title: Objects of attention, objects of perception.
abstract: Four experiments were conducted, to explore the notion of objects in perception. Taking as a starting point the effects of display content on rapid attention transfer and manipulating curvature, closure, and processing time, a link between objects of attention and objects of perception is proposed. In Experiment 1, a number of parallel, equally spaced, straight lines facilitated attention transfer along the lines, relative to transfer across the lines. In Experiment 2, with curved, closed-contour shapes, no "same-object" facilitation was observed. However, when a longer time interval was provided, in Experiment 3, a same-object advantage started to emerge. In Experiment 4, using the same curved shapes but in a non-speeded distance estimation task, a strong effect of objects was observed. It is argued that attention transfer is facilitated by line tracing but that line tracing is encouraged by objects.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, USA. judav@vms.huji.ac.il
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Avrahami
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D004215:Distance Perception; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009903:Optical Illusions; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011601:Psychophysics; D011930:Reaction Time; D012858:Size Perception; D014163:Transfer, Psychology