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Experiments that were carried out in the context of ETF grant #4967 showed that the speed and level of conscious identification of targets that were presented within streams of objects considerably depend on stream epoch within which targets were presented. Also, if two successive objects are presented, there are certain conditions where the preceding object does not mask the following object and where the preceding one even facilitates subsequent object processing, compared to the conditions where the preceding object consists in visual noise. A next step of research will be to study how the rate and speed of identification of the in-stream objects depend on the fetaures of the preceding objects and particularly on how and to what extent the fetaures of the objects are mutually different. The aim of the research is to develop the list of features of streamed objects, based on the capacity of the particular object features to facilitate or disturb perception of the target objects and to find a temporal hierarchy of features that would describe interaction of visual features in time, beginning with the feature(s) that exert(s) the strongest facilitation effect(s) up to the feature(s) that exert(s) the strongest inhibitory effect(s). Whereas there are quite many visual features, the effects of what should be studied (eg, location, contrast, colour, luminance, size, whether being primed, shape/form, spatial frequency, meaning), the planned duration of the cycle of research spans at least 3 years. The effects will be studied in the temporal range of mutual masking (0-150 ms), attentional blink (200-50 ms), and in the range of the later stream epochs. The research complements the topics pursued by the Michael Herzog group (University of Bremen), the groups of North-American colleagues such as Gregory Francis (Purdue University), Bruno Breitmeyer and Haluk Ögmen (University of Houston) and James Enns and Vincent DiLollo (UBC), potentially building the premises for a NATO partnership research effort. |