Figural aftereffects and spatial attention.
Distracting attention away from the location of an adaptation figure reduces the positional shift of a displaced test figure in the figural aftereffect (FAE). Participants performed an alignment task after adaptation involving various manipulations of spatial attention. In 1 condition, participants counted how often numbers occurred in an alphanumeric sequence presented during adaptation. (The sequence also appeared in a comparison condition, but no attention was required.) The FAE was reduced when the alphanumeric sequence attended to was in the center of the display while the adaptation figure was 3 degrees eccentric but not when the pattern was superimposed on the adaptation figure. Forced attention to 1 feature of the adaptation figure, its orientation, did not reduce the FAE (Experiment 3). To obtain a maximum FAE, the span of attention must cover the adaptation figure.
Yeh
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SL
Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley 94720, USA.
Chen
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De Valois
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De Valois
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RL
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D003867:Depth Perception; D005260:Female; D005366:Figural Aftereffect; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011340:Problem Solving; D011601:Psychophysics