The Role of Attention in Temporal Integration

When two visual patterns are presented in rapid succession, their contours may be combined into a single unified percept. This temporal integration is known to be influenced by such low-level visual factors as stimulus intensity, contour proximity, and stimulus duration. In this study we asked whether temporal integration is modulated by an attentional-blink procedure. The results from a localisation task in experiment 1 and a detection task in experiment 2 pointed to two separate effects. First, greater attentional availability increased the accuracy of spatial localisation. Second, it increased the duration over which successive stimuli could be integrated. These results imply that theories of visible persistence and visual masking must account for attentional influences in addition to lower-level effects. They also have practical implications for use of the temporal-integration task in the assessment of group and individual differences.

[1]  Journal of the Optical Society of America , 1950, Nature.

[2]  D. Purcell,et al.  Metacontrast target detection under light and dark adaptation , 1974 .

[3]  J. Enns.  The Development of attention : research and theory , 1990 .

[4]  J T Enns,et al.  The duration of a brief event in the mind's eye. , 1999, The Journal of general psychology.

[5]  P. Jolicoeur.  Modulation of the attentional blink by on-line response selection: Evidence from speeded and unspeeded Task1 decisions , 1998, Memory & cognition.

[6]  K. Shapiro,et al.  The attentional blink , 1997, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[7]  Ronald A. Rensink,et al.  Competition for consciousness among visual events: the psychophysics of reentrant visual processes. , 2000, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[8]  V. Lollo,et al.  Separating visible persistence from retinal afterimages , 1988, Perception & psychophysics.

[9]  V. Lollo,et al.  Suppression of visible persistence as a function of spatial separation between inducing stimuli , 1987, Perception & psychophysics.

[10]  V. S. Ramachandran,et al.  Visual attention modulates metacontrast masking , 1995, Nature.

[11]  Karen M. Arnell,et al.  Attention to visual pattern information produces the attentional blink in rapid serial visual presentation. , 1994, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[12]  V. Lollo.  Temporal integration in visual memory. , 1980 .

[13]  A. Treisman,et al.  A feature-integration theory of attention , 1980, Cognitive Psychology.

[14]  T Bachmann,et al.  Integration and Interruption in the Masking of Form by Form , 1976, Perception.

[15]  M. Carrasco,et al.  Spatial covert attention increases contrast sensitivity across the CSF: support for signal enhancement , 2000, Vision Research.

[16]  M. Potter,et al.  A two-stage model for multiple target detection in rapid serial visual presentation. , 1995, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[17]  Yehoshua Tsal,et al.  Towards a resolution theory of visual attention. , 1995 .

[18]  V. Di Lollo,et al.  Age-related changes in rate of visual information processing. , 1982, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[19]  James T. Enns,et al.  Visual masking plays two roles in the attentional blink , 1999, Perception & psychophysics.

[20]  T. Spencer,et al.  Evidence for an interruption theory of backward masking. , 1970, Journal of experimental psychology.

[21]  E Scheerer,et al.  Integration, interruption and processing rate in visual backward masking , 1973, Psychologische Forschung.

[22]  Barbara Sakitt,et al.  Psychophysical correlates of photoreceptor activity , 1976, Vision Research.

[23]  M. Coltheart,et al.  Iconic memory and visible persistence , 1980, Perception & psychophysics.

[24]  M. Chun.  Temporal binding errors are redistributed by the attentional blink , 1997, Perception & psychophysics.

[25]  J. Enns,et al.  Object Substitution: A New Form of Masking in Unattended Visual Locations , 1997 .

[26]  G. M. Long,et al.  Relative rod and cone contributions in iconic storage , 1978, Perception & psychophysics.

[27]  M C Potter,et al.  Two attentional deficits in serial target search: the visual attentional blink and an amodal task-switch deficit. , 1998, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[28]  S. Yantis.  Stimulus-Driven Attentional Capture , 1993 .

[29]  K L Shapiro,et al.  Temporary suppression of visual processing in an RSVP task: an attentional blink? . , 1992, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[30]  G M Long,et al.  The case for peripheral persistence: effects of target and background luminance on a partial-report task. , 1982, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[31]  P. Bennett,et al.  Letter localization, not discrimination, is constrained by attention. , 1995, Canadian journal of experimental psychology = Revue canadienne de psychologie experimentale.

[32]  E. Averbach,et al.  Short-term memory in vision , 1961 .

[33]  J. McIntyre,et al.  Initial stages of visual information processing in dyslexia. , 1983, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[34]  V. Lollo,et al.  Beyond the attentional blink: visual masking by object substitution. , 1998, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[35]  Bruno G. Breitmeyer,et al.  Visual masking : an integrative approach , 1984 .

[36]  A. Mack,et al.  Metacontrast Masking and Attention , 1999 .

[37]  J H Hogben,et al.  Perceptual integration and perceptual segregation of brief visual stimuli. , 1974, Vision research.

[38]  Ken Nakayama,et al.  Attentional requirements in a ‘preattentive’ feature search task , 1997, Nature.

[39]  R Ivry,et al.  A formal theory of feature binding in object perception. , 1996, Psychological review.

[40]  V. Lollo,et al.  The preattentive emperor has no clothes: a dynamic redressing. , 2001, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[41]  V. Di Lollo,et al.  Visual information processing in relation to age and to reading ability. , 1979, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[42]  B Julesz,et al.  "Where" and "what" in vision. , 1985, Science.

[43]  S Petry,et al.  Decrease in Metacontrast Masking following Adaptation to Flicker , 1979, Perception.

[44]  R. Ulrich,et al.  Directed attention prolongs the perceived duration of a brief stimulus , 1998, Perception & psychophysics.