Seeing the light: Adapting luminance reveals low-level visual processes in the attentional blink.
It is widely assumed that high-level visual processes subserve the attentional blink (AB). Recent evidence from studies of visual masking during the AB that were designed to directly test the contributions of high-level masking effects, however, have failed to provide empirical support for this position. The implication is that low-level visual processes are crucial to the AB. We tested this idea by manipulating adapting luminance in a standard AB paradigm. Consistent with the involvement of low-level neural mechanisms, the AB effect interacted with adapting luminance such that an AB was revealed only under photopic (light adapted) viewing conditions.
Giesbrecht
Barry
B
Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA. giesbrecht@ucdavis.edu
Bischof
Walter F
WF
Kingstone
Alan
A
D000221:Adaptation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology* / Q000528:radiation effects; D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000528:radiation effects*; D006801:Humans; D008027:Light; D008029:Lighting; D008606:Mental Processes / Q000502:physiology*; D010470:Perceptual Masking / Q000502:physiology*; D012016:Reference Values; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000528:radiation effects*