Journal of Vision - Covert attention enhances letter identification without affecting channel tuning, by Talgar, Pelli, & Carrasco

Volume 4, Number 1, Article 3, Pages 22-31

doi:10.1167/4.1.3

http://journalofvision.org/4/1/3/

ISSN 1534-7362

Covert attention enhances letter identification without affecting channel tuning

Cigdem P. Talgar	Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY, USA
Denis G. Pelli	Department of Psychology & Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY, USA
Marisa Carrasco	Department of Psychology & Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY, USA

Abstract

Directing covert attention to the target location enhances sensitivity, but it is not clear how this enhancement comes about. Knowing that a single spatial frequency channel mediates letter identification, we use the critical-band-masking paradigm to investigate whether covert attention affects the spatial frequency tuning of that channel. We find that directing attention to the target location halves threshold energy without affecting the channel’s spatial frequency tuning.

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History

Received October 9, 2002; published February 2, 2004

Citation

Talgar, C. P., Pelli, D. G., & Carrasco, M. (2004). Covert attention enhances letter identification without affecting channel tuning. Journal of Vision, 4(1):3, 22-31, http://journalofvision.org/4/1/3/, doi:10.1167/4.1.3.

Keywords

covert attention, letter identification, spatial vision, critical-band masking, spatial frequency channel, off-frequency looking, channel switching

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