Change blindness and visual memory: Visual representations get rich and act poor (original) (raw)
Related papers
Communicative & Integrative Biology, 2009
A large body of literature has shown that observers often fail to notice significant changes in visual scenes, even when these changes happen right in front of their eyes. For instance, people often fail to notice if their conversation partner is switched to another person, or if large background objects suddenly disappear. 1,2 These 'change blindness' studies have led to the inference that the amount of information we remember about each item in a visual scene may be quite low. 1 However, in recent work we have demonstrated that long-term memory is capable of storing a massive number of visual objects with significant detail about each item. 3 In the present paper we attempt to reconcile these findings by demonstrating that observers do not experience 'change blindness' with the real world objects used in our previous experiment if they are given sufficient time to encode each item. The results reported here suggest that one of the major causes of change blindness for real-world objects is a lack of encoding time or attention to each object (see also refs. 4 and 5).
Object presentations in change blindness
2003
2.. Attention and storage in working memory protects against change blindness AA crucial factor in change detection seems to be attention, a phenomenon discussed in BOX 1.. In the real world, changes almost always involve motion or luminance changes. This often evokess a visual transient that is unique, or very salient with respect to background noise, so that itt attracts attention (Phillips & Singer, 1974; Rensink, 2000b, 2002). Without a blank interval in thee change blindness paradigm, the unique transient makes the change easy to detect. With the
Partial Representations of Scenes in Change Blindness: In the Eyes and in the Hands
Abstract Change blindness is a person‟ s inability to notice changes in a visual scene that seem obvious when pointed out. Recent experiments using eye tracking techniques have suggested that even though participants do not detect a change they fixate on the changing area more. Two studies test whether this finding is present across different change blindness paradigms and whether it is detectable after fixation. In the first study we compare behavior in flicker and gradual change paradigms.
Action blindness in response to gradual changes
Consciousness and Cognition, 2010
The goal of this study is to characterize observers' abilities to detect gradual changes and to explore putative dissociations between conscious experience of change and behavioral adaptation to a changing stimulus. We developed a new experimental paradigm in which, on each trial, participants were shown a dot pattern on the screen. Next, the pattern disappeared and participants had to reproduce it. In some conditions, the target pattern was incrementally rotated over successive trials and participants were either informed or not of this change. We analyzed both awareness of the changes and the dynamics of behavioral adaptation, in a way that makes it possible to assess both variability and accuracy as they change over time. Results indicate a dissociation between change awareness and behavioral adaptation to the changes, and support the notion that unconscious representations of visual stimuli are more precise and detailed than previously suggested. We discuss the implications of these results for theories of change detection. Crown steps of 1°of visual angle on each display, with each display separated from the next one by a brief blank screen (1500 ms). Participants were instructed to press a button if they had noticed the scene change. The results indicated that half of the participants remained unaware of the change up to a dramatic rotation of 48°. However, when a shift back to the original scene was produced after a cumulated rotation of 20°or 30°that had so far remained undetected, most subjects could then clearly see the change. Authors concluded that visual memory had been updated, albeit in the absence of awareness. Indeed, if visual memory had not been updated at all, participants would not have been able to detect the change when presented anew with the original display. These results clearly challenge the idea that change blindness arises from a failure to maintain relevant information in memory (see also, .
Change blindness theory and consequences
Current Directions in Psychological …, 2005
People often fail to notice large changes to visual scenes, a phenomenon now known as change blindness. The extent of change blindness in visual perception suggests limits on our capacity to encode, retain, and compare visual information from one glance to the next; our awareness of our visual surroundings is far more sparse than most people intuitively believe. These failures of awareness and the erroneous intuitions that often accompany them have both theoretical and practical ramifications. This article briefly summarizes the current state of research on change blindness and suggests future directions that promise to improve our understanding of scene perception and visual memory.
Change Blindness: Implications for the Nature of Visual Attention
Vision and Attention, 2001
In the not-too-distant past, vision was often said to involve three levels of processing: a low level concerned with descriptions of the geometric and photometric properties of the image, a high level concerned with abstract knowledge of the physical and semantic properties of the world, and a middle level concerned with anything not handled by the other two. 1 The negative definition of mid-level vision contained in this description reflected a rather large gap in our understanding of visual processing: How could the here-and-now descriptions of the low levels combine with the enduring knowledge of the high levels to produce our perception of the surrounding world?
Change blindness: past, present, and future
Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2005
Change blindness is the striking failure to see large changes that normally would be noticed easily. Over the past decade this phenomenon has greatly contributed to our understanding of attention, perception, and even consciousness. The surprising extent of change blindness explains its broad appeal, but its counterintuitive nature has also engendered confusions about the kinds of inferences that legitimately follow from it. Here we discuss the legitimate and the erroneous inferences that have been drawn, and offer a set of requirements to help separate them. In doing so, we clarify the genuine contributions of change blindness research to our understanding of visual perception and awareness, and provide a glimpse of some ways in which change blindness might shape future research.
Change blindness and inattentional blindness
Wiley Interdisciplinary …, 2011
Change blindness is the failure to notice an obvious change. Inattentional blindness is the failure to notice the existence of an unexpected item. In each case, we fail to notice something that is clearly visible once we know to look for it. Despite similarities, each type of blindness has a unique background and distinct theoretical implications. Here, we discuss the central paradigms used to explore each phenomenon in a historical context. We also outline the central findings from each field and discuss their implications for visual perception and attention. In addition, we examine the impact of task and observer effects on both types of blindness as well as common pitfalls and confusions people make while studying these topics.