Brain and Mind 1 (3):353-384 (2000)
Abstract |
Because the visual system cannot process all of the objects, colors, and features present in a visual scene, visual attention allows some visual stimuli to be selected and processed over others. Most research on visual attention has focused on spatial or location-based attention, in which the locations occupied by stimuli are selected for further processing. Recent research, however, has demonstrated the importance of objects in organizing (or segregating) visual scenes and guiding attentional selection. Because of the long history of spatial attention research, theories of spatial attention are more mature than theories of other visual processes, such as object segregation and object attention. In the present paper, I outline a biased competition account of object segregation and attention, following similar accounts that have been developed for spatial attention (Desimone and Duncan, 1995). In my biased competition account, I seek to understand how some objects can be segregated and selected over other objects in a complex visual scene. Under this account, there are two sources of visual information that allow an object to be processed over other objects: bottom-up information carried by the physical stimulus and top-down information based on an observer's goals. I use the biased competition account to combine many diverse findings from the object segregation and attention literatures into a common framework.
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Keywords | attention perceptual organization figure-ground segregation object-based attention |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
DOI | 10.1023/A:1011565623996 |
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References found in this work BETA
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Vision: Variations on Some Berkeleian Themes.Robert Schwartz & David Marr - 1985 - Philosophical Review 94 (3):411.
Neural Mechanisms of Selective Visual Attention.R. Desimone & J. Duncan - 1995 - Annual Review of Neuroscience 18 (1):193-222.
Attention and the Detection of Signals.Michael I. Posner, Charles R. Snyder & Brian J. Davidson - 1980 - Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 109 (2):160-174.
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Citations of this work BETA
Seeing, Visualizing, and Believing: Pictures and Cognitive Penetration.John Zeimbekis - 2015 - In John Zeimbekis & Athanassios Raftopoulos (eds.), The Cognitive Penetrability of Perception: New Philosophical Perspectives. Oxford University Press. pp. 298-327.
The Phenomenal Content of Experience.Athanassios Raftopoulos & Vincent C. Müller - 2006 - Mind and Language 21 (2):187-219.
Indexing the World? Visual Tracking, Modularity, and the Perception–Cognition Interface.Santiago Echeverri - 2016 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 67 (1):215-245.
View all 12 citations / Add more citations
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