Iakovlev Aleksei U, Khvostov Vladislav A, Ásgeirsson Árni Gunnar, Utochkin Igor S, Kristjánsson Árni
Psychology Deptartment, University of Iceland, Sæmundargata 12, 102, Reykjavik, Iceland.
The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2025 Jul 10. doi: 10.3758/s13414-025-03121-7.
The visual system can encode multiple objects in the form of ensemble representations. Such representations can be accessed with either explicit or implicit reports, but depending on the type of report, the observed properties of the ensemble representation can differ in detail. Previous studies have suggested that the saliency of individual items biases the perceived mean of ensembles (the so-called amplification effect). It is unclear, however, whether saliency affects implicit representations of the whole feature distribution (beyond mean and variance). Our observers were presented with sets of lines varying in orientation and size where size was a task-irrelevant salient feature. To estimate explicit representations, observers adjusted the mean orientation. To access the implicit representation of the feature distribution, we used a visual search task (Feature Distribution Learning) for an oddly oriented line among heterogeneous distractors and measured the search times. The results revealed a strong saliency-induced bias in the explicit report task, with mean orientation estimates biased toward the more salient items. However, no such amplification effect was observed for the implicit report. Our results support the hypothesis that distinct mechanisms may underlie the implicit and explicit ensemble representations.
视觉系统能够以整体表征的形式对多个物体进行编码。这种表征既可以通过明确报告也可以通过隐式报告来获取，但根据报告类型的不同，整体表征的观察属性在细节上可能会有所不同。先前的研究表明，单个项目的显著性会使整体的感知平均值产生偏差（即所谓的放大效应）。然而，尚不清楚显著性是否会影响整个特征分布的隐式表征（超出均值和方差）。我们让观察者观看一组方向和大小各异的线条，其中大小是一个与任务无关的显著特征。为了估计明确表征，观察者调整平均方向。为了获取特征分布的隐式表征，我们使用了一个视觉搜索任务（特征分布学习），即在异类干扰物中搜索一条方向奇特的线条，并测量搜索时间。结果显示，在明确报告任务中存在显著的显著性诱导偏差，平均方向估计偏向于更显著的项目。然而，在隐式报告中未观察到这种放大效应。我们的结果支持这样一种假设，即不同的机制可能是隐式和明确整体表征的基础。
