Devy Essay

Attention is thought to be selective-focused on one subject at a time. Traditionally, it has been assumed that automatic processing is involuntary, it does not require attention, and is relatively fast; whereas, controlled processing is voluntary, does require attention, and is relatively slow. We can conclude from this that the more we repeat a certain material or tasks the more it becomes automatic and effortless to us.

The purpose of the study was to measure the effect that the Flicker Paradigm had on visual perception. The Flicker Paradigm causes a distraction while there is a change made in the image. It was designed to test how long the groups took to react to a change in the visual field. The test is meant to show that the disturbance in the visual field made it much more challenging for the viewer to notice any changes that were made in the image. The hypothesis stated that the experimental group, the group using the Flicker Paradigm, would take longer to notice the change in the visual field than the control group, which had no flicker between the altered images. This is because the disturbance in the visual field caused the brain to miss the change that was made to the image because the information was deemed as unimportant. The majority of the perceived changes occurred in the background of the scene, and were considered minor in reference to the whole scene. This was proven true from the data collected, and coincided with previous tests. (Rensink, R. A. 2000). The data in tables 1.1 and 1.3 shows the individual participant data for the test with a flicker for both tests one and two. Tables 1.2 and 1.4 represent the individual results for the tests with no flicker, or the control group. Graphs 1.1 and 1.2 showed the relationship between the time taken to recognize alterations in the images. The data was taken from the average time to recognize the change from all

The interaction of object- and space-based covert visual attention in an attentional cuing task – a replication of Egly, Driver and Rafal (1994)

(1) The first question is dealing with the causal or functional role of phenomenal qualities: Under the assumption that seeing is based on cortical information-processing, the question arises, whether the phenomenal qualities of visual perceptions have a function with regard to this processing, in the sense that the intentional content of visual perceptions depends not only on their intentional, but also on their phenomenal qualities. Is it true, as among other authors Frank Jackson and Steven Pinker claim, that phenomenal qualities are only epiphenomena, not having any function for information-processing? (1)

When solely looking at the

Early studies have widely researched attention with selective processing (Driver, 2001). Broadbent (1958) filter theory of attention states that certain information does not require focal attention. It is based on certain stimulus attributes such as colour and shape (Friedenberg, 2012). A previous study carried out by Treisman and Schmidt (1982) proposes that when attention is diverted from a display of several figures, the participants incorrectly combine the features of colour and shape therefore increases the illusory conjunctions portrayed by the participants (Tsal, 1989). Another study by Shaw (1978) found that reaction time of participant to identify targets varied with the probability that a target would appear in a particular display location. These results indicate that different amounts of attention towards the targets are distributed to different positions in the visual field. However, Houck and Hoffman (1986) found that the feature integration of colour and orientation can sometimes be accomplished without attention (James et al.,

In the Flicker Paradigm, an image alternates from the original to an altered version, with very short blank frames placed between the two images. The images are shown for 240 ms each, and the blank slides are shown for 80 ms each. Along with this, all 48 of the images were 27” wide and 18” high and were scenes from the real world. And each was altered in some way, whether it is in color or the absence or presence of an object. Also, five observers were asked to provide a verbal description of each scene so that the interesting parts of the scene were determined. For all the images, changes were large and obvious to see once perceived. Ten observers participated in each experiment. Each observer views the display and presses a key when they perceive the change in the image. And to prevent dumb luck and guessing from playing a role, the observer is asked what change was

It has been identified that the first visible response in visually guided action is usually an eye movement corresponding to the direction and location of some feature important for task execution. The eyes then fixate and

I believe this flow of concentration, that is presented in the textbook as a square, is actually a sphere much like an eyeball. It’s an eye of the mind or mind’s eye. At the center of the cross hairs is a narrow circle. This is “in the moment” and the circle around this “centered” point is a prioritization ring or loop that

They suggest that IOR can be generated in both motor-based when the response is oculomotor and attentional-based when the response is manual. Hunt and Kingstone’s (2003) experiment revealed the attentional and motor components of IOR and supported that IOR can be generated by two different systems. It is observed that IOR interacts with target luminance but does not present with the FOE if the response was manual. Conversely, IOR presents with the FOE but not appear with target luminance if the response was

For example, if you hold your head still and watch a car drive by, you are using smooth pursuit eye movements to keep the car in the center of your line of vision. Accurate smooth pursuit requires a target (real or imagined) and matches the velocity (speed) of the target and frequency varied between 0.2Hz and 0.8Hz. Target moves in one direction for several trails at one speed, then several trails at another speed

Previous research has shown that gaze direction can only be accurately discriminated within parafoveal limits (~5° eccentricity) along the horizontal visual field. Beyond this eccentricity, head orientation seems to influence gaze discrimination more than iris cues (Palanica & Itier, 2015). The present study examined whether gaze direction could also be accurately discriminated in the upper and lower visual fields, and whether head orientation affects gaze judgments beyond foveal and/or parafoveal vision. Direct and averted gaze faces, in frontal and deviated head orientations, were briefly presented for 150 ms across the vertical visual field while participants maintained central fixation (verified by an eye-tracker) during gaze discrimination judgments. Accurate gaze discrimination was achieved to 4.5° in the upper visual field, but only to 3° (with frontal-view faces) or even just 1.5° (with deviated-view faces) in the lower visual field, indicating a strong asymmetry in gaze discrimination between the upper and lower visual fields. Beyond foveal vision, the speed, accuracy, and response rates of gaze judgments were biased toward head orientation rather than iris eccentricity, but mainly in the lower visual field.

Justin Gardner Laboratory is interested in using a mixture of functional magnetic resonance imaging, computational modeling and analysis, and psychophysical measurements to connection human perception to cortical brain activity. By using these techniques, his lab is interested in studying how the human cortex neural activity creates our awareness of visual perception. In the paper “Encoding of graded changes in spatial specificity of prior cues in human visual cortex” the Gardner’s lab was interested to test quantitative links between cortical activity and behavioral performance. They found that that although parametrically increasing prior probability resulted in graded improvements in behavioral performance, responses in early visual cortex

Every day we are faced with numerous visual inputs and our brain needs to filter and select the information of interest. This selection can be achieved either endogenously (top-down, guided by behavioural goal) or exogenously (bottom-up, guided by salient visual event) (Posner & Cohen, 1980). Endogenous and exogenous shift of attention can be directed to the visual stimuli either accompanied with eye and/or head movement – referred as “overt attention” or independently of any gaze movement referred as “covert attention” (Findlay & Gilchrist, 2003).

It is largely thought that when viewing a display, focussed attention on a specific object is required in order to detect a change. (Rensink et al. 1997). O’Regan, Deubel, Clark & Rensink highlight that internal representation of the visual field only contains the particular aspects that have been attended to in a scene. (2000). We can relate this back to the example used previously by Caplovitz, Fendrich & Hughes where we can only be reassured that our keys are not in one place by focussing our attention on that spot. Until then we are unsure of where exactly our keys might be and cannot rule out the possibility that we left them on the sofa. This is due to the fact that when visually processing a particular scene, we