Measuring Attention and Visual Processing Speed by Model-based Analysis of Temporal-order Judgments

Summary

Temporal-order judgments can be used to estimate processing speed parameters and attentional weights and thereby to infer the mechanisms of attentional processing. This methodology can be applied to a wide range of visual stimuli and works with many attention manipulations.

Abstract

This protocol describes how to conduct temporal-order experiments to measure visual processing speed and the attentional resource distribution. The proposed method is based on a new and synergistic combination of three components: the temporal-order judgments (TOJ) paradigm, Bundesen's Theory of Visual Attention (TVA), and a hierarchical Bayesian estimation framework. The method provides readily interpretable parameters, which are supported by the theoretical and neurophysiological underpinnings of TVA. Using TOJs, TVA-based estimates can be obtained for a broad range of stimuli, whereas traditional paradigms used with TVA are mainly limited to letters and digits. Finally, the meaningful parameters of the proposed model allow for the establishment of a hierarchical Bayesian model. Such a statistical model allows assessing results in one coherent analysis both on the subject and the group level.

To demonstrate the feasibility and versatility of this new approach, three experiments are reported with attention manipulations in synthetic pop-out displays, natural images, and a cued letter-report paradigm.

Introduction

How attention is distributed in space and time is one of the most important factors in human visual perception. Objects that capture attention because of their conspicuity or importance are typically processed faster and with higher accuracy. In behavioral research, such performance benefits have been demonstrated in a variety of experimental paradigms. For instance, allocating attention to the target location speeds up the reaction in probe detection tasks¹. Similarly, the accuracy of reporting letters is improved by attention². Such findings prove that attention enhances processing, but they remain hopelessly mute abou....

Protocol

NOTE: Some steps in this protocol can be accomplished using custom software provided (along with installation instructions) at http://groups.upb.de/viat/TVATOJ. In the protocol, this collection of programs and scripts is referred to as “TVATOJ”.

1. Selection of Stimulus Material

1. Select stimuli according to the research question.
   NOTE: In general, two targets are shown at different locations on the screen. Stimuli that have been used with the present method include, for example, shapes, digits, letters, singletons in pop-out displays, and objects in natural images. The latter three types were u....

Results

In the following, results obtained with the proposed method are reported. Three experiments measured the influence of different attentional manipulations with three highly different types of stimulus material. The stimuli are simple line segments in pop-out patterns, action space objects in natural images, and cued letter targets.

Experiment 1: Salience in pop-out displays
Experiment 1 aimed at measuring the influence of vis.......

Discussion

The protocol in this article describes how to conduct simple TOJs and fit the data with models based on fundamental stimulus encoding. Three experiments demonstrated how the results can be evaluated in a hierarchical Bayesian estimation framework to assess the influence of attention in highly different stimulus material. Salience in pop-out displays led to increased attentional weights. Also, increased weights were estimated for action space objects in natural images. However, due to the persisting advantage when spatial.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Personal Computer
(Open Source) Experimentation and evaluation software