Anne Treisman

• Princeton University

What qualifies a neural representation for a role in subjective experience? Previous evidence suggests that the duration and intensity of the neural response to a sensory stimulus are factors. We introduce another attribute—the reproducibility of a pattern of neural activity across different episodes—that predicts specific and measurable difference...

It has been suggested that a neural instantiation of the temporary multidimensional representations of objects might be synchrony of firing between the neurons representing the features that co-occur in a given location. In this article, we direct attention to a logical problem that arises when certain synchrony assumptions are applied to real situ...

The repetition blindness (RB) effect demonstrates that people often fail to detect the second presentation of an identical object (e.g., Kanwisher, 1987). Grouping of identical items is a well-documented perceptual phenomenon, and this grouping generally facilitates perception. These two effects pose a puzzle: RB impairs perception, while perceptua...

In three experiments, participants decided whether a Star of David shape was present among distractors. Although the participants were instructed to ignore the colors in the display, detection was slower when each triangle of the Star of David was printed in a different color than when the Star of David was printed in a uniform color or when each t...

A common perceptual error consists of binding the features of objects in the wrong combinations. Another common finding is that incongruent thoughts or feelings tend to be rejected by the cognitive system. We combined these two notions and found that the incongruence-suppression rule constrains the binding process. We used a task in which participa...

The brain may combine information from different sense modalities to enhance the speed and accuracy of detection of objects and events, and the choice of appropriate responses. There is mounting evidence that perceptual experiences that appear to be modality-specific are also influenced by activity from other sensory modalities, even in the absence...

Reentrant processing has been proposed as a critical mechanism in feature binding. To test this claim, participants were shown arrays of six pairs of crossed vertical and horizontal bars. In each pair, one bar was white; one was red, green, or blue. Identifying the orientation, but not the color, of the nonwhite bar in the target item required corr...

What qualifies a neural representation for a role in subjective experience? Previous evidence suggests that the duration and intensity of the neural response to a sensory stimulus are factors. We introduce another attribute—the reproducibility of a pattern of neural activity across different episodes—that predicts specific and measurable difference...

Limits to the capacity of visual short-term memory (VSTM) indicate a maximum storage of only 3 or 4 items. Recently, it has been suggested that activity in a specific part of the brain, the posterior parietal cortex (PPC), is correlated with behavioral estimates of VSTM capacity and might reflect a capacity-limited store. In three experiments that...

Object-substitution masking (OSM) refers to reduced target discrimination when the target is surrounded by a sparse mask that does not overlap with the target in space but trails it in time. In four experiments, we used a novel paradigm to investigate the extent of processing of a masked target in OSM. We measured response-compatibility effects bet...

Myczek and Simons (2008) have shown that findings attributed to a statistical mode of perceptual processing can, instead, be explained by focused attention to samples of just a few items. Some new findings raise questions about this claim. (1) Participants, given conditions that would require different focused attention strategies, did no worse whe...

Statistical processing has been shown in the perception of several visual dimensions, including size, speed, direction of motion, and orientation. Chong and Treisman (2005) found no decrement when people simultaneously averaged two sets on a single dimension, size. What happens when attention is divided between different dimensions? In two experime...

The "distractor eccentricity effect" refers to the finding of reduced interference from an incompatible distractor at a central relative to a peripheral location (Chen, 2008). The present study examines the mechanism that underlies the distractor eccentricity effect, and relates it to the inattentional blindness explored by Mack and Rock (1998), wh...

Attention and awareness are intimately related concepts. Nevertheless, the two phenomena are empirically dissociable: visuo-spatial attention can act in the absence of visual awareness. We used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to record cortical neural activity from hemianopic patient GY while he performed a peripheral orientation-discrimination task i...

Momentary awareness of a visual scene is very limited; however, this limitation has not been formally characterized. We test the hypothesis that awareness reflects a surprisingly impoverished data structure called a labeled Boolean map, defined as a linkage of just one feature value per dimension (for example, the color is green and the motion is r...

S. T. L. Chung (2002) has shown that rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) reading speed varies with letter spacing, peaking near the standard letter spacing for text and decreasing for both smaller and larger spacings. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that the dependence of reading speed on letter spacing is mediated by the size of the vi...

Visual working memory (VWM) wa sexplored separatelyfor features and for their binding. Features were better recognized when the probes retained the same binding as in the original display, but changing the locations had little effect overall. However, there were strong interactions of location with binding and with matching or new features, suggest...

Attention is a tool to adapt what we see to our current needs. It can be focused narrowly on a single object or spread over several or distributed over the scene as a whole. In addition to increasing or decreasing the number of attended objects, these different deployments may have different effects on what we see. This chapter describes some resea...

