On the interaction of attention and awareness in visual processing
Final Report Abstract
When observers were asked to report the motion direction of a stimulus composed of two components, of which one was less visible than the other, (a) perception and eye movement responses were dissociated, and (b) both responses were influenced by feature-based visual attention. Specifically, observers’ eye movements were driven by a motion signal that did not produce a corresponding conscious percept – they moved their eyes in one motion direction while consciously perceiving another, indicating a potential dissociation of the neuronal processing signals driving perception and action. For both perception and action, attention helped rendering an almost invisible stimulus more visible. These findings advance our understanding of the interaction between perception, action, attention and awareness, and can potentially have implications for clinical studies in patients with disorders in perception, motor behaviour such as eye movements, and attention.
Publications
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(2008, November). Ocular following response as indicator for depth of suppression during binocular rivalry flash suppression. 40th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, Washington, DC
Spering, M. & Carrasco, M.
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(2009, May). Differential effects of suppressed visual motion information on perception and eye movements in binocular rivalry. Journal of Vision, 9(8): 285
Spering, M., Pomplun, M., & Carrasco, M.
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June 10, 2009 Collège de France, Paris, Frankreich
Spering, M.
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June 11, 2009 Université Descartes Paris V, Frankreich
Spering, M.
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March 6, 2009 Center for Neural Science, New York, USA
Spering, M.
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November 11, 2009 Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University, USA
Spering, M.
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October 1, 2009 Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Kanada
Spering, M.
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September 29, 2009 Department of Ophthalmology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Kanada
Spering, M.
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(2010, May). Feature-based attention enhances motion processing during dominance and suppresion in binocular rivalry. Journal of Vision, 10(7), 174
Spering, M. & Carrasco, M.
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(2011). Do we track what we see? Evidence for common and independent processing of motion information for perception and smooth pursuit eye movements. Vision Research, 51, 836-852
Spering, M., & Montagnini, A.
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(2011). Tracking without perceiving: A dissociation between motion perception and eye movements. Psychological Science, 22, 216-225
Spering, M., Pomplun, M., & Carrasco, M.
