title: Feature-based inattentional blindness: loss of awareness to featural information in fully attended objects.
abstract: In two experiments, we investigated the impact of feature-based attention on observers' awareness of object appearance. Participants were shown a sequence of two displays, each containing eight objects (rectangles), and were asked to detect changes in the orientation of a cued rectangle. A set of baseline trials preceded probe trials in which half of the rectangles in each display were unexpectedly distorted by 70 %. Participants in both Experiment 1 (100-ms display duration) and Experiment 2 (100- and 400-ms display durations) were unaware of these modifications in the task-irrelevant feature (texture), even when they were asked to select the viewed object in a forced choice procedure. A control experiment showed that participants could identify the physical distortion when they were made aware of its presence. The results demonstrate that feature-based attention moderates the appearance of objects, even when those objects are fully expected and fully attended, implying a distinct form of unawareness that we term feature-based inattentional blindness.
authors.affiliation: Program in Cognitive Neuroscience, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA, mpersuh@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Marjan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Persuh
authors.forename: Mabel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gomez
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bauer
authors.forename: Robert D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Melara
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001364:Awareness / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult