Publications
Publications
- 2014
- Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
Attentional Rhythm: A Temporal Analogue of Object-Based Attention
By: Julian De Freitas, Brandon Liverence and Brian J. Scholl
Abstract
The underlying units of attention are often discrete visual objects. Perhaps the clearest form of evidence
for this is the same-object advantage: Following a spatial cue, responses are faster to probes occurring
on the same object than they are to probes occurring on other objects, while equating brute distance. Is
this a fundamentally spatial effect, or can same-object advantages also occur in time? We explored this
question using independently normed rhythmic temporal sequences, structured into phrases and presented
either visually or auditorily. Detection was speeded when cues and probes both lay within the same
rhythmic phrase, compared to when they spanned a phrase boundary, while equating brute duration. This
same-phrase advantage suggests that object-based attention is a more general phenomenon than has been
previously suspected: Perceptual structure constrains attention, in both space and time, and in both vision
and audition.
Citation
De Freitas, Julian, Brandon Liverence, and Brian J. Scholl. "Attentional Rhythm: A Temporal Analogue of Object-Based Attention." Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 143, no. 1 (February 2014): 71–76.
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