The Role of Attention in Visual Processing
Abstract
This is the first reported instance in which attention modulates the strength of a visual aftereffect and supports the basic idea underlying the grant: that one can use adaptation phenomena to relate the action of attention to specific visual mechanisms. If one views an object on a monitor whose direction of rotation is specified through perspective, then a subsequent object presented without perspective, whose direction of rotation is normally ambiguous, will be seen to rotate in the opposite direction. Adapting to the unambiguous stimulus has desensitized mechanisms specific for a particular direction of rotation in depth. I now have data indicating that the extent to which this adaption process occurs depends on the extent to which the adapting stimulus is attended. This result suggests that the mechanisms that are being adapted in these experiments are also capable of being attentionally influenced.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1989
- Accession Number
- ADA214158
Entities
People
- Gordon L. Shulman
Organizations
- Washington University in St. Louis