Title
Where and When to Look: Sequential Effects at the Millisecond Level
Author
Marques-Carneiro, J.E.
Polgari, P.
Koning, E.
Seyller, E.
Martin, B.
van der Burg, E.
Giersch, A.
Publication year
2020
Abstract
Learning and imitating a complex motor action requires to visually follow complex movements, but conscious perception seems too slow for such tasks. Recent findings suggest that visual perception has a higher temporal resolution at an unconscious than at a conscious level. Here we investigate whether high-temporal resolution in visual perception relies on prediction mechanisms and attention shifts based on recently experienced sequences of visual information. To that aim we explore sequential effects during four different simultaneity/asynchrony discrimination tasks. Two stimuli are displayed on each trial with varying stimulus onset asynchronies (SOA). Subjects decide whether the stimuli are simultaneous or asynchronous and give manual responses. The main finding is an advantage for different-order over same-order trials, when subjects decided that stimuli had been simultaneous on Trial t - 1 , and when Trial t is with an SOA slightly larger than Trial t - 1, or equivalent. The advantage for different-order trials disappears when the stimuli change eccentricity but not direction between trials (Experiment 2), and persists with stimuli displayed in the centre and unlikely to elicit a sense of direction (Experiment 4). It is still observed when asynchronies on Trial t - 1 are small and undetected (Experiment 3). The findings can be explained by an attention shift that is precisely planned in time and space and that incidentally allows subjects to detect an isolated stimulus on the screen, thus helping them to detect an asynchrony.
Subject
Attention shift
Prediction
Sequential effects
Temporal processing
Temporal sequences
Visual perception.
To reference this document use:
http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:ea21bc93-3810-4886-8e9b-548164f0c332
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-020-01995-3
TNO identifier
876326
Source
Attention, Perception and Psychophysics, 82 (6), 2821-2896
Document type
article