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Effects of Selective Attention on Perceptual Filling-in

¹ University of Maastricht, ² Northwestern University, ³ University of Arizona

Reprint requests should be sent to Dr. Peter De Weerd, Neurocognition Group, Psychology Department, University of Maastricht, POB 616, 6200 Maastricht, The Netherlands, or via e-mail: P.deweerd{at}psychology.unimaas.nl.

After few seconds, a figure steadily presented in peripheral vision becomes perceptually filled-in by its background, as if it "disappeared". We report that directing attention to the color, shape, or location of a figure increased the probability of perceiving filling-in compared to unattended figures, without modifying the time required for filling-in. This effect could be augmented by boosting attention. Furthermore, the frequency distribution of filling-in response times for attended figures could be predicted by multiplying the frequencies of response times for unattended figures with a constant. We propose that, after failure of figure–ground segregation, the neural interpolation processes that produce perceptual filling-in are enhanced in attended figure regions. As filling-in processes are involved in surface perception, the present study demonstrates that even very early visual processes are subject to modulation by cognitive factors.