that unpredictive monocular flashing cues can trigger eye-based orienting when the cues are task-relevant. Specifically, the response to the target presented to the uncued location of the cued eye (same-eye condition) was faster than the response to the uncued location of the uncued eye (different-eye condition). This eye-specific attentional effect was mainly caused by the benefits in the same-eye condition rather than the costs in the different-eye condition. However, when the monocular cues were task-irrelevant, the eye-specific attentional effect vanished. Moreover, the monocular cues can modulate the spatial Stroop effect, leading to an increasing spatial Stroop effect at the attended eye, which is consistent with the typical modulation of endogenous attention on the spatial Stroop effect. Notably, participants were not aware of the eye-of-origin of flashing cues. These findings demonstrate that endogenous attentional selection can be based on the input’s eye-of-origin without an individual’s awareness of the input’s eye-of-origin, suggesting that attentional systems can selectively cause the enhancement and exploration of visual information relevant to the current task in a specific monocular channel.
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