Successes and failures in producing attentional object-based cueing effects

Abstract

Over 30 years of research using Posner's spatial cueing paradigm has shown that selective attention operates on representations of spatial locations, leading to space-based theories of attention. Manipulations of stimuli and methods have shown this paradigm to be sensitive to several types of object-based representations-providing evidence for theories incorporating object-based attentional selection. This paper critically evaluates the evidence demanding object-based explanations that go beyond positing spatial representations alone, with an emphasis on identifying and interpreting successes and failures in obtaining object-based cueing effects. This overview of current evidence is used to generate hypotheses regarding critical factors in the emergence and influence of object representations-their generation, strength, and maintenance-in the modulation of objectbased facilitatory and inhibitory cueing effects.Keywords Selective attention . Object-based . Spacebased . Facilitation . IOR Many different experimental paradigms have been used to investigate the role of objects in visual selection (see Bichot, 1999, andScholl, 2001, for reviews). Through converging operations, strong evidence has emerged revealing that object-based representations can mediate attentional selection. Examples of such paradigms include studies of the attentional blink within and between objects (e. Mari-Beffa, Houghton, Estevez, & Fuentes, 2000;Tipper, Brehaut, & Driver, 1990), visual marking (e.g., Watson & Humphreys, 1998, visual search in multiple-object displays (e.g., Enns & Rensink, 1990;Goldsmith, 1998;Grossberg, Mingolla, & Ross, 1994;Rensink & Enns, 1995;Treisman, 1982;Wolfe & Bennett, 1997), and spatial cueing (e.g., Egly, Driver, & Rafal, 1994;Tipper, Driver, & Weaver, 1991). In each of these literatures, positing that attention operates on representations of objects has provided more thorough and satisfying explanations of data than would simply assuming that attention operates on spatial representations alone. The present review concentrates on evidence for claims of object-based selection from studies using the spatial cueing paradigm. Why spatial cueing?A key motivation for focusing on spatial cueing is that claims have emerged that object-based spatial cueing We gratefully acknowledge Janice J. Snyder for inspiring a comprehensive table-based approach to integrating research findings. This paper benefited greatly from the review process and we thank the editor and the reviewers for their contribution.

Exogenous object-centered attention

“…This study was the first to provide evidence that IOR can be object based. This effect has been replicated in various subsequent studies (see Reppa, Schmidt, & Leek, 2012, for a recent review).…”

Object-based attentional facilitation and inhibition are neuropsychologically dissociated

“…Figure 5 illustrates these effects. As with 23 Experiment 1 the within-object ICE observed in DF was significantly larger than that of the 24 control group (76ms vs 6ms, t=4.9, p < 0.01) when compared using a t-test for single-case effects (see Reppa et al, 2012). This observation is certainly true for healthy participants but 2 in part also for DF.…”

Parts function as perceptual organizational entities in infancy

“…Many studies of object-and part-based organization in adulthood have concentrated on the spatial spread of attention within versus outside objects/parts (see Reppa et al, 2012, for a review). As was noted earlier, the general finding is that object and part borders function as attentional boundaries.…”

“…For example, objects function as bounded regions of attention, such that shifting of attention is more efficient within objects than between objects (e.g., Duncan, 1984;Egly, Driver, & Rafal, 1994;Harrison & Feldman, 2009;Hollingworth, Maxcey-Richard, & Vecera, 2012;Reppa, Schmidt, & Leek, 2012). Like objects, parts also guide adult perception.…”