Visual parsing and response competition: The effect of grouping factors

Baylis, Gordon C.; Driver, Jon

doi:10.3758/bf03212239

Cited by 335 publications

(320 citation statements)

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“…Indeed, they appear to be in direct opposition to the position some of us had adopted in the past. Whereas Baylis and Driver (1992) argued that ªvisual attention is directed to groups derived from a preattentive segmentation of the scene according to Gestalt principlesº, in the same year Mack et al (1992, p. 498) concluded that ªno perception of either texture segregation of Gestalt groupingº takes place for unattended stimuli! 5.…”

Section: Attention and Image Segmentationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Segmentation, attention and phenomenal visual objects

et al. 2001

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Issues concerning selective attention provoke new questions about visual segmentation, and vice-versa. We illustrate this by describing our recent work on grouping under conditions of inattention, on change blindness for background events and the residual processing of undetected background changes, on modal versus amodal completion in visual search, and the differential effects of these two forms of completion on attentional processes, and on attentional modulation of lateral interactions thought to arise in early visual cortex. Many of these results indicate that segmentation processes substantially constrain attentional processes, but the reverse in¯uence is also apparent, suggesting an interactive architecture. We discuss how the`proto-objects' revealed by studies of segmentation and attention (i.e. the segmented perceptual units which constrain selectivity) may relate to other object-based notions in cognitive science, and we wrestle with their relation to phenomenal visual awareness. q

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Section: Attention and Image Segmentationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Segmentation, attention and phenomenal visual objects

et al. 2001

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“…While many researchers would agree that location is an important defining characteristic of an object, most would argue that it is not the only one. Grouping by similarity (Baylis & Driver, 1992), common fate (Driver & Baylis, 1989), and connectedness (Kramer & Jacobson, 1991 ) have been shown to produce strong object-based effects independent of proximity. It may be possible to incorporate the effects of grouping by similarity and common fate into CTVA (see below), but connectedness may be difficult because it implies a hierarchical structure that is not captured in CODE's idealization of objects as points (see Palmer & Rock, 1994).…”

Section: Limitations Of Ctvamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An important direction for future research is to extend CODE and CTVA to deal with other grouping principles. Grouping by similarity is a good candidate for the first step in that direction because it is well studied perceptually (e.g., Beck, Prazdny, & Rosenfeld, 1983;Bergen, 1991 ) and it has powerful effects on attention (e.g., Baylis & Driver, 1992;Duncan & Humphreys, 1989;Harms & Bundesen, 1983;Humphreys & Miiller, 1993;Ivry & Prinzmetal, 1991;Wolfe, 1994). The mechanisms for dealing with similarity effects may already be present in CTVA.…”

Section: Proximity and Grouping Effects In Partial Report Several In-mentioning

confidence: 99%

The CODE theory of visual attention: An integration of space-based and object-based attention.

Logan

1996

Psychological Review

278

344

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This article presents a theory that inte~ates space-based and object-based approaches to visual attention. The theory puts together M. P. van Oeffelen and P. G. Vos's ( 1982Vos's ( , 1983) COntour DEtector (CODE) theory of perceptual grouping by proximity with C. Bundesen's (1990) theory of visual attention (TVA). CODE provides input to TVA, accounting for spatially based between-object selection, and TVA converts the input to output, accounting for feature-and category-based withinobject selection. CODE clusters nearby items into perceptual groups that are both perceptual objects and regions of space, thereby integrating object-based and space-based approaches to attention. The combined theory provides a quantitative account of the effects of grouping by proximity and dis~nce between items on reaction time and accuracy data in 7 empirical situations that shaped the current literature on visual spatial attention.For the last decade the attention literature has been embroiled in a debate over the nature of visual spatial attention that focuses on the "thing" that attention selects (e.g., Baylis & Driver, 1993;Driver & Baylis, 1989;Duncan, 1984;Egly, Driver, & Rafal, 1994;Kramer & Jacobson, 1991;Vecera & Farah, 1994). Advocates of space-based attention argue that attention selects regions of space independent of the objects they contain. Attention is like a spotlight illuminating a region of space. Objects that fall within the beam are processed; objects that fall outside it are not (Eriksen & Eriksen, 1974;Eriksen & St. James, 1986;Posner, 1980;Posner & Cohen, 1984;Treisman & Gelade, 1980;Treisman & Gormican, 1988). Advocates of object-based attention argue that attention selects objects rather than regions of space. Selection is spatial because objects necessarily occupy regions of space, but objects rather than the regions themselves are the things that are selected (Kahneman & Henik, 1981;Kahneman & Treisman, 1984;Kahneman, Treisman, & Gibbs, 1992;Pylyshyn & Storm, 1988). Objectbased theories assume that attention only selects regions of space that are occupied by objects, whereas space-based theories assume that attention can select empty regions of space (cf. Yantis, 1992).The purpose of this article is to propose a theory of visual spatial attention that integrates space-based and object-based views. The theory takes a computational approach to the problem, characterizing attention in terms of representations and the processes that operate on them. It differs from most ap- proaches to attention by being concerned with the representation of space and the representation of objects, incorporating a theory of perceptual organization and a theory of selection. The resolution of the controversy derives from the theory's assumptions about representation.The article begins by describing five important questions that face any theory of visual spatial attention. The answers proposed by the new theory are presented by way of describing the theory. The theory is applied to seven important paradigms that shaped the cur...

