DOI: 10.6129/CJP. 20130420
中華心理學刊　民102，55卷，2期，181-199
Chinese Journal of Psychology 2013, Vol.55, No. 2, 181-199

Ming-Chou Ho（Department of Psychology, Chung-Shan Medical University；Clinical Psychological Room, Chung-Shan Medical University Hospital）

Abstract

Object-based attention (OBA) will result if a target appearing at an invalid location on the same object is detected more quickly than a target at an equidistant location on a different object. The current study first asked whether the object effect obtained in the discrimination task was a result of within-object benefit or between-object cost. To answer this, Experiment 1 added an object-absent baseline to the cuing paradigm of Egly, Driver, and Rafal (1994). Perceptual load was manipulated, in which the low-load color and the high-load color/shape conjunction discrimination tasks were adopted. Results favored the within-object benefit hypothesis. The current study further asked whether this within-object benefit was a result of sensory enhancement or attentional prioritization. Experiment 2 adopted the data-limited accuracy measure in order to examine the strength of object representation. In the low-load condition, attention was distributed in a similar manner on the attended and unattended objects. In the high-load condition, attention was allocated within the attended object, favoring the sensory enhancement. The implications of current results are discussed. 

Keywords: attentional prioritization, baseline, benefit, cost, sensory enhancement Received: