Fortenbaugh Francesca C, Sugarman Alexander, Robertson Lynn C, Esterman Michael
GRECC & Research Services, Department of Veterans Affairs, VA Boston Healthcare System, Boston, MA, USA.
Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2019 Feb;81(2):442-461. doi: 10.3758/s13414-018-1612-x.
Rapid shifts of involuntary attention have been shown to induce mislocalizations of nearby objects. One pattern of mislocalization, termed the Attentional Repulsion Effect (ARE), occurs when the onset of peripheral pre-cues lead to perceived shifts of subsequently presented stimuli away from the cued location. While the standard ARE configuration utilizes vernier lines, to date, all previous ARE studies have only assessed distortions along one direction and tested one spatial dimension (i.e., position or shape). The present study assessed the magnitude of the ARE using a novel stimulus configuration. Across three experiments participants judged which of two rectangles on the left or right side of the display appeared wider or taller. Pre-cues were used in Experiments 1 and 2. Results show equivalent perceived expansions in the width and height of the pre-cued rectangle in addition to baseline asymmetries in left/right relative size under no-cue conditions. Altering cue locations led to shifts in the perceived location of the same rectangles, demonstrating distortions in perceived shape and location using the same stimuli and cues. Experiment 3 demonstrates that rectangles are perceived as larger in the periphery compared to fixation, suggesting that eye movements cannot account for results from Experiments 1 and 2. The results support the hypothesis that the ARE reflects a localized, symmetrical warping of visual space that impacts multiple aspects of spatial and object perception.
非自愿注意力的快速转移已被证明会导致附近物体的定位错误。一种定位错误模式，称为注意力排斥效应（ARE），当外周预线索的出现导致随后呈现的刺激从线索位置被感知到偏移时就会发生。虽然标准的ARE配置使用游标线，但迄今为止，之前所有的ARE研究都只评估了沿一个方向的扭曲，并测试了一个空间维度（即位置或形状）。本研究使用一种新颖的刺激配置评估了ARE的大小。在三个实验中，参与者判断显示屏左侧或右侧的两个矩形中哪一个看起来更宽或更高。实验1和2中使用了预线索。结果显示，除了在无线索条件下左右相对大小的基线不对称外，预线索矩形的宽度和高度也有同等程度的感知扩展。改变线索位置会导致相同矩形的感知位置发生偏移，这表明使用相同的刺激和线索时，感知形状和位置会出现扭曲。实验3表明，与注视点相比，周边的矩形被感知为更大，这表明眼球运动不能解释实验1和2的结果。这些结果支持了这样一种假设，即ARE反映了视觉空间的局部对称扭曲，这种扭曲会影响空间和物体感知的多个方面。
