Search

Although visual search studies have primarily focused on search behavior, concealment behavior is also important in the real world. However, previous studies in this regard are limited in that their findings about search and concealment strategies are restricted to the spatial (two-dimensional) domain. Thus, this study evaluated strategies during three-dimensional and temporal (i.e., spatiotemporal) search and concealment to determine whether participants would indicate where they would hide or find a target in a temporal sequence of items. The items were stacked in an upward (Experiments 1–3) or downward (Experiment 4) direction and three factors were manipulated: scenario (hide vs. seek), partner type (friend vs. foe), and oddball (unique item in the sequence; present vs. absent). Participants in both the hide and seek scenarios frequently selected the oddball for friends but not foes, which suggests that they applied common strategies because the oddball automatically attracts attention and can be readily discovered by friends. Additionally, a principle unique to the spatiotemporal domain was revealed, i.e., when the oddball was absent, participants in both scenarios frequently selected the topmost item of the stacked layer for friends, regardless of temporal order, whereas they selected the first item in the sequence for foes, regardless of the stacked direction. These principles were not affected by visual masking or number of items in the sequence. Taken together, these results suggest that finding and hiding positions in the spatiotemporal domain rely on the presence of salient items and physical accessibility or temporal remoteness, according to partner type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The human visual system can actively prioritize task-relevant features to search for a target. Recent studies have reported cases in which the system may suppress irrelevant features by using a template for rejection. However, in those studies, the templates used for rejection were limited to the color domain, and they have yielded mixed results. Our literature review identified three differences among studies that may be responsible for such mixed results: differences in the spatial segmentation of items (i.e., segregated or intermixed across the display), differences in how features are defined and reported (i.e., combined or separate), and differences in cue lead times (short or long). Participants searched for a target-line segment in a shape and identified its orientation from among non-target line-shaped compound shapes that were preceded by one of three cue displays. Positive cues indicated that the target segment would appear in a shape, and negative cues that it would not appear in a shape. Neutral cues indicated that a particular shape would not appear in the current search display. The results demonstrated that reaction times were faster under the negative-cue condition than the neutral-cue condition, reflecting the effect of a shape-based template for rejection (Experiment 1). Experiment 2 replicated the absence of the effect in the shape domain. Experiment 3 indicated that the template-for-rejection effect occurred only when the cue lead time was relatively long, suggesting that time is required (approximately 2,400 ms or longer) for the visual system to form rejection templates. Experiment 4 excluded the possibility that a confound in the target-defining/reporting feature was involved. These results indicated that apparent inconsistencies in research on the template-for-rejection effect can be explained in terms of the time required for templates to be configured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bowing is a greeting behavior. The present study examined the modulation effect of bowing on perception of attractiveness. In each trial, a portrait digitized from university yearbooks was presented on a computer screen. The portrait was mildly tilted toward participants to simulate a greeting bow (25-degree angle). Participants evaluated the subjective attractiveness of the face using a visual analog scale (0-100). The mean attractiveness judgment of the bowing portrait was significantly higher relative to that of the bending-backward or standing-still control conditions (Experiment 1). Additional control experiments revealed that alternative accounts relying on apparent spatial proximity and physical characteristics could not solely explain the effect of bowing (Experiment 2) and indicated that the effect was specific to objects perceived as faces (Experiment 3). Furthermore, observers' in-return bowing behavior did not reduce the bowing effect (Experiment 4), and bowing motion increased the ratings of subjective politeness and submissiveness (Experiment 5). Finally, tilting the 3D faces elicited the same effect from observers as did tilting the still photos (Experiment 6). These results suggest that a tilting motion of portraits (or images of face-like objects) mimicking bowing enhances perceived attractiveness, at least as measured in a culture familiar with greeting by bowing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study that determined whether the effect of mood state on the magnitude of the attentional blink should be interpreted in terms of the two axes of valence and arousal or in terms of the specificity of the connection between affect and attention. Fatigue was chosen to test these alternatives because fatigue should not increase the attentional blink, according to the two-axis view.

