Dombrowe Isabel, Hermens Frouke, Francis Gregory, Herzog Michael H
Laboratory of Psychophysics, Brain Mind Institute, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland.
J Vis. 2009 Oct 22;9(11):22.1-11. doi: 10.1167/9.11.22.
Visual backward masking is a commonly used technique in vision research and psychology. There are two distinct types of masking. Either masking is strongest for a simultaneous presentation of the target and the mask (A-type masking) or masking is strongest when the mask trails the target (B-type masking). To account for the two types of masking, a variety of explanations have been put forward that often rely on low-level features such as the target-mask energy ratio. However, recent studies have demonstrated that the global spatial layout of the mask is an equally important factor. Here, we investigated both factors jointly. Our findings show that both factors strongly interact with each other and that neither one alone can explain the results. This finding indicates that choosing a mask should not be taken lightly when masking is used as a tool to investigate properties of perception or cognition.
视觉后向掩蔽是视觉研究和心理学中常用的技术。有两种不同类型的掩蔽。要么掩蔽在目标和掩蔽同时呈现时最强（A型掩蔽），要么掩蔽在掩蔽跟随目标时最强（B型掩蔽）。为了解释这两种类型的掩蔽，人们提出了各种解释，这些解释通常依赖于诸如目标-掩蔽能量比等低级特征。然而，最近的研究表明，掩蔽的全局空间布局也是一个同样重要的因素。在这里，我们联合研究了这两个因素。我们的研究结果表明，这两个因素相互强烈作用，单独任何一个都无法解释结果。这一发现表明，当将掩蔽用作研究感知或认知特性的工具时，选择掩蔽不应掉以轻心。
