Name: Gloria Suero
Mentor: Marjan Persuh
Abstract: The role of visual attention in perception has long been controversial. The primary goal of our project is to determine whether attention moderates visual perception. We developed a method for measuring attention and perception simultaneously. We modified multiple object tracking paradigm, in which observers are asked to remember and track continuously moving object. This paradigm has been used successfully to manipulate the availability of attentional resources. We used open source tool PsychoPy, to program pilot experiment, in which observers tracked target item in the presence of moving distractors. We found that at lower speed, the accuracy was nearly at ceiling for almost all participants. At a medium speed, the accuracy dropped to approximately eighty percent. At the fastest rotation rate, accuracy was near guessing, averaging around fifty-five percent for most participants. The results of our pilot experiment indicate that the higher the rate of rotation, the more difficult the task becomes, which indicates that task requires more attentional resources. We are currently developing a visual perception task, which will directly measure visual experience of participants. Once the visual perception task is completed, it will be combined with multiple object tracking task. This design will allow us to determine whether increasing demand on attentional resources affects visual perception.
BARS2020GloriaSueroPoster-Sunny-Suero
