Spatial selectivity in visual search

Hoffman, James E.; Nelson, Billie

doi:10.3758/bf03214284

Cited by 198 publications

(137 citation statements)

References 24 publications

(47 reference statements)

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“…First, if attention was space based on multiple-U'C trials but not on single-LlC trials, we would expect spatial priming effects, in the form offaster and more accurate performance when the target properties appeared in the same display location than when they appeared in different locations in subsequent trials, for the multiple-DC condition but not for the single-DC condition (Cave & Pashler, 1995; J. E. Hoffman & Nelson, 1981;Kim & Cave, 1995). However, an analysis of our data failed to reveal spatial priming effects for either the single-DC trials or the multiple-U'C trials in the present experiment.'…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Object-based visual selective attention and perceptual organization

Watson¹,

Kramer

1999

Perception & Psychophysics

172

208

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Wereport the results offour experiments that were conducted to examine both the representations that provide candidate entities available for object-based attentional selection and the influence of bottomup factors (i.e., geometric and surface characteristics of objects) and top-down factors (i.e. context and expectancies) on the selection process, Subjects performed the same task in each of the experiments. They were asked to determine whether two target properties, a bent end and an open end of a wrench, appeared in a brief display of two wrenches. In each experiment, the target properties could occur on a single wrench or one property could occur on each of two wrenches. The question of central interest was whether a same-object effect (faster and/or more accurate performance when the target properties appeared on one vs. two wrenches) would be observed in different experimental conditions, Several interesting results were obtained. First, depending on the geometric (i.e., concave discontinuities on object contours) and surface characteristics (i.e., homogeneous regions of color and texture) of the stimuli, attention was preferentially directed to one of three representational levels, as indicated by the presence or absence of the same-object effect. Second, although geometric and surface characteristics defmed the candidate objects available for attentional selection, top-down factors were quite influential in determining which representational level would be selected, Third, the results suggest that uniform connectedness plays an important role in defining the entities available for attention selection. These results are discussed in terms of the marmer in which attention selects objects in the visual environment.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…E. Hoffman, Houck, McMillian, Simons, & Oatman, 1985; 1. E. Hoffman & Nelson, 1981;Kramer & Hahn, 1995).…”

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confidence: 99%

Object-based visual selective attention and perceptual organization

Watson¹,

Kramer

1999

Perception & Psychophysics

172

208

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“…Eriksen and Hoffman (1972) showed that flanking distractors only interfered with a target if they were nearby. Hoffman and Nelson (1981;Hoffman, Nelson, & Houck, 1983) found that performance was better in dual task experiments if the stimuli for both tasks were near one another. Participants in experiments by Cave and Pashler (1995) were better able to identify a succession of digits when they all appeared at the same location than when they appeared at different locations.…”

Section: The Special Role Of Locationmentioning

confidence: 99%

When does visual attention select all features of a distractor?

Chen

Cave

2006

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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What happens after visual attention is allocated to an object? Although many theories of attention assume that all of its features are selected and processed, there has been little direct evidence that an irrelevant feature dimension of an attended nontarget is processed. In 5 experiments presented here, the authors used a singleton paradigm to investigate the effect of attention on nontarget objects. Participants made a speeded feature discrimination of a target for which the response was either compatible or incompatible with an irrelevant feature dimension of a distractor. The results show that the irrelevant distractor features were processed to the point that they interfered with the response to the target. The response compatibility effect was observed even when the location of the target or the distractor was invariant, although it was much weaker when both locations were invariant. These results demonstrate that in many circumstances, an attended distractor is completely selected and fully processed, and the complete processing of distractors depends on a number of factors, many of which are related to the strength of attention to the distractor.

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“…A likely candidate is the spatial attention system, a mechanism that can operate within a fixation to selectively process information from different locations (Eriksen & Hoffman, 1973, 1974Hoffman, 1975;Hoffman & Nelson, 1981;Posner, 1980;Posner, Nissen, & Ogden, 1978). Allocating attention to a position in space results in faster and more accurate processing of luminance and form information in a region of space surrounding that location (Bash inski & Bacharach, 1980;Downing, 1988;Hawkins et al, 1990;Hoffman & Nelson, This research was supported by University of Delaware Biomedical Research Grant and Army Research Office Contract DAAL03-86-k-0080 to the first author and was submitted by the second author in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Master of Arts degree. The authors are indebted to Lou Logan French for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.…”

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The role of visual attention in saccadic eye movements

Hoffman

Subramaniam

1995

Perception & Psychophysics

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899

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The relationship between saccadic eye movements and covert orienting of visual spatial attention was investigated in two experiments. Inthe first experiment, subjects were required to make a saccade to a specified location while also detecting a visual target presented just prior to the eye movement. Detection accuracy was highest when the location of the target coincided with the location of the saccade, suggesting that subjects use spatial attention in the programming and/or execution of saccadic eye movements. In the second experiment, subjects were explicitly directed to attend to a particular location and to make a saccade to the same location or to a different one. Superior target detection occurred at the saccade location regardless of attention instructions. This finding shows that subjects cannot move their eyes to one location and attend to a different one. The results of these experiments suggest that visuospatial attention is an important mechanism in generating voluntary saccadic eye movements.We selectively explore the visual panorama by means of fixations lasting about a quarter of a second interspersed with rapid changes of eye position lasting about 50 msec. The pattern of these fixations and the choice of where to send the eye next is not random but instead appears to be guided . Yarbus (1967), for example, pointed out that the pattern of eye fixations that a given observer produces is influenced by properties ofthe scene as well as the goals and interests of the perceiver. Examples of this principle have been provided by many demonstrations that fixations in reading are influenced by properties ofthe text, such as word length (Rayner, 1975), as well as knowledge of the reader in the form of expectations, text schemas, and so on (Just & Carpenter, 1987;Kowler, 1991).What is the mechanism that chooses the destination of each subsequent saccade? A likely candidate is the spatial attention system, a mechanism that can operate within a fixation to selectively process information from different locations (Eriksen & Hoffman, 1973, 1974Hoffman, 1975;Hoffman & Nelson, 1981;Posner, 1980;Posner, Nissen, & Ogden, 1978). Allocating attention to a position in space results in faster and more accurate processing of luminance and form information in a region of space surrounding that location (Bash inski & Bacharach, 1980;Downing, 1988;Hawkins et al., 1990;Hoffman & Nelson, ). In addition to enhancing perceptual processing, attention may also be important in guiding "action systems," such as reaching (Allport, 1987(Allport, , 1991. Because shifts of attention can occur much faster than changes in eye position (Hoffman, 1975), spatial attention can be used during one fixation to choose the location for the followingfixation.Indirect support for the claim that attention guides saccades is provided by a large literature showing that shapes are perceived faster and more accurately when they are near the target ofan upcoming saccade. For example, MeConkie and Rayner (1975) have used the moving-window paradigm t...

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Spatial selectivity in visual search

Cited by 198 publications

References 24 publications

Object-based visual selective attention and perceptual organization

Object-based visual selective attention and perceptual organization

When does visual attention select all features of a distractor?

The role of visual attention in saccadic eye movements

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