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“…For example, Posner (see Footnote 3 in Duncan, 1984 ) has suggested that if an attentional spotlight were to operate in three-dimensional (3-D) rather than two-dimensional (2-D) space, the overlapping box and line might be separable in depth and then attention may select one of the objects spatially in depth. A second concern is that Duncan's results may reflect a difficulty in attending to different spatial frequencies rather than to different objects; whereas the two attributes of the line (texture and line orientation) are primarily available at high spatial frequencies and the two attributes of the box (height and gap) are available primarily at low spatial frequencies, the attributes of the box and of the line might be segregated not by object-based attention per se but by setting a spatial frequency filter at different levels of coarseness (see Baylis & Driver, 1992Lavie & Driver, 1996 ;and Watt, 1988 , for further discussion).Recent researchers have circumvented these potential shortcomings and have shown that the features of a single object can indeed be preferentially selected and processed. For example, in Lavie and Driver's (1996) study, participants judged whether two odd elements (e.g., two dots or a dot vs. a gap) in a display of two crossed dashed lines were the same or different.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Object-based attention and occlusion: Evidence from normal participants and a computational model.

Behrmann¹,

Zemel²,

Mozer³

1998

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

175

203

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One way of perceptually organizing a complex visual scene is to attend selectively to information in a particular physical location. Another way of reducing the complexity in the input is to attend selectively to an individual object in the scene and to process its elements preferentially. This latter, object-based attention process was examined, and the predicted superiority for reporting features from 1 relative to 2 objects was replicated in a series of experiments. This object-based process was robust even under conditions of occlusion, although there were some boundary conditions on its operation. Finally, an account of the data is provided via simulations of the findings in a computational model. The claim is that object-based attention arises from a mechanism that groups together those features based on internal representations developed over perceptual experience and then preferentially gates these features for later, selective processing. Humans are exceptionally good at recognizing objects in natural visual scenes despite the fact that such scenes usually contain multiple, overlapping objects. One way in which individuals organize this complex input to minimize the processing load is to divide the field on the basis of spatial location and then to attend selectively to particular physical regions. This selective attentional spotlight "illuminates" areas of interest and facilitates preferential processing of information from those chosen areas (e.g., Broadbent, 1982 ;B. A. Eriksen & Eriksen, 1974 ;C. W. Eriksen & Yeh, 1985 ;Posner, 1980 ). There is now much evidence supporting this location-based selection, all of which shows that information from selected regions is processed faster and more accurately than equivalent information from unattended regions ( Posner, 1980 ;Posner, Snyder, & Davidson, 1980 ). The idea that location-based selection plays an exclusive role in organizing visual information, however, has been increasingly challenged in recent years. Studies have shown, for example, that humans can select one of two superimposed figures even when there is no spatial basis for selection ( Rock & Gutman, 1981 ) and can allocate attention to perceptual groups independent of the spatial proximity and contiguity of the component elements (e.g., Behrmann, Vecera, & McGoldrick, 1998 ;Driver & Baylis, 1989 ;Duncan, 1984 ;Kramer & Jacobson, 1991 ;Kramer & Watson, 1995 ;Lavie & Driver, 1996 ;Prinzmetal, 1981 ;Vecera & Farah, 1994 ). To account for these findings, an alternative selection process, in which attention is directed to objects, rather than to locations or unsegmented regions of space, has been proposed. This object-based mechanism, in which complex visual input is parsed into discrete units for further processing, has received considerable empirical, neuropsychological, and computational support in recent years. Object-Based Visual AttentionAn early but compelling empirical illustration of the view that attention can be directed to objects, rather than to spatial locations per se, comes...

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Visual parsing and response competition: The effect of grouping factors

Cited by 335 publications

References 35 publications

Segmentation, attention and phenomenal visual objects

Segmentation, attention and phenomenal visual objects

The CODE theory of visual attention: An integration of space-based and object-based attention.

Object-based attention and occlusion: Evidence from normal participants and a computational model.

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