How voluntary spatial attention influences feature biases in object correspondence

Stepper, Madeleine Y.; Rolke, Bettina; Hein, Elisabeth · 2020 · Crossref

DOI: 10.3758/s13414-019-01801-9

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Summary

This study investigates how voluntary spatial attention influences the resolution of the "correspondence problem" in visual perception, specifically regarding apparent motion. The correspondence problem involves establishing associations between images across space and time to maintain object identity despite ambiguous retinal input. While lower-level factors like spatiotemporal proximity and feature similarity are known to affect this process, the authors test the hypothesis that higher-level, object-based processing mediated by attention also plays a critical role. Specifically, they examine whether directing attention to specific elements in an ambiguous motion display biases the perceived motion solution toward the features of those attended elements. To test this, the researchers employed a modified Ternus display, an ambiguous apparent motion paradigm where three elements shift positions between frames, allowing for either "group motion" (all elements moving together) or "element motion" (one element jumping across stationary ones). They created a "competitive" display where color cues biased the percept toward element motion for one color and group motion for another. Participants were instructed to voluntarily direct their attention to specific elements using precues (left, center, right, or all). Experiment 1 involved 14 participants who performed the Ternus task alongside a Landolt C discrimination task to verify attentional orientation. Experiment 2 replicated the design with a simpler gap detection task to avoid dual-task costs. The study compared these competitive displays against classic displays where all elements shared the same color. The results supported the object-based theory of correspondence. In the competitive display, attending to the element biased toward group motion significantly increased the likelihood of perceiving group motion, whereas attending to the element biased toward element motion increased the likelihood of perceiving element motion. This interaction between cue position and display type was absent in the classic display, where attention had no specific biasing effect on the motion percept. Furthermore, the discrimination tasks confirmed that participants successfully oriented their attention as instructed. These findings indicate that attention does not merely enhance general stimulus properties but selectively facilitates the one-to-one mapping of the most similar elements across frames. The significance of these findings lies in their support for an object-based model of correspondence, challenging theories that rely solely on low-level motion energy or spatial grouping. The study demonstrates that attentional pointers can connect individual elements based on identity information, allowing higher-level factors to influence perceptual organization. This suggests that the visual system solves the correspondence problem by matching individual objects across frames rather than grouping all elements within a frame, with attention serving as a key mechanism for selecting which objects determine the final perceptual solution.

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• multisensory crossmodal