The term attentional blink (AB) refers to a failure in identifying the second of two targets, separated by less than 500 ms, embedded in a rapid succession of nontargets. To examine whether the expectation of the onset of the first target affects the AB, we compared the magnitudes of the AB deficit when participants triggered the appearance of the first target and when the target was presented automatically at some time point, as in traditional AB studies. In Experiment 1, the first target appeared immediately after a participant's voluntary keypress, revealing that the accuracy for identifying the first target increased and that the AB deficit was attenuated. In Experiment 2, the temporal delay between a voluntary keypress and the first-target presentation was manipulated. The results showed that both targets could be reported accurately only when the first target was presented within 300 ms after the action. In Experiment 3, we ruled out an alternative explanation that would attribute the facilitation effect to mere physical movement, by examining the accuracy of target identification when participants voluntarily pressed a key but that action was unrelated to the onset of the first target. Taken together, the results suggest that voluntary action to trigger the onset of a visual target facilitates processing and reduces the subsequent AB deficit when the target appears within 300 ms of the action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

uracy in identifying a target is impaired by a task-irrelevant singleton distractor even when the target and distractor appear in the same location. However, whether this impairment, known as a nonspatial interdimensional attentional capture, is contingent on a top-down attentional set or determined by stimulus-driven signals from distractors is unclear. To examine whether interdimensional attentional capture is affected by a top-down attentional set, the present study explicitly manipulated observers' search strategies (the singleton detection or feature search modes) and the number of objects consisting of the search items. The results indicated that interdimensional attentional capture occurred even under the feature search mode but that the capture effect decreased under this search mode irrespective of the number of distractors, suggesting that top-down knowledge was effective in modulating nonspatial interdimensional capture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated whether attentional set is available at the beginning of a trial or whether it develops gradually within a trial. Thus, we manipulated the time from the onset of a trial to a target and observers' search strategy. We also observed the effect of the presence or absence of distractors as an index of the temporal development of attentional set. Participants identified a target letter embedded in a stream of rapidly presented nontargets while ignoring peripheral distractors. Baseline accuracy when no peripheral distractor was presented increased as the target appeared later in the stream, suggesting attentional awakening. Identification accuracy was impaired by the presence of peripheral distractors (i.e., attentional capture) early in the stream only when observers adopted the feature search mode. The magnitude of attentional capture increased over the course of the first 1,000 ms of a trial under the singleton detection and feature search modes. These results suggest that singleton detection mode requires time for a bottom-up signal to be effective in capturing attention, whereas the feature search mode does not require such a warm-up period to be effective and is available from the beginning of viewing the stream. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing research has revealed that uninformative spatial sounds facilitate the early processing of visual stimuli. This study examined the crossmodal interactions of semantically congruent stimuli by assessing whether the presentation of event-related characteristic sounds facilitated or interfered with the visual search for corresponding event scenes in pictures. The search array consisted of four images: one target and three non-target pictures. Auditory stimuli were presented to participants in synchronization with picture onset using three types of sounds: a sound congruent with a target, a sound congruent with a distractor, or a control sound. The control sound varied across six experiments, alternating between a sound unrelated to the search stimuli, white noise, and no sound. Participants were required to swiftly localize a target position while ignoring the sound presentation. Visual localization resulted in rapid responses when a sound that was semantically related to the target was played. Furthermore, when a sound was semantically related to a distractor picture, the response times were longer. When the distractor-congruent sound was used, participants incorrectly localized the distractor position more often than at the chance level. These findings were replicated when the experiments ruled out the possibility that participants would learn picture-sound pairs during the visual tasks (i.e., the possibility of brief training during the experiments). Overall, event-related crossmodal interactions occur based on semantic representations, and audiovisual associations may develop as a result of long-term experiences rather than brief training in a laboratory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba, Japan When some distractors (old items) appear before others (new items) in an inefficient visual search task, the old items are excluded from the search (visual marking). Previous studies have shown that shape changes of static old items are sufficient to eliminate this effect when global luminance is maintained, suggesting that shape identity must be maintained for successful visual marking. It was unclear whether the change in meaning or shape was critical, because these changes were confounded in previous studies. The present study examined whether consistency in the semantic or the graphical identity of old items is critical for visual marking by introducing shape change in the absence of meaning change. The results indicated that visual marking survived graphical changes in old items as long as their meaning was maintained, suggesting that the memory template underlying visual marking represents the semantic identity of old items. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The identification of a central visual target is impaired by the onset of a peripheral distractor. This impairment is said to occur because attentional focus is diverted to the peripheral distractor. We examined whether distractor offset would enhance or reduce attentional capture by manipulating the duration of the distractor. Observers identified a color singleton among a rapid stream of homogeneous nontargets. Peripheral distractors disappeared 43 or 172 msec after onset (the short- and long-duration conditions, respectively). Identification accuracy was greater in the long-duration condition than in the short-duration condition. The same pattern of results was obtained when participants identified a target of a designated color among heterogeneous nontargets when the color of the distractor was the same as that of the target. These findings suggest that attentional capture consists of stimulus onset and offset, both of which are susceptible to top-down attentional set. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]