Testing the unified model of vision and attention: Effects of landmark features, stimulus identity and visual eccentricity on visual orienting and conscious discrimination

Landmark cueing and exogenous (onset) cueing: How are they related?

Attentional consequences of (i) mere onset of a peripheral visual cue, and (ii)encoding spatially predictive, landmark features of that cue were studied in two experiments. Target location was associated with landmark features of peripheral cues. Cue onset elicited both attention capture (Experiment Two) and inhibition of return (Experiment One) effects. In both experiments, attentional effects of landmark features of the cues were observed early in practice, and diminished with time on task. Contrary to hypotheses based on models that liken attention to a moving spotlight or zoom lens, in both experiments attentional effects of landmark features were confined to the location where the cue was presented. To explain this, we enlist the concept of attentional priority maps, and propose that visual encoding causes attentional priorities to be updated via alternative input routes and mechanisms. We suggest that onset cueing effects are associated with retinotectal 'spatial indexing', which registers the location, but not the attributes of new stimuli, while landmark cueing effects are associated with interaction between spatial indexing and dorsal stream visual processing of attentionally relevant landmark features.

Accident Vulnerability and Vision for Action: A Pilot Investigation

Many accidents, such as those involving collisions or trips, appear to involve failures of vision, but the association between accident risk and vision as conventionally assessed is weak or absent. We addressed this conundrum by embracing the distinction inspired by neuroscientific research, between vision for perception and vision for action. A dual-process perspective predicts that accident vulnerability will be associated more strongly with vision for action than vision for perception. In this preliminary investigation, older and younger adults, with relatively high and relatively low self-reported accident vulnerability (Accident Proneness Questionnaire), completed three behavioural assessments targeting vision for perception (Freiburg Visual Acuity Test); vision for action (Vision for Action Test-VAT); and the ability to perform physical actions involving balance, walking and standing (Short Physical Performance Battery). Accident vulnerability was not associated with visual acuity or with performance of physical actions but was associated with VAT performance. VAT assesses the ability to link visual input with a specific action-launching a saccadic eye movement as rapidly as possible, in response to shapes presented in peripheral vision. The predictive relationship between VAT performance and accident vulnerability was independent of age, visual acuity and physical performance scores. Applied implications of these findings are considered.