title: Does feature similarity facilitate attentional selection?
abstract: Object-based attention enables us to simultaneously select and report two features from the same visual object. Does feature-based attention contribute similarly to visual selection? In the present study, we investigated the concurrent discrimination of two motion fields with a divided attention paradigm. We found that dual-task performance improved when the two fields conformed to a continuous optic flow, consistent with "object-based" selection. However, we found no such improvement when the two motion fields were merely similar, as would have been expected from "feature-based" selection. Therefore, feature similarity does not facilitate attentional selection in the same way as belonging to the same object does.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biology, Otto von Guericke University, Magdeburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Yariv
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Festman
authors.forename: Jochen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Braun
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001244:Association; D001288:Attention; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011601:Psychophysics; D055815:Young Adult