Goal-directed Pointing Enhances Target Identification In Object Substitution Masking
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1
The University of Queensland, Queensland Brain Institute, Australia
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2
Laboratoire de Psychologie & Neuro-Cognition (LPNC), CNRS, UMR 5105, France
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3
The University of Queensland, School of Psychology, Australia
Object recognition is traditionally viewed as an exclusively perceptual function, but recent evidence suggests that planned actions can modify the manner in which objects are represented by the visual system. For example, having participants prepare a goal-directed reaching action can significantly improve object identification at the goal location compared with other spatial locations (Deubel, Schneider, & Paprotta, 1998). Such findings suggest that action-related processes can enhance visual perception. It remains unclear, however, precisely how and when in the processing hierarchy the motor system exerts its influence on visual object representations. To investigate this issue, we had participants make pointing movements toward visual arrays in which the target object was masked using object substitution masking (OSM; Enns & DiLollo, 1997). Participants judged the orientation of a gap in a Landolt C that could appear in one of 6 different locations around a central fixation point. In separate trial blocks, participants either performed the visual task in isolation (perception condition), as in conventional OSM paradigms, or they made a speeded pointing movement to the target's location and then made their visual judgement (action condition). Results showed that pointing toward a target influenced the magnitude of the masking effect compared with the perceptual control condition. Specifically, pointing movements initiated rapidly after target onset (<300 ms) strongly reduced OSM, whereas those initiated more slowly tended to increase OSM. Taken together, our findings suggest that action-related processes can enhance visual perception during the limited time interval of action preparation, by affecting relatively early visual processing. Since target locations were unpredictable, our results also suggest that the influence of action on visual perception may not be mediated by top-down orienting of attention.
Keywords:
Attention,
Visual Perception,
object substitution masking,
object identification,
visually guided pointing
Conference:
XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII), Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 27 Jul - 31 Jul, 2014.
Presentation Type:
Poster
Topic:
Sensation and Perception
Citation:
Dupierrix
E and
Mattingley
JB
(2015). Goal-directed Pointing Enhances Target Identification In Object Substitution Masking.
Conference Abstract:
XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII).
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.217.00186
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Received:
19 Feb 2015;
Published Online:
24 Apr 2015.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Eve Dupierrix, The University of Queensland, Queensland Brain Institute, Brisbane, Australia, e.dupierrix@uq.edu.au