Yantis S, Gibson B S
Department of Psychology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218.
Can J Exp Psychol. 1994 Jun;48(2):182-204. doi: 10.1037/1196-1961.48.2.182.
Recent theories of attention have emphasized the role of object-based representations in visual selection. One defining property of any object is spatiotemporal continuity. The present experiments show that the continuity property may underlie two seemingly unrelated perceptual phenomena: attentional capture by abrupt visual onset and the appearance of bistable apparent motion displays. In Experiment 1, observers carried out two visual tasks. In the first task, they reported the appearance of a bistable apparent-motion (or Ternus) display. Whether group or element motion was perceived depended on the duration of the blank interval between successive frames. In the second task, subjects engaged in visual search for a prespecified target, and one each trial one element was briefly flickered off and back on. The degree to which that element captured attention also depended on the duration of the temporal gap. The time course of the gap duration effect in the visual search task was very similar to that for the Ternus display. In Experiment 2, we ruled out the possibility that the presence of an abrupt offset caused the results of Experiment 1. It is argued that the apparent motion and attentional capture phenomena examined here may reflect the operation of the same underlying mechanism: in both cases, a sufficiently long temporal gap disrupts spatiotemporal continuity, thereby fundamentally changing the perceived organization of the display.
近期的注意力理论强调了基于对象的表征在视觉选择中的作用。任何对象的一个决定性属性是时空连续性。本实验表明，连续性属性可能是两种看似不相关的感知现象的基础：由突然的视觉起始引起的注意捕获和双稳态表观运动显示的出现。在实验1中，观察者执行了两项视觉任务。在第一项任务中，他们报告双稳态表观运动（或特尔努斯）显示的出现。感知到的是组运动还是元素运动取决于连续帧之间空白间隔的持续时间。在第二项任务中，受试者进行视觉搜索以寻找预先指定的目标，并且在每次试验中，一个元素会短暂闪烁关闭然后再打开。该元素捕获注意力的程度也取决于时间间隔的持续时间。视觉搜索任务中时间间隔持续时间效应的时间进程与特尔努斯显示的非常相似。在实验2中，我们排除了突然消失的存在导致实验1结果的可能性。有人认为，这里研究的表观运动和注意捕获现象可能反映了相同潜在机制的运作：在这两种情况下，足够长的时间间隔会破坏时空连续性，从而从根本上改变显示的感知组织。
