The influence of object similarity on real object-based attention: The disassociation of perceptual and semantic similarity

Abstract Perceptual and semantic similarity have an impact on object-based attention for the geometric objects. However, no previous studies have disassociated perceptual properties from the semantic ones of real objects that combine perceptual and semantic properties. It is unclear whether the perceptual and semantic similarity of real objects jointly or independently guides attentional deployment. The aim of the present study was to explore the influence of object similarity on object-based attention by using a variant of the two-rectangle paradigm and disassociating the perceptual and semantic similarity of real objects. The results indicated that when the semantic of objects was similar, the object-based effect was larger for the perceptually dissimilar condition than for the perceptually similar condition, because of slower response to invalid different-object location in a dissimilar condition. Moreover, when the perception of objects was similar, the object-based effect was larger for the semantically dissimilar condition than for the semantically similar condition, due to slower response to invalid different-object location in a dissimilar condition. These results suggest that perceptual and semantic similarity can independently guide attentional allocation to real objects and the similarity may constrain the object-based attention in a way of grouping. The current study implies that the attentional prioritization hypothesis is more flexible and effective to explain the real object-based attention and also has some implication to advertising design.