Reduced Temporal Fusion in Near-Hand Space

Object-substitution masking (OSM) is thought to reflect a failure of object individuation. That is, a briefly presented target surrounded by four dots is perceptually fused with the four-dot mask when the mask is visible after the target has disappeared, thereby obscuring the visibility of the targe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological science 2013-06, Vol.24 (6), p.891-900
Main Authors: Goodhew, Stephanie C., Gozli, Davood G., Ferber, Susanne, Pratt, Jay
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activity levels. Psychomotricity
Adolescent
Adult
Attention
Attention - physiology
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition
Cognitive psychology
Consciousness
Embodiment
Experimental psychology
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Hand - physiology
Hands
Humans
Identity formation
Male
Masking
Mental objects
Object
Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology
Perception
Perceptual Masking - physiology
Proximity
Psychology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Psychomotor Performance - physiology
Space Perception - physiology
Spatial perception
Stimuli
Temporal resolution
Time perception
Time Perception - physiology
Vigilance. Attention. Sleep
Visibility
Vision
Visual perception
Visual Perception - physiology
Visual processing
Visual stimulation
Visual stimuli
Visual system
Visual task performance
Young Adult
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Summary:Object-substitution masking (OSM) is thought to reflect a failure of object individuation. That is, a briefly presented target surrounded by four dots is perceptually fused with the four-dot mask when the mask is visible after the target has disappeared, thereby obscuring the visibility of the target. If OSM depends on the inability to temporally segregate objects, then increasing the temporal precision of the visual system should reduce OSM. In the study reported here, we manipulated temporal precision by varying the proximity of participants' hands to visual stimuli, because stimuli in near-hand space have been found to enjoy enhanced attentional processing, and attention is known to speed visual processing. Hand placement was indeed found to affect OSM: Placing participants' hands near the visual stimuli reduced the magnitude of the masking. This finding demonstrates that object individuation can be facilitated by increasing the temporal resolution of vision via increasing the proximity of visual stimuli to the hands.
ISSN:0956-7976
1467-9280
DOI:10.1177/0956797612463402