Metacontrast masking and attention do not interact.
Atten Percept Psychophys
; 78(5): 1363-80, 2016 07.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-27032801
Visual masking and attention have been known to control the transfer of information from sensory memory to visual short-term memory. A natural question is whether these processes operate independently or interact. Recent evidence suggests that studies that reported interactions between masking and attention suffered from ceiling and/or floor effects. The objective of the present study was to investigate whether metacontrast masking and attention interact by using an experimental design in which saturation effects are avoided. We asked observers to report the orientation of a target bar randomly selected from a display containing either two or six bars. The mask was a ring that surrounded the target bar. Attentional load was controlled by set-size and masking strength by the stimulus onset asynchrony between the target bar and the mask ring. We investigated interactions between masking and attention by analyzing two different aspects of performance: (i) the mean absolute response errors and (ii) the distribution of signed response errors. Our results show that attention affects observers' performance without interacting with masking. Statistical modeling of response errors suggests that attention and metacontrast masking exert their effects by independently modulating the probability of "guessing" behavior. Implications of our findings for models of attention are discussed.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Enmascaramiento Perceptual
/
Estimulación Luminosa
/
Atención
/
Análisis y Desempeño de Tareas
/
Percepción Visual
Tipo de estudio:
Prognostic_studies
Límite:
Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Atten Percept Psychophys
Asunto de la revista:
PSICOFISIOLOGIA
/
PSICOLOGIA
Año:
2016
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Estados Unidos
Pais de publicación:
Estados Unidos