Lo Shih-Yu
Institute of Communication Studies, National Chiao Tung University, 1001 University Road, Hsinchu, 300, Taiwan.
Center for General Education, National Chiao Tung University, 1001 University Road, Hsinchu, 300, Taiwan.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2018 Apr;80(3):691-701. doi: 10.3758/s13414-017-1474-7.
Perceptual grouping is the process through which the perceptual system combines local stimuli into a more global perceptual unit. Previous studies have shown attention to be a modulatory factor for perceptual grouping. However, these studies mainly used explicit measurements, and, thus, whether attention can modulate perceptual grouping without awareness is still relatively unexplored. To clarify the relationship between attention and perceptual grouping, the present study aims to explore how attention interacts with perceptual grouping without awareness. The task was to judge the relative lengths of two centrally presented horizontal bars while a railway-shaped pattern defined by color similarity was presented in the background. Although the observers were unaware of the railway-shaped pattern, their line-length judgment was biased by that pattern, which induced a Ponzo illusion, indicating grouping without awareness. More importantly, an attentional modulatory effect without awareness was manifested as evident by the observer's performance being more often biased when the railway-shaped pattern was formed by an attended color than when it was formed by an unattended one. Also, the attentional modulation effect was shown to be dynamic, being more pronounced with a short presentation time than a longer one. The results of the present study not only clarify the relationship between attention and perceptual grouping but also further contribute to our understanding of attention and awareness by corroborating the dissociation between attention and awareness.
知觉分组是指知觉系统将局部刺激组合成一个更整体的知觉单元的过程。先前的研究表明，注意是知觉分组的一个调节因素。然而，这些研究主要使用的是显性测量，因此，注意是否能在无意识的情况下调节知觉分组仍有待进一步探索。为了阐明注意与知觉分组之间的关系，本研究旨在探讨注意如何在无意识的情况下与知觉分组相互作用。任务是判断两条呈现在中央的水平条的相对长度，同时在背景中呈现由颜色相似性定义的铁路形状图案。尽管观察者没有意识到铁路形状图案的存在，但他们对线条长度的判断受到了该图案的影响，从而产生了庞佐错觉，这表明存在无意识分组。更重要的是，当铁路形状图案由被注意的颜色形成时，观察者的表现比由未被注意的颜色形成时更常出现偏差，这表明存在无意识的注意调节效应。此外，注意调节效应是动态的，在短呈现时间比长呈现时间更明显。本研究结果不仅阐明了注意与知觉分组之间的关系，还通过证实注意与意识之间的分离，进一步有助于我们对注意和意识的理解。
