Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance
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J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform · Feb 2015
Interactions between space-based and feature-based attention.
Although early research suggested that attention to nonspatial features (i.e., red) was confined to stimuli appearing at an attended spatial location, more recent research has emphasized the global nature of feature-based attention. For example, a distractor sharing a target feature may capture attention even if it occurs at a task-irrelevant location. Such findings have been used to argue that feature-based attention operates independently of spatial attention. ⋯ Target-colored distractors were presented at various task-irrelevant locations during the RSVP stream. We found that feature-driven attentional capture effects were largest when the target-colored distractor was closer to the attended location. These results demonstrate that spatial attention modulates the strength of feature-based attention capture, calling into question the prior evidence that feature-based attention operates in a global manner that is independent of spatial attention.
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J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform · Oct 2014
The gradual emergence of spatially selective target processing in visual search: From feature-specific to object-based attentional control.
To dissociate feature-based and object-based stages in the control of spatial attention during visual search, we employed the N2pc component as an electrophysiological marker of attentional object selection. Participants searched for a target object that was defined by a conjunction of color and shape. Some search displays contained the target or a nontarget object that matched either the target color or its shape among 3 nonmatching distractors. ⋯ Attention is allocated in parallel and independently to objects with target-matching features during this early stage, irrespective of whether another target-matching object is simultaneously present elsewhere. From around 250 ms poststimulus, information is integrated across feature dimensions, and spatially selective attentional processing becomes object-based. These findings demonstrate that feature-based and object-based stages of attentional selectivity in visual search can be dissociated in real time.
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J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform · Aug 2014
The facial width-to-height ratio shares stronger links with judgments of aggression than with judgments of trustworthiness.
Variation in the facial width-to-height ratio (face ratio) is associated with judgments of aggression and of trustworthiness made by observers when viewing men's faces. Although judgments of aggression and of trustworthiness are correlated, they represent distinct constructs. We thus investigated the hypothesis that judgments of aggression share stronger associations with the face ratio than judgments of trustworthiness, and that judgments of aggression mediate the link between the face ratio and trustworthiness. ⋯ The correlations between the face ratio and judgments of aggression were moderate to strong in all 4 studies (rs = .45 to .70). Reaction time was measured in Study 4: Participants judged aggression faster than trustworthiness; thus, temporal precedence also supports the hypothesis that aggression mediates the link between the face ratio and trustworthiness. Sensitivity to the face ratio may therefore be part of a perceptual mechanism specialized to assess aggressiveness rather than trustworthiness in others, likely because of the greater necessity for rapid judgments of aggressive potential than trustworthiness.
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J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform · Aug 2014
Item and category-based attentional control during search for real-world objects: Can you find the pants among the pans?
To compare the speed and efficiency of item-based and category-based attentional control during visual search for real-world objects, we measured N2pc components as electrophysiological markers of attentional target selection. In different blocks, participants searched for 1 or 2 specific target objects or for any object in a target category (items of clothing or kitchen objects). ⋯ In contrast to previous findings for letter/digit search (Nako, Wu, & Eimer, 2014), target N2pc components were delayed by 40 ms during category-guided search relative to single-target search. This suggests that for objects and object categories that are less familiar than alphanumerical stimuli, category-guided target selection operates less efficiently than selection that is based on a physical match with an attentional template. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
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J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform · Apr 2014
Multiple spatial representations determine touch localization on the fingers.
Touch location can be specified in different anatomical and external reference frames. Temporal order judgments (TOJs) in touch are known to be sensitive to conflict between reference frames. To establish which coordinates are involved in localizing touch to a finger, participants performed TOJ on tactile stimuli to 2 out of 4 possible fingers. ⋯ Accordingly, we observed a benefit rather than impairment with finger crossing when both stimuli were applied to 1 hand. Complementary, participants systematically mislocalized touch to nonstimulated fingers of the targeted hand. The results indicate that touch localization for the fingers involves integration of several sources of spatial information: the anatomical location of the touched finger, its position in external space, the stimulated hand, and the hand to which the touch is (re)mapped in external space.