Looming motion primes the visuomotor system.

Abstract

A wealth of evidence now shows that human and animal observers display greater sensitivity to objects that move toward them than to objects that remain static or move away. Increased sensitivity in humans is often evidenced by reaction times that increase in rank order from looming, to receding, to static targets. However, it is not clear whether the processing advantage enjoyed by looming motion is mediated by the attention system or the motor system. The present study investigated this by first examining whether sensitivity is to looming motion per se or to certain monocular or binocular cues that constitute stereoscopic motion in depth. None of the cues accounted for the looming advantage. A perceptual measure was then used to examine performance with minimal involvement of the motor system. Results showed that looming and receding motion were equivalent in attracting attention, suggesting that the looming advantage is indeed mediated by the motor system. These findings suggest that although motion itself is sufficient for attentional capture, motion direction can prime motor responses.

Mental state attribution and the gaze cueing effect

“…The use of accuracy as a potentially more sensitive measurement than RT has previously been noted by many authors. For instance, Santee and Egeth (1982) suggested that under the Bdata-limited^conditions (Norman & Bobrow, 1975) of briefly presented displays, accuracy measures are more sensitive to perceptual processes (see also Gellatly, Cole, Fox, & Johnson, 2003;Milliken & Tipper 1998;Rafal, Smith, Krantz, Cohen, & Brennan, 1990;Skarratt, Gellatly, Cole, Pilling, & Hulleman, 2014). Empirical support for this has come from Cole, Kuhn, Heywood, and Kentridge (2009), who showed that although color Bsingletons^do not automatically attract attention when RT is used to index capture, they do so when a Bone-shotĉ hange detection method is used.…”

Looming motion and visual attention.

“…Many studies have suggested that motion direction does not attract attention, but motion onset does . Studies have also suggested that certain motion features such as looming are able to attract attention (Franconeri & Simons, 2003;von Grünau, Matthews, & Cavallet, 2010;von Mühlenen & Lleras, 2007;Wang et al, 2012), with special emphasis on looming motion as a relevant behavioral alert (e.g., sign of danger) or associated with a postattentional motor priming process (Skarratt et al, 2009(Skarratt et al, , 2014.…”

“…In this way, looming motion improves response preparation outside the attentive stage. In a subsequent study, Skarratt, Gellatly, Cole, Pilling, and Hulleman (2014) examined the visuomotor priming to looming motion across five experiments and provided strong evidence that looming and receding motion equivalently attracts attention, but the looming motion advantage is motoric rather than perceptual.…”

Effects of mental resource availability on looming task performance

“…They concluded that because looming and receding motion grasp attention in a similar way, the looming bias is dependent on enhanced processing rather than on paying more attention. They suggested that this enhanced processing takes place in the motor system (Skarratt et al, 2014). Our results suggest that this enhanced processing is probably not based on conscious, complex, cognitive processes that are dependent on mental resources, but rather on a more automatic process, as the looming bias took place even when cognitive resources were reduced.…”

“…Skarratt, Gellatly, Cole, Pilling, and Hulleman (2014) have provided evidence that looming and receding motion attract attention equally. They concluded that because looming and receding motion grasp attention in a similar way, the looming bias is dependent on enhanced processing rather than on paying more attention.…”