Visual attention and the mechanism of metacontrast

Neumann, Odmar; Scharlau, Ingrid

doi:10.1007/s00426-006-0061-7

Cited by 24 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…A psychophysical paradigm called perceptual latency priming (PLP) has helped to demonstrate that there is a relative latency advantage (i.e., earlier perception) of a visual stimulus that is preceded by another, masked stimulus at its location (Bachmann, 1989; Neumann and Scharlau, 2007; Scharlau, 2007). The first stimulus accelerates perception of the second stimulus even if the first stimulus is backward-masked by the second one up to a total invisibility for direct awareness.…”

Section: Empirical Facts Consistent With C = L × Dmentioning

confidence: 99%

It is time to combine the two main traditions in the research on the neural correlates of consciousness: C = L Ã— D

Bachmann

Hudetz

2014

Front. Psychol.

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Research on neural correlates of consciousness has been conducted and carried out mostly from within two relatively autonomous paradigmatic traditions – studying the specific contents of conscious experience and their brain-process correlates and studying the level of consciousness. In the present paper we offer a theoretical integration suggesting that an emphasis has to be put on understanding the mechanisms of consciousness (and not a mere correlates) and in doing this, the two paradigmatic traditions must be combined. We argue that consciousness emerges as a result of interaction of brain mechanisms specialized for representing the specific contents of perception/cognition – the data – and mechanisms specialized for regulating the level of activity of whatever data the content-carrying specific mechanisms happen to represent. Each of these mechanisms are necessary because without the contents there is no conscious experience and without the required level of activity the processed contents remain unconscious. Together the two mechanisms, when activated up to a necessary degree each, provide conditions sufficient for conscious experience to emerge. This proposal is related to pertinent experimental evidence.

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Section: Empirical Facts Consistent With C = L × Dmentioning

confidence: 99%

It is time to combine the two main traditions in the research on the neural correlates of consciousness: C = L Ã— D

Bachmann

Hudetz

2014

Front. Psychol.

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“…Prime features, such as prime shape and prime color, are lost for conscious perception if a mask substitutes the prime in the critical time window between prime onset and the conclusion of orienting towards the prime (cf. Bachmann, 1999; Enns, 2004; Neumann & Scharlau, 2007a, 2007b). …”

Section: How Is Orienting Carried Out?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Top-down contingent feature-specific orienting with and without awareness of the visual input

Ansorge¹,

Horstmann²,

Scharlau³

2011

Advances in Cognitive Psychology

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In the present article, the role of endogenous feature-specific orienting for conscious and unconscious vision is reviewed. We start with an overview of orienting. We proceed with a review of masking research, and the definition of the criteria of experimental protocols that demonstrate endogenous and exogenous orienting, respectively. Against this background of criteria, we assess studies of unconscious orienting and come to the conclusion that so far studies of unconscious orienting demonstrated endogenous feature-specific orienting. The review closes with a discussion of the role of unconscious orienting in action control.

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“…Metacontrast masks—spatially non-overlapping but closely placed contours presented at moderate SOAs—are also thought to interfere with their targets at early levels of visual processing (Alpern, 1953; Anbar & Anbar, 1982; Breitmeyer & Ganz, 1976; Bugmann & Taylor, 2005; Kahneman, 1968; Werner, 1935). However, there is evidence that higher-level processes, such as attention and object based processing, play a role as well (Neumann & Scharlau, 2006; Ramachandran & Cobb, 1995; Tata, 2002). At short to moderate SOAs, as used in this study, the metacontrast mask and target signals are thought to be integrated by apparent motion processes (Bischof & Di Lollo, 1995; Burr, 1984; Kahneman, 1967).…”

Section: Experiments 1: Masking the Flankersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recovery of a crowded object by masking the flankers: Determining the locus of feature integration

Chakravarthi

Cavanagh

2009

Journal of Vision

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Object recognition is a central function of the visual system. As a first step, the features of an object are registered; these independently encoded features are then bound together to form a single representation. Here we investigate the locus of this “feature integration” by examining crowding, a striking breakdown of this process. Crowding, an inability to identify a peripheral target surrounded by flankers, results from “excessive integration” of target and flanker features. We presented a standard crowding display with a target C flanked by four flanker C's in the periphery. We then masked only the flankers (but not the target) with one of three kinds of masks—noise, metacontrast, and object substitution—each of which interferes at progressively higher levels of visual processing. With noise and metacontrast masks (low-level masking), the crowded target was recovered, whereas with object substitution masks (high-level masking), it was not. This places a clear upper bound on the locus of interference in crowding suggesting that crowding is not a low-level phenomenon. We conclude that feature integration, which underlies crowding, occurs prior to the locus of object substitution masking. Further, our results indicate that the integrity of the flankers, but not their identification, is crucial for crowding to occur.

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Visual attention and the mechanism of metacontrast

Cited by 24 publications

References 52 publications

It is time to combine the two main traditions in the research on the neural correlates of consciousness: C = L Ã— D

It is time to combine the two main traditions in the research on the neural correlates of consciousness: C = L Ã— D

Top-down contingent feature-specific orienting with and without awareness of the visual input

Recovery of a crowded object by masking the flankers: Determining the locus of feature integration

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