The Effects of Visual Degradation on Attended Objects and the Ability to Process Unattended Objects within the Visual Array

Abstract : Previous studies have demonstrated different levels of processing for visual stimuli dependent upon whether the objects were attended to or not. This study consisted of two manipulations to further diagnose the processing of unattended objects. First, the attended object was visually degraded on some trials to determine if this would negatively influence the processing of unattended images. Second, the number of unattended objects within a trial was varied. Previous studies used one unattended object, while this study will use both one and three unattended objects within a trial. Although the degradation of the attended object did result in significantly longer reaction times in their naming, both degradation of the attended object and the amount of unattended objects did not influence the processing of unattended objects.