By: Diana Khinich Selective Visual Attention

Background What is it Selective Visual Attention? Despite our impression that we retain all the visual details that we see in our surrounding, surprisingly, in many cases we are unable to detect the changes that are made in it.

The Project Question In my project I wanted to explore the selective visual attention phenomenon and check whether object movement, direction and type have influence on selective attention.

The Experiment 65 people were divided into 5 groups of 13. Each group received a different slide show After seeing the slide show each participant needed to answer on some question on an answer sheet.

The Experiment the participant needed to distinguish the word “RED" from words with different colors that where blinking on the screen and count how many times it blinked. While the participant was counting the blinking words some stimuli were made: yellow pink RED green blue RED

The Experiment In the first slideshow a zebra crossed the screen from left to right. In the second slideshow a zebra crossed the screen from right to left. In the third slideshow a zebra blinked on the screen for few seconds on the left side. In the fourth slideshow a zebra blinked on the screen for few seconds on the right side. On the fifth slideshow 3 different pictures blinked randomly on the screen.

The Experiment After seeing the slideshow. The participants needed to answer the following question:

The Experiment For the first two slideshows: Did you participate in tests like this before? How many "RED" did you count? Did you notice the moving Zebra in the first time? Did you notice the moving Zebra in the second time?

The Experiment For the 3 rd and 4 th slideshow: Did you participate in tests like this before? How many "RED" did you count? Did you notice the blinking Zebra in the first time? Did you notice the blinking Zebra in the second time?

The Experiment For the 5 th slideshow Did you participate in tests like this before? How many "RED" did you count? Did you see the picture; if your answer is "yes" write what have you seen?

Results and Conclusion Most of the participants that participated in experiment noticed the zebra on the first time. When the participants were told to watch the blinking words slide again and look for something, Almost all participants recognized the zebra. when the zebra moved from the left direction to the right, less participants noticed it. When the zebra blinked on the left side less participants noticed it. In the fifth experiment most of the participants recognized the Kuala bear and Albert Einstein but did not recognized the picture of Paris

Results and Conclusion Conclusions: The knowledge of coming stimuli makes us pay less attention on the current task and be more prepared for the coming stimuli. It can be assumed from the first 4 slideshows that most of the contestants pay more attention to their right side then to their left. The color and texture has impact on our attention even if the stimuli are familiar to us.

Thank you!