Attention Mechanisms for Counting in Stabilized and in Dynamic Displays

Publisher Summary This chapter explains how counting relies on a set of attention pointers that individuate targets of interest and specify their locations independently of eye movements. Because after-images move with the eyes, it is impossible to bring individual items or subsets of items to the fovea one after the other, eliminating any role for eye movements. The selection and individuation of items relies on a set of attention pointers that are limited only by their spatial resolution. When inter-item spacing is closer than the size of the attentional selection regions, crowding prohibits access to individual items. Counting in moving displays even with long exposures cannot make use of a space-based strategy to keep track of counted items either. Attentional resolution is not uniform across visual space being, like visual resolution, much finer in the fovea. For this reason, eye movements are often required to bring fine details to the foveal area in dense displays in order for them to be selected and counted.

[1]  S. Tipper,et al.  Scene-based and object-centered inhibition of return: Evidence for dual orienting mechanisms , 1999, Perception & psychophysics.

[2]  Patrick Cavanagh,et al.  Attentional resolution and the locus of awareness , 1996 .

[3]  F. Campbell,et al.  The Magic Number 4 ± 0: A New Look at Visual Numerosity Judgements , 1976, Perception.

[4]  H. Bouma.  Visual interference in the parafoveal recognition of initial and final letters of words. , 1973, Vision research.

[5]  N Ginsburg,et al.  Perceived numerosity, item arrangement, and expectancy. , 1978, The American journal of psychology.

[6]  T J Simon,et al.  Subitizing and counting depend on different attentional mechanisms: Evidence from visual enumeration in afterimages , 1996, Perception & psychophysics.

[7]  Junying Yuan,et al.  Selective gating of visual signals by microstimulation of frontal cortex , 2022 .

[8]  S. Treue.  Visual attention: the where, what, how and why of saliency , 2003, Current Opinion in Neurobiology.

[9]  Patrick Cavanagh,et al.  Attention Routines and the Architecture of Selection , 2004 .

[10]  George A Alvarez,et al.  How many objects can you track? Evidence for a resource-limited attentive tracking mechanism. , 2007, Journal of vision.

[11]  Jeremy M Wolfe,et al.  Visual Attention , 2020, Computational Models for Cognitive Vision.

[12]  P. Cavanagh,et al.  Attentional resolution and the locus of visual awareness , 1996, Nature.

[13]  P. Cavanagh,et al.  Visual stability based on remapping of attention pointers , 2010, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[14]  Derrick G. Watson,et al.  Visual marking of moving objects: a role for top-down feature-based inhibition in selection. , 1998, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[15]  Z. Pylyshyn,et al.  Why are small and large numbers enumerated differently? A limited-capacity preattentive stage in vision. , 1994, Psychological review.

[16]  Akihiro Yagi,et al.  Inhibitory Tagging on Randomly Moving Objects , 2002, Psychological science.

[17]  G. Logan,et al.  Where do we look when we count? The role of eye movements in enumeration , 2010, Attention, perception & psychophysics.

[18]  P. Cavanagh,et al.  The Spatial Resolution of Visual Attention , 2001, Cognitive Psychology.

[19]  P Cavanagh,et al.  Attention-based motion perception. , 1992, Science.

[20]  F. Campbell,et al.  The Dependence of the Visual Numerosity Limit on Orientation, Colour, and Grouping in the Stimulus , 1976, Perception.

[21]  G. Mandler,et al.  Subitizing: an analysis of its component processes. , 1982, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[22]  David Klahr,et al.  A PRODUCTION SYSTEM FOR COUNTING, SUBITIZING AND ADDING , 1973 .

[23]  Katsumi Aoki,et al.  Recent development of flow visualization , 2004, J. Vis..

[24]  A. Treisman.  Features and Objects: The Fourteenth Bartlett Memorial Lecture , 1988, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology.

[25]  R. Kiani,et al.  Motion-Induced Overestimation of the Number of Items in a Display , 2004, Perception.

[26]  L. Trick,et al.  Age differences in enumerating things that move: Implications for the development of multiple-object tracking , 2003, Memory & cognition.

[27]  James R Müller,et al.  Microstimulation of the superior colliculus focuses attention without moving the eyes. , 2005, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[28]  W. STANLEY JEVONS,et al.  The Power of Numerical Discrimination , 1871, Nature.

[29]  S. Magnussen,et al.  Letter: Sustained visual afterimages. , 1974, Vision research.

[30]  D. Levi,et al.  The two-dimensional shape of spatial interaction zones in the parafovea , 1992, Vision Research.

[31]  P. G. Vos,et al.  Enumeration of dots: An eye movement analysis , 1984, Memory & cognition.

[32]  Z W Pylyshyn,et al.  Tracking multiple independent targets: evidence for a parallel tracking mechanism. , 1988, Spatial vision.

[33]  R. Steinman,et al.  The role of small saccades in counting , 1977, Vision Research.

[34]  Lester E. Krueger,et al.  Perceived numerosity , 1972 .

[35]  W. Chase,et al.  Visual information processing. , 1974 .

[36]  J. R. Mounts.  Evidence for suppressive mechanisms in attentional selection: Feature singletons produce inhibitory surrounds , 2000, Perception & psychophysics.

[37]  E. M. Jensen,et al.  The subitizing and counting of visually presented fields of dots. , 1950 .

[39]  E. L. Kaufman,et al.  The discrimination of visual number. , 1949, The American journal of psychology.

[40]  M. Posner.  The Cognitive Neuroscience of Attention , 2020 .

[41]  G. Rizzolatti,et al.  Reorienting attention across the horizontal and vertical meridians: Evidence in favor of a premotor theory of attention , 1987, Neuropsychologia.

[42]  Katherine M. Armstrong,et al.  Visual and oculomotor selection: links, causes and implications for spatial attention , 2006, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[43]  Z. Pylyshyn.  Some puzzling findings in multiple object tracking (MOT): II. Inhibition of moving nontargets , 2006 .

[44]  S. Ullman.  Visual routines , 1984, Cognition.

[45]  John K. Tsotsos,et al.  The selective tuning model of attention: psychophysical evidence for a suppressive annulus around an attended item , 2003, Vision Research.