Failures to see: attentive blank stares revealed by change blindness.

Full Abstract

Change blindness illustrates a remarkable limitation in visual processing by demonstrating that substantial changes in a visual scene can go undetected. Because these changes can ultimately be detected using top-down driven search processes, many theories assign a central role to spatial attention in overcoming change blindness. Surprisingly, it has been reported that change blindness can occur during blink-contingent changes even when observers fixate the changing location [O'Regan, J. K., Deubel, H., Clark, J. J., & Rensink, R. A. (2000). Picture changes during blinks:
Looking without seeing and seeing without looking. Visual Cognition, 7, 191-212]. However, eye blinks produce a transient disruption of vision that is independent of any associated changes in the retinal image. We determined whether these 'attentive blank stares' could occur in the absence of blink-mediated visual suppression. Using a flicker change-blindness paradigm we confirm that despite direct attentive fixations, obvious scene changes often remain undetected. We conclude that change detection involves object or feature based attentional mechanisms, which can be 'misdirected' despite the allocation of spatial attention to the position of the change.

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Author information

Author/s: Caplovitz, Gideon P (GP); Fendrich, Robert (R); Hughes, Howard C (HC);

Affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Moore Hall, Hinman Box 6207, Moore Hall, Hanover, NH 03755, USA. Gideon.P.Caplovitz(-atsign-)dartmouth.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

Journal: Consciousness and cognition (Conscious Cogn), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2008-Sep; vol 17 (issue 3) : pp 877-86

Dates: Created 2008/07/21; Completed 2008/10/02;

PMID: 17931887, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

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