Movement and Visual Attention: The Spotlight Metaphor Breaks Down

• Published in: Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance 1989-08, Vol.15 (3), p.448-456
• Main Authors: Driver, Jon, Baylis, Gordon C
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Attention; Biological and medical sciences; Discrimination Learning; Distance Perception; Female; Form Perception; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Human; Humans; Letters (Alphabet); Male; Motion Perception; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Perception; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Sensory perception; Social research; Vision; Visual Discrimination; Visual Field; Visual Fields
• ISSN: 0096-1523; 1939-1277
• DOI: 10.1037/0096-1523.15.3.448

The interfering effects of distractor letters are known to diminish with increasing distance from the target letter ( Eriksen & Eriksen, 1974 ). This result is held to support spotlight models in which visual attention can only be assigned to contiguous regions of the visual field. However, the result is also consistent with the rival claim that attention is assigned to perceptual groups. Four experiments show that grouping of target and distractors by common motion can have more influence than their proximity. Distant distractor letters that move with a target letter produce more interference than static distractors that are nearer the target. Near distractors are equally ineffective if the target is static while they move. These results imply that attention is directed to perceptual groups whose components may be spatially dispersed. The spotlight metaphor seems inappropriate for visual attention in a dynamic environment.