Effects of Distractor Saliency and Spatial Location on Attentional Capture
Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, Tsinghua University2018
- Background: Previous research found that a salient but task-irrelevant color singleton would increase the response time to the target form singleton, which is known as attentional capture. However, there haven’t been studies systematically examining how different distractor saliency conditions on a continuous spectrum would have an effect on attentional capture. Additionally, there has been evidence showing spatial heterogeneity in the perception of various visual features, but it’s not clear yet whether attentional capture also exhibits spatial heterogeneity across display locations.
- Designed and programmed experiments, collected and analyzed data with MATLAB, and presented posters at the Psychonomic Society 2019 Annual Meeting and VSS 2020 Virtual Meeting.
- Examined the effects of distractor saliency defined within multiple attention-guiding dimensions, including color, size and orientation, and established the existence of a certain threshold for distractor saliency to elicit attentional capture.
- Found that there existed a spatial pattern of attentional capture susceptibility, which was distinctive and stable for each individual.