9. Within-Object Attentional Allocation Biases

Inquiry@Queen's Undergraduate Research Conference Proceedings ◽

10.24908/iqurcp.7872 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Natalie McGlynn

Keyword(s):

Spatial Distribution ◽

Visual Search ◽

Visual Attention ◽

Attentional Bias ◽

Change Over Time ◽

Attentional Allocation ◽

Search Results ◽

Over Time ◽

Attention Shifts

This study involved two experiments. The goal of the first was to evaluate how visual attention is distributed spatially within an object, and how a spatial distribution may change over time. We accomplished this by having people press a button as soon as they noticed a target appear at various onset times and locations within an arch-shaped object. In the second experiment, we extended the arch-object and cued one end of it, in order to examine whether attention is biased to follow the shape of an object even if such a mechanism reduces the efficiency of a visual search. Results from the first experiment indicate that initially, there is no attentional bias to any location within an object. However, as looking time increases, a developing bias to the centre of objects occurs before attention adopts a strategic spatial distribution within the object. Results from the second experiment indicate that after attention is captured by a cued area, attention shifts away from the cued location. The path attention takes from the cued area is not constrained within the object. With increased time, however, attention does not move back to the cued location. Therefore, although attention is not constrained to follow the shape of the object one focuses on, it seems that the efficiency of a visual search is still jeopardized due to reluctance for attention to move to previously attended locations.

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Evidence Based on a dynamic source: Database support for a theory of transitive reciprocals

Linguistics Vanguard ◽

10.1515/lingvan-2014-1016 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Ken Safir

Keyword(s):

Natural Language ◽

Empirical Support ◽

Direct Object ◽

Evidence Based ◽

Change Over Time ◽

Search Results ◽

Source Database ◽

Linguistic Research ◽

Dynamic Source ◽

Over Time

AbstractThe novelty of this document is that the empirical support for the predictions it examines, predictions about the distribution and interpretation of transitive reciprocal constructions, will be different each time it is read. The evidence will change because this paper will only provide parameters for a search of the Afranaph Database (ongoing) and two other databases, and as these databases grow and change over time, the search results returned today will be different from the results returned by the same search executed months or years from now. Reversing the normal priorities of linguistic research, the proposal we present about the nature of reciprocal constructions in natural language, which contends that direct object full DPs anaphors do not directly contribute reciprocal meaning (a proposal more broadly and specifically defended by

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Attention Switching vs Attention Sharing in Searching Dual RSVP Streams

Perception ◽

10.1068/v96p0304 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 25 (1_suppl) ◽

pp. 122-122

Author(s):

N Prins ◽

J F Juola

Keyword(s):

Resource Allocation ◽

Visual Search ◽

Visual Attention ◽

The Other ◽

Zoom Lens ◽

Response Signal ◽

Attention Switching ◽

Attentional Allocation ◽

Switching Model ◽

Other Hand

Ideas about how visual attention is distributed over space include spotlight, zoom lens, and various resource allocation models. Spotlight and serial allocation models assume that attention is narrowly focused and switches from one object to another in visual search. Zoom lens and parallel allocation models, on the other hand, describe a flexible gradient within which attention can be shared among several items simultaneously. We report two experiments in which simultaneous rapid serial visual presentations (RSVPs) of two streams of digits were used, one above and one below a fixation point. In experiment 1, subjects were told to report the digit immediately following a uniquely coloured signal digit. In some trial blocks the coloured signal digit always appeared in either the top or bottom stream, and in other blocks the signal digit could occur in either stream. Stream location probabilities were varied between blocks in order to induce strategic variations in attentional allocation. In experiment 2, subjects were told to report the first two digits visible when the fixation point changed colour. Subjects were instructed to report one digit from the top stream and one from the bottom, with report order counterbalanced between blocks. The lag between the response signal and the actual digit reported was shown to vary strongly with signal location probability (experiment 1), and the lag between items reported from the top and bottom streams depended heavily on the order of report (experiment 2). The results were more consistent with an attention-switching model than with an attention-sharing model of visual attention.

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