Study On Access Mechanism To Visual Information

Objective:Color, location and orientation feature, were used to reveal the access mechanism on characteristics of visual attention, so as to test visual attention on the basic theoretical research to provide strong evidence in cognitive psychology, but also evaluates the controversy over simultaneous and successive mode of visual access.Methods:An experimental method was used to study. There was a total of three experiments completed, which of the two previous experiments were to test, and the latter one was a new design experiment. There were 60 healthy subjects participated in three experiments, who had normal or corrected-to-normal vision. Colors (including: red, yellow, blue and green), location (including: left-top, left-bottom, right-top and right-bottom) and orientation (including: 0°, 45°, 90°and 135°four different seams) as stimuli were used in three experiments, which were drawn by Photoshop. Participants performed 10 blocks of 50 trials. In each block, the trials switched between simultaneous and successive presentations. The first block was excluded from data analysis as practice. In every experiment, the stimuli were masked, and participants were asked to respond as accurately as possible. The program was written in E-prime, and was run in Microsoft Windows 2000. Participants viewed the displays from a distance of about 60 cm and entered responses using the keyboard. And data analysis was carried out using SPSS13.0 software.Results & Discussion:In the Color Experiment, the average accuracy of successive condition was better than that of simultaneous condition (successive condition 81.13% vs. simultaneous condition 77.42%). The interaction was significant (p<0.05). The results were consistent with Huang and Pashler's. In the location Experiment, the average accuracy of successive condition was significantly better than that of simultaneous condition (successive condition 89.84% vs. simultaneous condition 83.40%). The interaction was significant greatly (p<0.01). However, the results were different from Huang and Pashler's. And in the orientation Experiment, the average accuracy of successive condition was also significantly better than that of simultaneous condition (successive condition 84.02% vs. simultaneous condition 64.33%). The interaction was most significant (p<0.001). Conclusions: From the results, we can conclude: using undergraduate students from China as subjects, it is difficult to access two colors simultaneously in Experiment 1.The finding supported Huang and Pashler's experiment about color in visual attention. However, Experiment 2 investigated simultaneous access to two locations, and the data did not correspondingly support Huang and the Pashler's. It was surprisingly to find different condition. In other words, as if they have made two or more locations can be perceived at the same time,this experiment expressed different views. At the same time, this study had also carried out further validation on the basis of Experiment 1 and Experiment 2, which selected orientation as object in Experiment 3. And its clear result proved that two basic characteristics of orientation were still difficult to access at the same time. Above three experiments, this study preliminary inferred that: basic characteristics of objects, such as color or orientation, and locations may be successive access in human visual attention. In addition, it also reached preliminary information: For color, location and orientation, people accessed color and location firstly, then orientation.