Unconscious pop-out: attentional capture by unseen feature singletons only when top-down attention is available
Name
Kanwisher-2011-Unconscious pop-out.pdf
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141.83 KB
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Checksum (MD5)
067c208fe272c08d9390ad523e9af780
Author(s)
Hsieh, Po-Jang
Colas, Jaron T.
Kanwisher, Nancy
Alternative Title
Pop-Out Without Awareness: Unseen Feature Singletons Capture Attention Only When Top-Down Attention Is Available
Date Issued
September 2011
Journal
Psychological Science
Publisher
Association for Psychological Science
Citation
Hsieh, P.-J., J. T. Colas, and N. Kanwisher. “Pop-Out Without Awareness: Unseen Feature Singletons Capture Attention Only When Top-Down Attention Is Available.” Psychological Science 22.9 (2011): 1220–1226. Web.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Visual pop-out occurs when a unique visual target (e.g., a feature singleton) is present in a set of homogeneous distractors. However, the role of visual awareness in this process remains unclear. In the experiments reported here, we showed that even though subjects were not aware of a suppressed pop-out display, their subsequent performance on an orientation-discrimination task was significantly better at the pop-out location than at a control location. These results indicate that conscious visual awareness of a feature singleton is not necessary for it to attract attention. Furthermore, the subliminal pop-out effect disappeared when subjects diverted their attention toward a rapid sequential visual presentation task while presented with the same subliminal pop-out display. These results suggest that top-down attention is necessary for the subliminal pop-out effect and that the cognitive processes underlying attention and awareness are somewhat independent.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0
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DOI of Published Version
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797611419302