Neuropsychological conditions such as Balint's syndrome have shown that perceptual organization of parts into a perceptual unit can be dissociated from the ability to localize objects relative to each other. Neural mechanisms that code the spatial structure within individual objects or words may seem to be intact, while between-object structure is...

Studies have suggested attention-free semantic processing of natural scenes in which concurrent tasks leave category detection unimpaired (e.g., F. Li, R. VanRullen, C. Koch, & P. Perona, 2002). Could this ability reflect detection of disjunctive feature sets rather than high-level binding? Participants detected an animal target in a rapid serial v...

Objects and events in the environment typically produce correlated input to several sensory modalities at once. It is important to understand the conditions under which the different sensory streams are integrated and the supporting mechanism. We ask whether there is crossmodal binding of non-speech auditory and visual stimuli and how and where it...

This paper explores some structural constraints on computing the mean sizes of sets of elements. Neither number nor density had much effect on judgments of mean size. Intermingled sets of circles segregated only by color gave mean discrimination thresholds for size that were as accurate as sets segregated by location. They were about the same when...

We tested the hypothesis that distributing attention over an array of similar items makes its statistical properties automatically available. We found that extracting the mean size of sets of circles was easier to combine with tasks requiring distributed or global attention than with tasks requiring focused attention. One explanation may be that ex...

Everyday scenes often contain sets of similar objects. Perceptual representations may summarize these with statistical descriptors. After determining the psychological mean of two sizes, we measured thresholds for judging the mean with arrays of 12 circles of heterogeneous sizes. They were close to those for the size of elements in homogeneous arra...

The integration of complex information in working memory, and its effect on capacity, shape the limits of conscious cognition. The literature conflicts on whether short-term visual memory represents information as integrated objects. A change-detection paradigm using objects defined by color with location or shape was used to investigate binding in...

The relative order of an auditory sequence can be more difficult to apprehend when it is presented repeatedly without pause (i.e., cycling) than when it is presented only once (Warren, Obusek, Farmer, & Warren, 1969). We find that this phenomenon, referred to as the midstream order deficit (MOD), can also occur with visual stimuli. The stimuli need...

The relative order of an auditory sequence can be more difficult to apprehend when it is presented repeatedly without pause (i.e., cycling) than when it is presented only once (Warren, Obusek, Farmer, & Warren, 1969). We find that this phenomenon, referred to as themidstream order deficit (MOD), can also occur with visual stimuli. The stimuli need...

The seemingly effortless ability to perceive meaningful objects in an integrated scene actually depends on complex visual processes. The 'binding problem' concerns the way in which we select and integrate the separate features of objects in the correct combinations. Experiments suggest that attention plays a central role in solving this problem. So...

The world is full of objects. Some may be static, others not. Some may be partially occluded, others standing alone. Some may emit sounds, others not. Some we may be touching (hands resting on a table), others out of reach. At a sensory level, the means by which the world comes to be organized into objects is a far from trivial problem, since stimu...

Object perception may involve seeing, recognition, preparation of actions, and emotional responses--functions that human brain imaging and neuropsychology suggest are localized separately. Perhaps because of this specialization, object perception is remarkably rapid and efficient. Representations of componential structure and interpolation from vie...

When a brief lateral cue precedes an instantaneously presented horizontal line, observers report a sensation of motion in the line propagating from the cued end toward the uncued end. This illusion has been described as a measure of the facilitatory effects of a visual attention gradient (O. Hikosaka, S. Miyauchi, & S. Shimojo, 1993a). Evidence in...

How does voluntary attention to one attribute of a visual stimulus affect the neural processing of that stimulus? We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the attentional modulation of neural activity in the human homolog of the MT-MST complex, which is known to be involved in the processing of visual motion. Using a visual stimulus...

An earlier report described a patient (RM) with bilateral parietal damage who showed severe binding problems between shape and color and shape and size (Friedman-Hill, Robertson, & Treisman, 1995). When shown two different-colored letters, RM reported a large number of illusory conjunctions (ICs) combining the shape of one letter with the color of...

Perceptual representations depend on distributed neural codes for relaying the parts and properties of objects. Some mechanism is needed to 'bind' the information relating to each object and to distinguish it from others. Possible candidates include cells tuned to conjunctions of features, spatial attention, and synchronized firing across separate...

Neuropsychological evidence was presented and found to be consistent with Treisman's Feature Integration Theory (FIT). Several studies were reported using groups of patients with unilateral visual neglect, stable patients with known lesion loci, and a single patient with bilateral parietal-occipital lesions. Collectively, the data support a distinc...

Implicit memory for novel shapes was explored with a negative priming paradigm. The results show that representations of shapes, formed in a single trial and without attention, can last without decrement across 200 intervening trials and with temporal delays of up to a month. No explicit memory of the shapes was available, either immediately or aft...

