Attentional capture by globally defined objects

Attentional capture by globally defined objects.

The abrupt appearance of a new perceptual object in the visual field typically captures visual attention. However, if attention is focused in advance on a different location, onsets can fail to capture attention (Yantis & Jonides, 1990). In the present experiments, we investigated the extent to which the deployment of attention to the local level of a hierarchical scene may be affected by the a...

Running head: LANGUAGE AFFORDS ATTENTIONAL CAPTURE Attentional capture of objects referred to by spoken language

Attentional Capture of Objects Referred to by Spoken Language

Participants saw a small number of objects in a visual display and performed a visual detection or visual-discrimination task in the context of task-irrelevant spoken distractors. In each experiment, a visual cue was presented 400 ms after the onset of a spoken word. In experiments 1 and 2, the cue was an isoluminant color change and participants generated an eye movement to the target object. ...

Attentional capture within and between objects.

The present study addressed the question whether attentional capture by abrupt onsets is affected by object-like properties of the stimulus field. Observers searched for a target circle at one of four ends of two solid rectangles. In the focused attention condition the location of the upcoming target was cued by means of a central arrowhead, whereas in the divided attention condition, the targe...

Attentional Capture by Sound Disappearance

Three experiments are reported in which the attentional capture effect of sound disappearance was assessed. In all experiments participants were required to judge the pitch of target sounds that were preceded by one or more context sounds. In Experiments 1 and 2, targets presented in the same location as a context sound that had abruptly terminated 100 ms before its presentation, were identifie...