Mechanisms of priming of pop-out: Stored representations or feature-gain modulations?

Hyunkyu Lee; Michael C Mozer; Shaun P Vecera

doi:10.3758/APP.71.5.1059

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Mechanisms of priming of pop-out: Stored representations or feature-gain modulations?

Journal article

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Mechanisms of priming of pop-out: Stored representations or feature-gain modulations?

Hyunkyu Lee, Michael C Mozer and Shaun P Vecera

Attention, perception & psychophysics, Vol.71(5), pp.1059-1071

07/2009

DOI: 10.3758/APP.71.5.1059

PMID: 19525537

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https://doi.org/10.3758/APP.71.5.1059View

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Abstract

Previous research has shown that repetition of a task-relevant attention-capturing feature facilitates pop-out search. This priming of pop-out effect is due to some residual memory from recent trials. We explore two possible mechanisms of priming of pop-out: a top-down attentional benefit from a memory of the previous target representation that is stored in visual short-term memory (VSTM) and a bottom-up change of attentional gains from perceptual features of the previously attended target. We manipulated participants' ability to form a memory trace in VSTM by occupying it with a distractor task and found that occupying VSTM did not interfere with priming of pop-out. We next manipulated attentional gains associated with feature values by inserting an irrelevant task between pop-out searches. We found that the color of the target from the intervening perceptual task influenced pop-out search: The current pop-out search was facilitated when the intervening task's target matched the target color of the pop-out search. These results suggest that priming of pop-out might not be due to a memory trace of the previous targets in VSTM but, rather, might be due to changes in attentional control based on priming from relatively low-level feature representations of previously attended objects.

Cues

Discrimination (Psychology)

Humans

Attention

Reaction Time

Pattern Recognition, Visual

Memory, Short-Term

Orientation

Color Perception

Details

Title: Subtitle: Mechanisms of priming of pop-out: Stored representations or feature-gain modulations?
Creators: Hyunkyu Lee - University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-1407, USA
Michael C Mozer
Shaun P Vecera
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: Attention, perception & psychophysics, Vol.71(5), pp.1059-1071
Publisher: United States
DOI: 10.3758/APP.71.5.1059
PMID: 19525537
ISSN: 1943-3921
eISSN: 1943-393X
Language: English
Date published: 07/2009
Academic Unit: Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute
Record Identifier: 9984066133802771

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