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attentional control of spatial perception
| Title: | The attentional control of spatial perception. |
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| Name(s): |
Balz, Gunther William Florida Atlantic University, Degree Grantor Hock, Howard S., Thesis Advisor |
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| Type of Resource: | text | |
| Genre: | Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation | |
| Issuance: | monographic | |
| Date Issued: | 1994 | |
| Publisher: | Florida Atlantic University | |
| Place of Publication: | Boca Raton, Fla. | |
| Physical Form: | application/pdf | |
| Extent: | 116 p. | |
| Language(s): | English | |
| Summary: | When perceivers examine a visual scene, they can control the extent to which their attention is either narrowly focused or spread over a larger spatial area. The experiments reported in this dissertation explore the consequences of narrow vs. broad attention for simple spatial discriminations as well as more complex cooperative interactions that are the basis for the self-organization of coherent motion patterns. Subjects' attentional spread (narrow or broad) is manipulated by means of a primary, luminance detection task. In conjunction with the luminance detection task is a secondary, spatial discrimination or detection task, which differs in the four reported experiments. In Experiment 1, the discrimination of misalignment of two visual elements is enhanced by narrowly focused attention. In Experiment 2, discrimination of horizontal spatial separation of two visual elements is improved for small inter-element distances by narrow attention and for relatively large inter-element distances by broad attention. Experiment 3 shows that the inter-element distance among counterphase-presented visual elements for which unidirectional and oscillatory motion patterns are observed with equal frequency depends on subjects' attentional spread. Narrow attention favors the oscillatory pattern and broad attention favors the unidirectional pattern. Experiment 4 shows that attentional spread has a minimal effect on the detection of motion, and, additionally that attentional effects on simple spatial judgments (Experiments 1 and 2) are too small to account for the large shift in the equi-probable boundary of reported unidirectional and oscillatory motion patterns found in Experiment 3. Therefore, it is concluded in conjunction with Hock and Balz's (1994) differential gradient model, that attentional spread influences the self-organization of unidirectional and oscillatory motion patterns through its effects on the relative strength of facilitating and inhibiting interactions among directionally selective motion detectors. | |
| Identifier: | 12392 (digitool), FADT12392 (IID), fau:9291 (fedora) | |
| Note(s): | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1994. | |
| Subject(s): |
Attention Selectivity (Psychology) Visual perception Space perception |
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| Held by: | Florida Atlantic University Libraries | |
| Persistent Link to This Record: | http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/12392 | |
| Sublocation: | Digital Library | |
| Use and Reproduction: | Copyright © is held by the author with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder. | |
| Use and Reproduction: | http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ | |
| Host Institution: | FAU | |
| Is Part of Series: | Florida Atlantic University Digital Library Collections. |
