Unconscious orientation processing depends on perceptual load.

Full Abstract

The effects of perceptual load on the level of adaptation to task-irrelevant and invisible oriented gratings were examined. Participants performed a task at fixation under conditions of low (detecting color targets) or high (detecting conjunctions of color and shape) perceptual load. Simultaneously, a task-irrelevant-oriented grating was presented monocularly in a more peripheral location but was suppressed from awareness by flashing a dynamic mask stimulus at the same retinal location in the other eye. Orientation-specific adaptation to the invisible irrelevant grating was found at low perceptual load but was eliminated with high perceptual load. These results demonstrate that early unconscious processing of orientation depends on the allocation of limited attentional capacity, and conversely that the allocation of attentional capacity under low (versus high) load is insufficient to bring orientation representations to awareness.

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Author information

Author/s: Bahrami, Bahador (B); Carmel, David (D); Walsh, Vincent (V); Rees, Geraint (G); Lavie, Nilli (N);

Affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK. bbahrami(-atsign-)ucl.ac.uk

Grants: (Agency:United Kingdom Wellcome Trust)

Journal and publication information

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

Journal: Journal of vision (J Vis), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2008-; vol 8 (issue 3) : pp 12.1-10

Dates: Created 2008/05/19; Completed 2008/06/12;

PMID: 18484818, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adaptation, Psychological - physiology
Adult
Attention - physiology
Female
Fixation, Ocular
Humans

Male
Orientation - physiology
Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology
Photic Stimulation
Reaction Time
Unconscious (Psychology)

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