Spatial and nonspatial visual selection M Nordfang, C Bundesen |
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Dept. Psychology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
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| It has long been debated how spatial and nonspatial categories influence visual selection [Logan, 1996, Psych Rev, 103(4), 603-649; Scholl, 2001, Cogn, 80(1-2), 1-46; van der Heijden, 1996, Percp & Psych, 5(8), 1224-1237]. We investigated this question by a new and simple approach. Ten participants completed 1920 trials each in an alphanumeric partial report. Participants reported the letters from arrays of 2, 4, 6, or 8 letters and 0, 2, 4, or 6 digits. Each display contained eight stimulus positions evenly spaced on the circumference of an imaginary circle. All positions were occupied on a given trial. Stimulus presentation was brief with exposure durations of 10 – 180 milliseconds, and the stimuli were post masked. We fitted the data to a mathematical model based on Bundesen’s [1990, Psych Rev, 97(4), 523-547] theory of visual attention and estimated the attentional weight allocated to targets and distractors at each of the eight positions. Both target weights and distractor weights showed strong variations across spatial locations, but for each subject, the ratio of the weight of a distractor to the weight of a target at the same location was approximately constant. The results suggested that attentional weights are products of spatial and nonspatial components. |
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