Abrupt luminance change pops out; abrupt color change does not.
The present studies investigated whether an isoluminant color change pops out, indicating that it can be detected preattentively in parallel. The results of Experiment 1 show that an abrupt color change presented on an equiluminant background does not pop out. However, when the color change is accompanied by a small luminance change, it does pop out. The results of Experiment 2 show that the pop-out is fully due to the luminance change and not to the color change. The results of Experiments 3 and 4 show that the failure to find a pop-out at equiluminance cannot be attributed to the limited temporal resolution for chromatic stimuli. The results of Experiment 5 show that particular search strategies cannot be responsible for the obtained results. The results are in agreement with physiological findings regarding the parvo and magno systems.
Theeuwes
J
J
TNO Human Factors Research Institute, Soesterberg, The Netherlands.
D001288:Attention; D003118:Color Perception; D015350:Contrast Sensitivity; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D006801:Humans; D009949:Orientation; D011601:Psychophysics; D011930:Reaction Time