Cargando…

Salient object changes influence overt attentional prioritization and object-based targeting in natural scenes

A change to an object in natural scenes attracts attention when it occurs during a fixation. However, when a change occurs during a saccade, and is masked by saccadic suppression, it typically does not capture the gaze in a bottom-up manner. In the present work, we investigated how the type and dire...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Anderson, Nicola C., Donk, Mieke
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5319693/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28222190
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172132
_version_ 1782509416152563712
author Anderson, Nicola C.
Donk, Mieke
author_facet Anderson, Nicola C.
Donk, Mieke
author_sort Anderson, Nicola C.
collection PubMed
description A change to an object in natural scenes attracts attention when it occurs during a fixation. However, when a change occurs during a saccade, and is masked by saccadic suppression, it typically does not capture the gaze in a bottom-up manner. In the present work, we investigated how the type and direction of salient changes to objects affect the prioritization and targeting of objects in natural scenes. We asked observers to look around a scene in preparation for a later memory test. After a period of time, an object in the scene was increased or decreased in salience either during a fixation (with a transient signal) or during a saccade (without transient signal), or it was not changed at all. Changes that were made during a fixation attracted the eyes both when the change involved an increase and a decrease in salience. However, changes that were made during a saccade only captured the eyes when the change was an increase in salience, relative to the baseline no-change condition. These results suggest that the prioritization of object changes can be influenced by the underlying salience of the changed object. In addition, object changes that occurred with a transient signal (which is itself a salient signal) resulted in more central object targeting. Taken together, our results suggest that salient signals in a natural scene are an important component in both object prioritization and targeting in natural scene viewing, insofar as they align with object locations.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-5319693
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2017
publisher Public Library of Science
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-53196932017-03-03 Salient object changes influence overt attentional prioritization and object-based targeting in natural scenes Anderson, Nicola C. Donk, Mieke PLoS One Research Article A change to an object in natural scenes attracts attention when it occurs during a fixation. However, when a change occurs during a saccade, and is masked by saccadic suppression, it typically does not capture the gaze in a bottom-up manner. In the present work, we investigated how the type and direction of salient changes to objects affect the prioritization and targeting of objects in natural scenes. We asked observers to look around a scene in preparation for a later memory test. After a period of time, an object in the scene was increased or decreased in salience either during a fixation (with a transient signal) or during a saccade (without transient signal), or it was not changed at all. Changes that were made during a fixation attracted the eyes both when the change involved an increase and a decrease in salience. However, changes that were made during a saccade only captured the eyes when the change was an increase in salience, relative to the baseline no-change condition. These results suggest that the prioritization of object changes can be influenced by the underlying salience of the changed object. In addition, object changes that occurred with a transient signal (which is itself a salient signal) resulted in more central object targeting. Taken together, our results suggest that salient signals in a natural scene are an important component in both object prioritization and targeting in natural scene viewing, insofar as they align with object locations. Public Library of Science 2017-02-21 /pmc/articles/PMC5319693/ /pubmed/28222190 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172132 Text en © 2017 Anderson, Donk http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Anderson, Nicola C.
Donk, Mieke
Salient object changes influence overt attentional prioritization and object-based targeting in natural scenes
title Salient object changes influence overt attentional prioritization and object-based targeting in natural scenes
title_full Salient object changes influence overt attentional prioritization and object-based targeting in natural scenes
title_fullStr Salient object changes influence overt attentional prioritization and object-based targeting in natural scenes
title_full_unstemmed Salient object changes influence overt attentional prioritization and object-based targeting in natural scenes
title_short Salient object changes influence overt attentional prioritization and object-based targeting in natural scenes
title_sort salient object changes influence overt attentional prioritization and object-based targeting in natural scenes
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5319693/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28222190
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172132
work_keys_str_mv AT andersonnicolac salientobjectchangesinfluenceovertattentionalprioritizationandobjectbasedtargetinginnaturalscenes
AT donkmieke salientobjectchangesinfluenceovertattentionalprioritizationandobjectbasedtargetinginnaturalscenes