Neurophysiologists have documented the existence of multiple cortical areas responsive to different visual features. This modular organization has sparked theoretical interest in how the "binding problem" is solved. Recent data from a neurological patient (R.M.) with bilateral parietal-occipital lesions demonstrates that the binding problem is not...

Van der Heijden rejects the feature integration theory of visual attention (Treisman, 1988, 1993; Treisman & Gelade, 1980) and proposes instead a theory relating modularity in the visual system to selection for action. His positive proposals about the relations between visual processing, intention, and selection for action are interesting, but I do...

Two dissociations between short- and long-range motion in visual search are reported. Previous research has shown parallel processing for short-range motion and apparently serial processing for long-range motion. This finding has been replicated and it has also been found that search for short-range targets can be impaired both by using bicontrast...

Abstract Preattentive processes such as perceptual grouping are thought to be important in the initial guidance of visual attention and may also operate in unilateral neglect by contributing to the definition of a task-appropriate reference frame. We explored this question with a visual search task in which patients with unilateral visual neglect (...

A number of experiments exploring priming effects and automatization in the perception of novel objects are described, and a framework for understanding the benefits and costs of re-perceiving previously seen objects is proposed. The suggestion is that perceiving an object creates a temporary representation in an object file that collects, integrat...

A series of experiments explored a form of object-specific priming. In all experiments a preview field containing two or more letters is followed by a target letter that is to be named. The displays are designed to produce a perceptual interpretation of the target as a new state of an object that previously contained one of the primes. The link is...

J. Duncan and G. Humphreys (see record 1992-33782-001) propose an account of conjunction search in terms of interference from similar distractors, both through spreading suppression and through competition for input-template matching. Their reinterpretation of the calibration studies used to equate similarity by A. Treisman (1991) is questioned he...

A series of experiments explored a form of object-specific priming. In all experiments a preview field containing two or more letters is followed by a target letter that is to be named. The displays are designed to produce a perceptual interpretation of the target as a new state of an object that previously contained one of the primes. The link is...

The characteristics of automatized performance resemble those of preattentive processing in some respects. In the context of visual search tasks, these include spatially parallel processing, involuntary calling of attention, learning without awareness, and time-sharing with other tasks. However, this article reports some evidence suggesting that ex...

The research can be divided into work on (1) preattentive visual processing, and (2) work on visual memory and priming for previously perceived objects. Some of the main findings were as follows: (1) We showed that parallel, preattentive processing of motion and orientation depends on the elements sharing the same direction of contrast. However, so...

Three experiments test the claim that conjunction search is difficult only because the target resembles each distractor, whereas the distractors are highly discriminable from each other. The results show that when similarity is controlled, there is an additional difficulty created by the need to conjoin features. In addition, a target with standard...

Search for conjunctions of highly discriminable features can be rapid or even parallel. This article explores three possible accounts based on (a) perceptual segregation, (b) conjunction detectors, and (c) inhibition controlled separately by two or more distractor features. Search rates for conjunctions of color, size, orientation, and direction of...

By using a visual search task, this study examined the encoding of orientation and size for stimuli defined in five different surface media: luminance, color, texture, relative motion, and binocular disparity. Results indicated a spatially parallel analysis of size and orientation features for all surface media, with the possible exception of binoc...

Search for conjunctions of highly discriminable features can be rapid or even parallel. This article explores three possible accounts based on (a) perceptual segregation, (b) conjunction detectors, and (c) inhibition controlled separately by two or more distractor features. Search rates for conjunctions of color, size, orientation, and direction of...

Feature-integration theory is outlined to clarify its claims and assumptions. The concepts of separated vs. integrated and of latent vs. manifest features are then examined. It is argued that quadratic polynomial search functions would be predicted only if the feature and the location were both latent—an unlikely assumption, against which there is...

The article reports an investigation of implicit and explicit memory for novel, visual patterns. Implicit memory was assessed by a speeded perception task, and explicit memory by a four-alternative, forced-choice recognition task. Tests were given either immediately after testing or 7 days later. The results suggest that a single exposure of a nove...

This research supported by my grant from AFOSR this year completed some of the projects outlined in the first annual report and initiated some new ones. The focus remained on the visual processing of features and objects, the role of spatial attention and the representation of complex visual patterns in perception and memory. Studies of visual sear...

A series of search experiments tested detection of targets distinguished from the distractors by differences on a single dimension. Our aim was to use the pattern of search latencies to infer which features are coded automatically in early vision. For each of 12 different dimensions, one or more pairs of contrasting stimuli were tested. Each member...

