Abstract
A growing body of research has shown that spatial attention alters stimulus appearance on a number of dimensions including contrast (Carrasco, Ling, & Read, 2004), spatial resolution (Gobell & Carrasco, 2005), and size (Anton-Erxleben, Henrich, & Treue, 2007). Here we explored whether feature-based attention would also influence perceived spatial resolution, and whether its influence would mirror that of spatial attention. Each trial began with a brief presentation of a colored cue in order to direct feature-based attention to that cue's color. Following the cue presentation, a stimulus display was presented consisting of two differently-colored Landolt squares-one of which matched the cue color on 66% of the trials. Participants performed a two-alternative forced-choice discrimination task requiring them to provide a response indicating which of the two Landolt squares possessed the larger gap. Our results suggested that the effect of feature-based attention on perceptual experience may be different than that of spatial attention.
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.