No blindness for things that do not change.
It is well known that under normal circumstances, human observers are able to detect a visual change (a luminance transient) in the outside world very easily. This study demonstrated that observers are also easily able to detect a nonchanging element if it is located in a display containing multiple elements that do change. That is, a nonchanging element popped out from a display containing multiple changing elements (luminance transients). The efficient detection of the nonchanging element may be due to temporal grouping created by the dynamic character of the stimulus display.
Theeuwes
Jan
J
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. j.theeuwes@psy.vu.nl
D006801:Humans; D008027:Light; D017603:Signal Detection, Psychological; D014796:Visual Perception