When attention is divided among four briefly exposed syllables, subjects mistakenly detect targets whose letters are present in the display but in the wrong combinations. These illusory conjunctions are somewhat more frequent when the target is a word and when the distractors are nonwords, but the effects of lexical status are small, and no longer...

explore the information-processing mechanisms that identify the objects and events of subjective experience from physical stimuli similarity judgments: the role of features and dimensions / evidence for perceptual analysis of dimensions, features, and parts / evidence for primacy of holistic or global processing / integration of properties and pa...

The search rate for a target among distractors may vary dramatically depending on which stimulus plays the role of target and which that of distractors. For example, the time required to find a circle distinguished by an intersecting line is independent of the number of regular circles in the display, whereas the time to find a regular circle among...

The search rate for a target among distractors may vary dramatically depending on which stimulus plays the role of target and which that of distractors. For example, the time required to find a circle distinguished by an intersecting line is independent of the number of regular circles in the display, whereas the time to find a regular circle among...

Visual analysis appears to be functionally divided between an early preattentive level of processing at which simple features are coded spatially in parallel and a later stage at which focused attention is required to conjoin the separate features into coherent objects. Evidence supporting this dichotomy comes from behavioral studies of visual sear...

The perceptual processing of arrows and triangles and of their component angles and lines was explored in a number of different tasks. The results suggest that some analysis of shapes into simpler parts occurs preattentively, because these parts can recombine to form illusory conjunctions when attention is divided. The presence of "emergent feature...

Speeded choice responses (reading or naming) to a relevant stimulus under conditions of spatial uncertainty are delayed by the simultaneous occurrence of other events. This "filtering cost" occurs despite high discriminability of target and distractors, which allows parallel detection of the target in search through the same displays. Reading is al...

In 5 experiments with 51 university students who viewed various combinations of words, colors, and shapes on a computer terminal, speeded choice responses (reading or naming) to a relevant stimulus under conditions of spatial uncertainty were delayed by the simultaneous occurrence of other events. This filtering cost occurred despite high discrimin...

The latency of reading a single word is increased by 20 to 40 msec if another object is present in the display. The delay is affected by the spatial organization of the display: a colored frame causes less delay when it surrounds the word than when it is shown on the opposite side of fixation. A small gap in the frame is also more efficiently detec...

This article explores the effects of perceptual grouping on search for targets defined by separate features or by conjunction of features. Treisman and Gelade proposed a feature-integration theory of attention, which claims that in the absence of prior knowledge, the separable features of objects are correctly combined only when focused attention i...

Examined the effects of perceptual grouping on search for targets defined by separate features or by conjunction of features. The author and G. Gelade proposed a feature-integration theory of attention, which claims that in the absence of prior knowledge, the separable features of objects are correctly combined only when focused attention is direct...

In perceiving objects we may synthesize conjunctions of separable features by directing attention serially to each item in turn (A. Treisman and G. Gelade, Cognitive Psychology, 1980, 12, 97–136). This feature-integration theory predicts that when attention is diverted or overloaded, features may be wrongly recombined, giving rise to “illusory conj...

A new hypothesis about the role of focused attention is proposed. The feature-integration theory of attention suggests that attention must be directed serially to each stimulus in a display whenever conjunctions of more than one separable feature are needed to characterize or distinguish the possible objects presented. A number of predictions were...

This paper reports some further experiments on successive matching of multidimensional stimuli in which the correct conjunctions of features must be specified; it also modifies and extends the model proposed earlier by Treisman, Sykes, and Gelade (1977). The results obtained in the previous experiment were replicated despite a change from fixed to...

This experiment explores semantic processing of one message while another is attended to and shadowed. It was an attempt to replicate and clarify an earlier finding by Lewis (1970). Like Lewis, we found that mean shadowing latency was increased when a synonym of the shadowed word coincided with it on the unattended channel. However, this occurred o...

Alternating dichotic presentation of tones was compared with monaural presentation in two different perceptual tasks. When Ss were asked to detect higher frequency target tones in fists of six background tones, they missed less than 5%. However, when the presentation was fast (10/sec) and the tones alternated dichotically, Ss reported “hearing” onl...

Subjects were asked to recall lists of digits presented either alternately to right and left ears or successively to both. Performance was worse with alternating than with successive lists and the decrement was greater with the faster presentation rate. However, there was no interaction between type of presentation and either digit length or list l...

select examples of research which seem to us to probe central issues at the different stages of object identification and to throw light on the mechanisms which may be involved extraction of elementary image features / neurophysiological and anatomical evidence on early stages of visual coding / coding of boundaries and contours / representation...

Results of a card sorting experiment suggest a new interpretation for the interference between words and colours that is displayed in the Stroop Test.

Reviews experiments on selective attention, mainly to competing speech messages, and relates them to D. E. Broadbents filter theory. 4 types of attention strategy are distinguished; (1) restriction of the number of inputs analyzed, (2) restriction of the dimensions analyzed, (3) the items (defined by sets of critical features) for which S looks or...