Spatially cued visual attention for precise discriminations may narrow the template as well as excluding external noise: An elaborated perceptual template model

Generating a taxonomy of spatially cued attention for visual discrimination: effects of judgment precision and set size on attention

“…To our knowledge, direct manipulation of judgment precision and its interaction with spatial attention and workload, within a single design that allows direct comparisons, has not been reported previously. A complex set of results is well described using the elaborated perceptual template model (ePTM; Jeon et al, 2009), extended to incorporate different possible mechanisms of attention (Liu, Lu, & Dosher, 2009a, b). …”

“…We would predict similar results, including an attention effect of external noise exclusion in high noise, and retuning of the perceptual template in high precision. Based on the results of Liu, Dosher, and Lu (2009a) in object attention and Lu and Dosher (2000) in spatial attention, it seems possible that peripheral precues may lead to an additional effect of stimulus enhancement. Whether stimulus enhancement, or effects in clear displays in the absence or noise (or postmasks) occurs reliably with exogenous precues is a matter for further investigation.…”

“…Those with higher precision find some of these same effects. There is also evidence of further effects on asymptotic performance (Ling & Carrasco, 2006a; Pestilli et al, 2007), however spatial uncertainty (Gould, Wolfgang, & Smith, 2007) or judgment precision (Liu, Dosher, & Lu, 2009a, b) may have influenced the results. In those few studies that manipulated set size or workload, performance losses for unattended stimuli increase with workload, even when uncertainty is controlled with a report cue (Dosher & Lu, 2000b).…”

Visual attention in spatial cueing and visual search

“…The previous PTM studies on mechanisms of attention have been mostly carried out using the spatial cueing paradigm with stimuli and perceptual tasks in which the templates for distinct targets were essentially nonoverlapping or orthogonal (but see Hetley, Dosher, & Lu, 2014;Liu, Dosher, & Lu, 2009, which tested the PTM for similar discriminations based on an elaboration of the PTM for nonorthogonal judgments in Jeon, Lu, & Dosher, 2009). In the current study, we extended the investigation of visual search to test regimes that require the discrimination of very similar, nonorthogonal targets and to high-contrast regimes typical of most of the classical attention studies (Posner, Nissen, & Ogden, 1978;Sperling & Weichselgartner, 1995;Treisman & Gelade, 1980) and to visual search.…”