Journal article
Object-based control of attention is sensitive to recent experience
Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance, Vol.38(2), pp.314-325
04/2012
DOI: 10.1037/a0025597
PMID: 21967274
Abstract
How is attention guided by past experience? In visual search, numerous studies have shown that recent trials influence responses to the current trial. Repeating features such as color, shape, or location of a target facilitates performance. Here we examine whether recent experience also modulates a more abstract dimension of attentional control, object-based and location-based control. Participants performed a cued target discrimination task with stimuli presented on 2 rectangles. Response times to targets appearing in an uncued location on a cued rectangle were faster than to targets on the uncued rectangle, demonstrating an object-based attentional benefit. We investigated the object-based benefit on the current trial contingent on the cue-target relationship on the previous trial. The object-based benefit was significant only when the cued object contained the target on the previous trial, not when the uncued object contained the target. This effect of recent experience was not due to either the repetition of spatial cue-target location or the repetition of the response, but to adaptation to contingencies in the environment. Our results suggest a unifying view of attentional control that spans the concrete dimensions of control (e.g., determining the relative importance of red vs. blue) to the abstract (determining the relative importance of objects vs. locations in space). Attention closely tracks the short time scale structure of the environment and automatically adapts to optimize performance to this structure.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Object-based control of attention is sensitive to recent experience
- Creators
- Hyunkyu Lee - Department of Psychology, Beckman Institute, University of Illinois, 405 North Mathews Avenue, Urbana, IL 61802, USA. hyunklee@illinois.eduMichael C MozerArthur F KramerShaun P Vecera
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance, Vol.38(2), pp.314-325
- DOI
- 10.1037/a0025597
- PMID
- 21967274
- NLM abbreviation
- J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform
- ISSN
- 0096-1523
- eISSN
- 1939-1277
- Publisher
- United States
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 04/2012
- Academic Unit
- Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute
- Record Identifier
- 9984002402902771
Metrics
23 Record Views