Orthogonal stimulus variation and attention in dimensional contrast

Abstract

These experiments examined one way in which the allocation of attentional resources can change performance during a visual discrimination task. Pigeons were trained to discriminate visual forms under conditions that produced dimensional contrast. In three experiments, negative training stimuli differed from positive stimuli either along a primary physical dimension alone or along both a primary dimension and an orthogonal dimension. When a negative stimulus differed from positive stimuli along two dimensions, discrimination of that negative stimulus improved. For one type of visual form, discrimination of the positive stimuli declined with orthogonal variation in a negative stimulus, whereas for other visual forms, there was no decline in performance. These results are consistent with a model of dimensional contrast that suggests that differences in the allocation of attentional resources determine discrimination performance. The results also indicate that the organization of stimulus dimensions plays a crucial role in the allocation of attentional resources in these settings.