Objective assessment of attention and decision making reflects the inclination of subjective rating of familiarity of visual objects

Abstract

Familiarity could be a key attribute of attention for visual perception of objects in our environment.Subjective ratings of familiarity with visual objects could be influenced by individuals’ attention and judgment ability. The current study investigated the relationship between subjective familiarity perception of visual objects with the objective measures of individuals’ attention and judgment ability in forty-seven healthy participants. Familiarity ratings of the visual objects belonging to four categories (Human, Inanimate, Animal, Plant) were collected from the participants. Attention and judgment ability of the participants were assessed objectively using attentional blink task and relative area estimation task respectively. Individuals’ who were objectively less attentive and prone to judgment errors manifested a high propensity to subjectively rate the visual objects as more familiar. The current study findings indicate the importance of objective cognitive assessment for fitness testing of jobs that involve one’s subjective visual perception such as pilots, air traffic controllers and navy personnel.