VARIOUS CATEGORIES OF CHANGES IN THE INDUCEMENT OF CHANGE BLINDNESS

Change blindness represents extreme difficulty in detecting changes in the visual field induced by brief blank screen interjected in between two alternating images. In the process of searching for a change, visual saliency certainly plays an important role in attracting attention (i.e., pop-out effect). In our study, we were interested in whether there are high-level scene factors that might attract attention as well. As hypothesized, probable, central, relevant and within the figure changes were detected more easily than changes that were improbable, marginal, irrelevant and occurring within the background. Interestingly, detecting changes occurring within close proximity of the figure was most difficult. This indicates that when searching for changes in scenes, parts of the scenes close to the most powerful attractors are being shadowed, and therefore seem to be ignored by selective attention. This could be ascribed to the role of expectations in change detection task. Therefore, we believe that specifically in explicit change detection task, an individual might use certain heuristics that helps her/him scan the scene. The data are discussed in the context of the debate about the nature of scene representations.