Automatic, stimulus-driven attentional capture by objecthood

Kimchi, Ruth; Yeshurun, Yaffa; Cohen-Savransky, Aliza · 2007 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.3758/bf03194045

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Summary

This study investigates whether the mere perceptual organization of visual elements into a coherent object, without any abrupt onset or unique transient features, can automatically capture attention in a stimulus-driven manner. While previous research established that attention can be deployed to objects, it remained unclear if the object itself acts as an automatic attractor of attention or if attention is merely directed to the object due to other factors like spatial cues or task goals. The authors sought to determine if an object, defined by Gestalt factors such as collinearity, closure, and symmetry, could capture attention involuntarily, similar to exogenous cues like sudden luminance changes. To test this, the researchers conducted three experiments using a modified paradigm where participants identified the color of a target element within a display of nine red and green L-shaped elements. On half of the trials, four elements in one quadrant were rotated to form a diamond-like object based on Gestalt principles; on the other half, no object was present. The object was task-irrelevant and unpredictive of the target location. A central asterisk indicated the relevant quadrant, and participants responded to the target’s color relative to the asterisk. Experiment 1 used a fixed 150-millisecond stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between the display and the asterisk. Experiments 2 and 3 manipulated the SOA (0, 75, 500 msec in Experiment 2; 0, 50, 100 msec in Experiment 3) to examine the time course of attentional capture. The results demonstrated that the presence of an object significantly influenced performance. In Experiment 1, response times were faster when the target was in the object quadrant (a benefit) and slower when the target was in a nonobject quadrant (a cost) compared to trials with no object. Experiments 2 and 3 revealed that the attentional cost for targets outside the object occurred at all SOAs, including simultaneous onset (0 msec), indicating immediate capture. The benefit for targets inside the object emerged significantly at 100-millisecond SOA and persisted at longer intervals. These findings held regardless of whether the target element technically "belonged" to the grouped object, though costs were slightly higher for elements within the object, possibly due to extraction difficulty. The study concludes that perceptual organization into an object can automatically capture attention in a stimulus-driven manner, independent of task relevance or abrupt onsets. This suggests that the visual system has an inherent bias toward grouping elements according to Gestalt factors, likely because such organization aids in object identification and recognition in natural environments. The findings provide a unified account for various "object advantage" effects in the literature and demonstrate that objecthood itself is a potent factor in directing visual attention, operating similarly to exogenous spatial cues.

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Topics

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• attention selective divided
• inattentional change blindness
• visual search
• peripheral attention
• useful field of view
• multisensory crossmodal