DEAD ZONE OF VISUAL ATTENTION REVEALED BY CHANGE BLINDNESS

Igor S. UtochkinHigher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia

isutochkin@inbox.ru

Two patterns of attentional allocation around a focus

Focus

Periphery Periphery

Gradient pattern (Castiello & Umiltà, 1990; Downing, 1988; Downing & Pinker, 1985; Eriksen & Hoffman, 1972; Eriksen & St. James, 1986; LaBerge, 1983; Mack & Rock, 1998, etc.)

Focus

Periphery Periphery

Inhibitory-surrounds pattern (Bahcall & Kowler, 1999; Cave & Zimmerman, 1997; Caputo & Guerra, 1998; Cutzu & Tsotsos, 2003; Mounts, 2000a, b; Müller et al., 2005; Thakral & Slotnick, 2010, etc.)

What does determine pattern of allocation?

Task difficulty (Thakral & Slotnick, 2010);

Attentional saliency of a centrally attended item (Müller, Mollenhauer, Rösler & Kleinschmidt, 2005);

Attentional set towards central and peripheral items (focused vs. divided attention) (Müller et al., 2005)

Limitation of previous results

Gaze fixation;

Simplistic arrays of discrete objects;

Brief trials;

Attentional salience is controlled through external attentional capture

What about natural perception?

Active looking;

Complex continual layouts of various objects;

Prolonged observation;

Internal control of attentional salience through interests is available

Change blindness paradigmSpatial allocation of attention appears necessary to perceive changes (Kahneman et al., 1992; Rensink, 2000; Rensink et al., 1997; Tse, 2004);

Direct manipulations with interests are available (Rensink et al., 1997; Jones et al., 2003; Werner & Thies, 2000)

Experiment 1

Standard change detection task under flicker conditions: find a single changing detail in a picture as soon as possible and identify it (miss responses are allowed)

Stimulation

12 natural scenes with one attractive object or its part

Central interests (CI)

Marginal interests (MI)

Three change instances per a picture

CENTRAL CHANGE

CENTRAL CHANGE

NEAR CHANGE

Three change instances per a picture

CENTRAL CHANGE

NEAR CHANGE FAR CHANGE

Three change instances per a picture

Design

Independent Variable: Change location (Central vs. Near vs. Far)

Dependent Variables:Search time;Miss rate;Misidentification rate (successful detection but incorrect recognition)

Results

Miss rate Misidentification rateA ‘dead zone’ surrounds center of interest

Is attention to CI what actually causes dead zone pattern?

CIMI MI

If this is the case…

Experiment 2

Looking for a marginal change (near or far) in the presence of a once noticed central change

Results

A ‘dead zone of attention’ surrounds center of interest

Experiment 3

Both marginal changes (near AND far) compete for prior detection

Results

Thank you for your Attention!

For more information about this study see:Utochkin, I.S. (in press). Hide-and-seek around center of interest: Dead zone of attention revealed by change blindness. Visual Cognition.