Change blindness and the primacy of object appearance

Cole, G.G.; Liversedge, S.P.

doi:10.3758/bf03193967

Change blindness and the primacy of object appearance

Cole, G.G.; Liversedge, S.P.

Authors

G.G. Cole

S.P. Liversedge

Abstract

A large body of work suggests that the visual system is particularly sensitive to the appearance of new objects. This is based partly on evidence from visual search studies showing that onsets capture attention whereas many other types of visual event do not. Recently, however, the notion that object onset has a special status in visual attention has been challenged. For instance, an object that looms toward an observer has also been shown to capture attention. In two experiments, we investigated whether onset receives processing priority over looming. Observers performed a change detection task in which one of the display objects either loomed or receded, or a new object appeared. Results showed that looming objects were more resistant to change blindness than receding objects. Crucially, however, the appearance of a new object was less susceptible to change blindness than both looming and receding. We argue that the visual system is particularly sensitive to object onsets.

Citation

Cole, G., & Liversedge, S. (2006). Change blindness and the primacy of object appearance. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 13(4), 588-593. https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03193967

Journal Article Type	Article
Publication Date	Aug 1, 2006
Deposit Date	Jan 9, 2009
Publicly Available Date	Nov 4, 2010
Journal	Psychonomic Bulletin and Review
Print ISSN	1069-9384
Electronic ISSN	1531-5320
Publisher	Springer
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	13
Issue	4
Pages	588-593
DOI	https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03193967