Standing and Dodwell (1972) reported that a contoured target stimulus which is only poorly identified when exposed briefly against a steady background field can be identified accurately if the field is terminated shortly after target offset. This observation was confirmed and, in addition, it was shown that target identification is enhanced when the field is initiated shortly before target onset. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that a continuous background field is not essential for either effect. It was argued that these “retroactive” and “proactive” enhancements of target identification were due to a complex interaction among forward, backward, and simultaneous masking.
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