Haase Tabea-Maria, Rich Anina N, Gilchrist Iain D, Kent Christopher
School of Psychological Science, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK.
Macquarie University Performance and Expertise Research Centre and School of Psychological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
J Vis. 2024 Dec 2;24(13):13. doi: 10.1167/jov.24.13.13.
Being able to detect changes in our visual environment reliably and quickly is important for many daily tasks. The motion silencing effect describes a decrease in the ability to detect feature changes for faster moving objects compared with stationary or slowly moving objects. One theory is that spatiotemporal receptive field properties in early vision might account for the silencing effect, suggesting that its origins are low-level visual processing. Here, we explore whether spatial attention can modulate motion silencing of orientation changes to gain greater understanding of the underlying mechanisms. In Experiment 1, we confirm that the motion silencing effect occurs for the discrimination of orientation changes. In Experiment 2, we use a Posner-style cueing paradigm to investigate whether manipulating covert attention modulates motion silencing for orientation. The results show a clear spatial cueing effect: Participants were able to discriminate orientation changes successfully at higher velocities when the cue was valid compared to neutral cues and performance was worst when the cue was invalid. These results show that motion silencing can be modulated by directing spatial attention toward a moving target and provides support for a role for higher level processes, such as attention, in motion silencing of orientation changes.
能够可靠且快速地检测视觉环境中的变化对于许多日常任务都很重要。运动消声效应描述了与静止或缓慢移动的物体相比，检测快速移动物体特征变化的能力下降。一种理论认为，早期视觉中的时空感受野特性可能是消声效应的原因，这表明其起源是低级视觉处理。在这里，我们探讨空间注意力是否可以调节方向变化的运动消声，以更深入地了解其潜在机制。在实验1中，我们证实了运动消声效应在方向变化辨别中会出现。在实验2中，我们使用波斯纳式提示范式来研究操纵隐蔽注意力是否会调节方向的运动消声。结果显示出明显的空间提示效应：与中性提示相比，当提示有效时，参与者能够在更高速度下成功辨别方向变化，而当提示无效时，表现最差。这些结果表明，通过将空间注意力导向移动目标可以调节运动消声，并为高级过程（如注意力）在方向变化的运动消声中发挥作用提供了支持。
