The author found that in early visual features generally evokes involuntary attention, which is called stimulus-driven attention. In Experiment 1, luminance was increased (light condition) or decreased (dim condition) in the periphery as a cue. Then the subjects judged which of the two light spots, one on the cued side and the other on the opposite side, was presented earlier. Although the spots were presented simultaneously at an equal eccentricity, consistent responses were significantly more frequent than inconsistent ones immediately after the presentation of the cue. This result indicates that stimulus-driven attention affects temporal-order judgments. In Experiment 2, the cue was a change in color (color condition) or orientation (orientation condition) in the periphery. Consistent responses were also more frequent, which means that color and orientation evoke stimulus-driven attention. These results can be explained by a model that a single mechanism of attention is driven by early visual processing modules.
Abstract