Abstract
It has not been clarified if attention influences perception of targets in visual masking. Three forms of common masks (random pattern, para-/metacontrast, and four dots) were thus chosen in the present study and presented with character targets in three temporal sequences (forward, backward, and sandwiched mask or forward-backward mask combination). In order to pinpoint the level of processing where masking arises, character targets were varied in depth of processing from random arrangements of strokes up to real Chinese characters. The attentional influence was examined under perceptual discrimination and lexical decision tasks, respectively. The results revealed significant interactions among four factors (mask form, temporal sequence, depth of processing, and task). Identification of character targets in each form of mask sequence varied with task demand, with greater suppression in the perceptual discrimination task. These findings suggested that attentional demand can bias processing in favor of task-related information in visual masking. Variations in masking effects may be contributed by both attentional demand and spatio-temporal interaction.
Highlights
In our daily lives, we are able to detect words in streaming changing scenes (Rousselet et al, 2002; Rossion et al, 2015; King et al, 2016; Mohsenzadeh et al, 2018; Grootswagers et al, 2019, 2020; Robinson et al, 2019)
Significant interaction was observed between mask form and character-likeness [A : F(6, 216) = 2.406, p < 0.05, ηp2 = 0.063; RTs: F(6, 216) = 60.046, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.625]
The present study aimed at investigating the influence of attention in the perception of masked character targets
Summary
We are able to detect words in streaming changing scenes (Rousselet et al, 2002; Rossion et al, 2015; King et al, 2016; Mohsenzadeh et al, 2018; Grootswagers et al, 2019, 2020; Robinson et al, 2019) These rapidly changing scenes impose a time limit on target word processing or even have words invisible due to the preceding or following stimuli (masks). Three forms of spatial masks (pattern, para/meta-contrasts, and four dots) are mostly used in visual research. The former one spatially overlaps and shares structural features with the target, the latter two do not overlap with the target (Davis and Kim, 2011; Bachmann and Francis, 2013). Two studies made systematical comparisons among three forms of backward masking (Enns, 2004; Chakravarthi and Cavanagh, 2009). They revealed that all forms of backward masks produced equal effects on the target identification at certain intervals
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