Cite as:
Vidnyánszky Z, Sohn W, Kovács G, Papathomas T V, 2003, "Global feature-based attentional effects provide evidence for visual binding outside the locus of attention" Perception 32 ECVP Abstract Supplement

Global feature-based attentional effects provide evidence for visual binding outside the locus of attention

Z Vidnyánszky, W Sohn, G Kovács, T V Papathomas

Attention to a stimulus feature can influence neural responses to this feature outside the locus of attention. We studied whether this global feature-based attentional modulation can also have an effect on the task-irrelevant features of ignored objects that share the attended feature. We measured the modulation of motion aftereffect (MAE) by global feature-based attention. The adapting stimulus consisted of two apertures of moving dots, one on the left and one on the right side of fixation. The attended aperture contained randomly moving dots (50% red and 50% green). In the ignored aperture, 70% of dots, 'effectors', were moving upward, while the rest of them, 'distractors', alternated direction every 4 s between leftward and rightward. These two groups of dots were also coloured differently. During adaptation, observers attended either to the red or green randomly moving dots and performed a luminance-increase detection task. MAE duration was measured in the ignored aperture. We found that the MAE was significantly longer when the attended colour and the colour of the effectors in the ignored aperture were the same, compared to when they were different. This difference in the MAE durations increased as the luminance-increase detection task became more difficult. These results provide psychophysical evidence that global feature-based attentional modulation is propagated to the task-irrelevant features of the distant, ignored object that shares the attended feature. The spreading of attentional effects across attributes found in the present study (colour to motion) implies that surface-based feature binding occurs outside the locus of attention.

[Supported by the Hungarian National Research and Development Program (2/035) and NEI/NIH EY 013758-01.]

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