Attentional Guidance in Visual Attention

Abstract

Earlier research has shown that a task-irrelevant sudden onset of an object will capture or draw an observer's visual attention to that object's location (e.g., Yantis & Jonides, 1984). In the four experiments reported here, we explore the question of whether task-irrelevant properties other than sudden-onset may capture attention. Our results suggest that a uniquely colored or luminous object, as well as an irrelevant boundary, may indeed capture or guide attention, though apparently to a lesser degree than a sudden onset: it appears that the degree of attentional capture is dependent on the relative salience of the varied, irrelevant dimension. Whereas a sudden onset is very salient, a uniquely colored object, for example, is only salient relative to the other objects within view, both to the degree that it is different in hue from its neighbors and the number of neighbors from which it differs. The relationship of these findings to work in the fields of visual momentum and visual scanning is noted.