Spatially localized motion aftereffect disappears faster from awareness when selectively attended to according to its direction

Abstract

In searching for the target-afterimage patch among spatially separate alternatives of color-afterimages the target fades from awareness before its competitors (Bachmann, T., & Murd, C. (2010). Covert spatial attention in search for the location of a color-afterimage patch speeds up its decay from awareness: Introducing a method useful for the study of neural correlates of visual awareness. Vision Research 50, 1048-1053). In an analogous study presented here we show that a similar effect is obtained when a target spatial location specified according to the direction of motion aftereffect within it is searched by covert top-down attention. The adverse effect of selective attention on the duration of awareness of sensory qualiae known earlier to be present for color and periodic spatial contrast is extended also to sensory channels carrying motion information.

Different Signal Enhancement Pathways of Attention and Consciousness Underlie Perception in Humans

“…However, apart from afterimages, attention can decrease perception or performance in motion-induced blindness (Geng et al, 2007;Schölvinck and Rees, 2009) and the motion aftereffect (Murd and Bachmann, 2011), for Troxler/peripheral fading (Lou, 1999;De Weerd et al, 2006), visual memory (Voss and Paller, 2009), SF (Yeshurun and Carrasco, 1998, the attentional blink (Olivers and Nieuwenhuis, 2005), and visual search (Smilek et al, 2006). These findings suggest that our conclusions may be valid beyond the context of afterimages.…”

Attentional Networks and Consciousness

“…An example of confusion between attention networks arises in the opposite effects of attention and awareness on the duration of afterimages (van Boxtel et al, 2010; Murd and Bachmann, 2011). These experiments involve a full factorial design in which attention to the target is manipulated by a dual task while visibility is manipulated by the presence of a suppressor stimulus in the opposite eye.…”

Attention as a Process of Selection, Perception as a Process of Representation, and Phenomenal Experience as the Resulting Process of Perception Being Modulated by a Dedicated Consciousness Mechanism

“…Voluntary covert attention to color afterimage, afterimage of spatially modulated contrast, or spatially localized motion aftereffect tends to speed up their decay from awareness (Lou, 2001; Suzuki and Grabowecki, 2003; Wede and Francis, 2007; Bachmann and Murd, 2010; van Boxtel et al, 2010a; Murd and Bachmann, 2011). Sixth, some aspects of a scene such as the gist or animated objects can be explicitly noticed without attention and without compromising the competing focused attention task (van Boxtel et al, 2010b; see, however, Cohen et al, 2011).…”

“…Thus it is a logical option to consider a mechanism dedicated to producing the changes in the processed contents so that they become explicitly experienced, a mechanism in addition to the listed ones. While often this function has been given to the attention mechanisms, the facts that attention is either independent of, insufficient for, or works against target information awareness (Hardcastle, 1997; Lou, 2001; Lamme, 2003; Koch and Tsuchiya, 2007; van Gaal and Fahrenfort, 2008; Wilimzig et al, 2008; Tsuchiya and Koch, 2009; Bachmann and Murd, 2010; Brascamp et al, 2010; van Boxtel et al, 2010a,b; Carlson et al, 2011; Hsu et al, 2011; Kaunitz et al, 2011; Lathrop et al, 2011; Morgan, 2011; Murd and Bachmann, 2011; Shin et al, 2011; Watanabe et al, 2011) suggest the need for a specialized consciousness mechanism. (This standpoint is even more strengthened by sound arguments about the non-existence of attention – Anderson, 2011).…”

“…(Itti et al, 2005; Sligte et al, 2010; Bachmann et al, 2011). The entry 4a refers to increase of apparent duration by attention (Seifried and Ulrich, 2011) while 4b refers for example to the adverse effect of attention on the duration of afterimages (van Boxtel et al, 2010a; Murd and Bachmann, 2011). For 5a there are phenomena such as prior entry under attention (Hilkenmeier et al, 2011), release from masking by a pre-cue in perceptual latency priming (Scharlau and Neumann, 2003), perceptual facilitation in flash-lag displays (Nijhawan and Khurana, 2010), selective spatial attention by pre-cueing (Carrasco, 2011), etc.…”