Visual search for a motion singleton among coherently moving distractors

Abstract

In the current study, we tested whether search for a visual motion singleton presented among several coherently moving distractors can be more efficient than search for a motion stimulus presented with a single distractor. Under a variety of conditions, multiple spatially distributed and coherently moving distractors facilitated search for a uniquely moving target relative to a single-motion-distractor condition (Experiments 1, 3, and 4). Color coherencies among static distractors were not equally effective (Experiments 1 and 2). These results confirm that humans are highly sensitive to antagonistically directed motion signals in backgrounds compared with spatially more confined regions of visual images.

Discrimination of coherent and incoherent motion by pigeons: An investigation using a same-different motion discrimination task

“…These findings in humans are consistent with the results of previous studies showing that humans take advantage of the perceptual organization of coherently moving distractors (Royden et al, 2001; also see Ansorge et al, 2006;Driver et al, 1992;Kingstone and Bischof, 1999).…”

Preemptive control of attentional capture by colour: Evidence from trial-by-trial analyses and orderings of onsets of capture effects in reaction time distributions

“…A variety of side conditions-for instance, conditions that also increase the demands imposed by a top-down feature search strategy-might also foster the participant's adoption of a singleton-search mode (cf. Ansorge, Scharlau, & Labudda, 2006): For example, if it is difficult to search for a particular feature because it is hard to discriminate, participants might be equally inclined to search for a singleton, regardless of the particular appearance of the singleton or of whether searching for a singleton would be always a useful strategy in that situation. Also, in many nonlaboratory situations, our prior knowledge of the exact appearance of an object might be so limited that we do not look for an object's known feature (e.g., its colour) but rather prefer to search for any salient object.…”

Unexpected changes in direction of motion attract attention

“…For instance, visual search is efficient when the target is defined by a particular direction of motion among an array of distractors all moving in a second direction (Ansorge, Scharlau, & Labudda, 2006), and observers are able to perform visual search for different motion types (Horowitz, Wolf, DiMase, & Klieger, 2007). Furthermore, even if distractors are moving in various directions, if these motions can all be attributed to self-motion then a target moving in a contrary fashion is conspicuous (Rushton, Bradshaw, & Warren, 2007).…”