title: Central inhibition ability modulates attention-induced motion blindness.
abstract: Impaired motion perception can be induced in normal observers in a rapid serial visual presentation task. Essential for this effect is the presence of motion distractors prior to the motion target, and we proposed that this attention-induced motion blindness results from high-level inhibition produced by the distractors. To investigate this, we compared the extent of the attention-induced motion blindness effect with performance on central inhibition tasks: Stroop colour naming and negative priming. A negative correlation between Stroop interference and motion performance reflected that low Stroop scores, indicative of strong inhibition ability, was associated with more severe impairments in motion perception. This association could not be explained by individual differences in fluid intelligence, task switching or response speed. Negative priming was not specifically associated with attention-induced motion blindness. The results confirm that attention can modulate motion perception and suggest that the processes involved may be shared with high-level cognitive abilities.
authors.affiliation: Vision Research Laboratories, Department of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 2UB, UK. m.milders@abdn.ac.uk
authors.forename: Maarten
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Milders
authors.forename: Julia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hay
authors.forename: Arash
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sahraie
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Niedeggen
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception; D014796:Visual Perception