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Mislocalization of a target toward subjective contours: attentional modulation of location signals

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Abstract

This study examined whether a briefly presented target was mislocalized toward a subjective contour. Observers manually reproduced the position of a briefly presented peripheral target circle above a central fixation cross. A luminance contour, a subjective contour, or a no-contour stimulus was presented in either the left of right visual field, and a no-contour control was presented in the opposite visual field. After these stimuli vanished, a target circle was then presented. Consequently, the degree of mislocalization toward the subjective and luminance contours was the same; this indicated that image integration at a coarse spatial scale cannot explain mislocalization. Experiment 2 revealed that the mislocalization in Experiment 1 was not a result of eye movements. Experiment 3 found that the spatial attention allocated at the location of the luminance and subjective contours was more than that allocated at the no-contour stimulus. An attentional shift toward the task-irrelevant stimulus resulted in a mislocalization of the target.

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Notes

  1. Ryan’s test adopts nominal significant level given as follows: p = 2 × 0.05/(n × (m − 1)), where n means the number of group to be compared, and m means the distance defined as the number of group X p satisfying X i  ≤ X p  ≤ X j . Here, X i and X j are pair in a concerned hypothesis. On the other hand, the significant level in Bonferroni’s test is set at p = 0.05/ n C 2, where n means the number of group to be compared.

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Acknowledgment

The authors thank Timothy Hubbard and the anonymous reviewer for many helpful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Behavioral and Health Sciences, Graduate School of Human-Environment Studies, Kyushu University, 6-19-1, Hakozaki, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka-city, 8128581, Japan

    Yuki Yamada, Takahiro Kawabe & Kayo Miura

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  1. Yuki Yamada
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  2. Takahiro Kawabe
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  3. Kayo Miura
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Correspondence to Yuki Yamada.

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Yamada, Y., Kawabe, T. & Miura, K. Mislocalization of a target toward subjective contours: attentional modulation of location signals. Psychological Research 72, 273–280 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-007-0109-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-007-0109-3

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