A View Not to Be Missed: Salient Scene Content Interferes with Cognitive Restoration

Overview

Journal PLoS One

Specialties General Medicine
Science

Date 2017 Jul 21

PMID 28723975

Citations 1

Authors

Alexander P N van der Jagt

Tony Craig

Mark J Brewer

David G Pearson

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Attention Restoration Theory (ART) states that built scenes place greater load on attentional resources than natural scenes. This is explained in terms of "hard" and "soft" fascination of built and natural scenes. Given a lack of direct empirical evidence for this assumption we propose that perceptual saliency of scene content can function as an empirically derived indicator of fascination. Saliency levels were established by measuring speed of scene category detection using a Go/No-Go detection paradigm. Experiment 1 shows that built scenes are more salient than natural scenes. Experiment 2 replicates these findings using greyscale images, ruling out a colour-based response strategy, and additionally shows that built objects in natural scenes affect saliency to a greater extent than the reverse. Experiment 3 demonstrates that the saliency of scene content is directly linked to cognitive restoration using an established restoration paradigm. Overall, these findings demonstrate an important link between the saliency of scene content and related cognitive restoration.

Citing Articles

Evaluating Changes in Mental Workload in Indoor and Outdoor Ultra-Distance Cycling.

Irvine D, Jobson S, Wilson J Sports (Basel). 2022; 10(5).

PMID: 35622476 PMC: 9146483. DOI: 10.3390/sports10050067.

References

Kaplan S, Berman M . Directed Attention as a Common Resource for Executive Functioning and Self-Regulation. Perspect Psychol Sci. 2015; 5(1):43-57. DOI: 10.1177/1745691609356784. View

Itti L, Koch C . Computational modelling of visual attention. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2001; 2(3):194-203. DOI: 10.1038/35058500. View

Corbetta M, Patel G, Shulman G . The reorienting system of the human brain: from environment to theory of mind. Neuron. 2008; 58(3):306-24. PMC: 2441869. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2008.04.017. View

Greene M, Oliva A . The briefest of glances: the time course of natural scene understanding. Psychol Sci. 2009; 20(4):464-72. PMC: 2742770. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02316.x. View

Geisler W, Perry J, Super B, Gallogly D . Edge co-occurrence in natural images predicts contour grouping performance. Vision Res. 2001; 41(6):711-24. DOI: 10.1016/s0042-6989(00)00277-7. View

Beck D, Kastner S . Top-down and bottom-up mechanisms in biasing competition in the human brain. Vision Res. 2008; 49(10):1154-65. PMC: 2740806. DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2008.07.012. View

VanRullen R . Visual saliency and spike timing in the ventral visual pathway. J Physiol Paris. 2004; 97(2-3):365-77. DOI: 10.1016/j.jphysparis.2003.09.010. View

Sigman M, Cecchi G, Gilbert C, Magnasco M . On a common circle: natural scenes and Gestalt rules. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2001; 98(4):1935-40. PMC: 29360. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.98.4.1935. View

Mullin C, Steeves J . TMS to the lateral occipital cortex disrupts object processing but facilitates scene processing. J Cogn Neurosci. 2011; 23(12):4174-84. DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_00095. View

10.

Fei-Fei L, Iyer A, Koch C, Perona P . What do we perceive in a glance of a real-world scene?. J Vis. 2007; 7(1):10. DOI: 10.1167/7.1.10. View

11.

Joubert O, Rousselet G, Fabre-Thorpe M, Fize D . Rapid visual categorization of natural scene contexts with equalized amplitude spectrum and increasing phase noise. J Vis. 2009; 9(1):2.1-16. DOI: 10.1167/9.1.2. View

12.

Loschky L, Larson A . Localized information is necessary for scene categorization, including the Natural/Man-made distinction. J Vis. 2008; 8(1):4.1-9. DOI: 10.1167/8.1.4. View

13.

Berman M, Hout M, Kardan O, Hunter M, Yourganov G, Henderson J . The perception of naturalness correlates with low-level visual features of environmental scenes. PLoS One. 2014; 9(12):e114572. PMC: 4273965. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0114572. View

14.

WATSON D, Clark L, Tellegen A . Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the PANAS scales. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1988; 54(6):1063-70. DOI: 10.1037//0022-3514.54.6.1063. View

15.

Theeuwes J . Top-down search strategies cannot override attentional capture. Psychon Bull Rev. 2004; 11(1):65-70. DOI: 10.3758/bf03206462. View

16.

Groen I, Ghebreab S, Prins H, Lamme V, Scholte H . From image statistics to scene gist: evoked neural activity reveals transition from low-level natural image structure to scene category. J Neurosci. 2013; 33(48):18814-24. PMC: 6618700. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3128-13.2013. View

17.

New J, Cosmides L, Tooby J . Category-specific attention for animals reflects ancestral priorities, not expertise. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007; 104(42):16598-603. PMC: 2034212. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0703913104. View

18.

Davenport J, Potter M . Scene consistency in object and background perception. Psychol Sci. 2004; 15(8):559-64. DOI: 10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00719.x. View

19.

Serences J, Shomstein S, Leber A, Golay X, Egeth H, Yantis S . Coordination of voluntary and stimulus-driven attentional control in human cortex. Psychol Sci. 2005; 16(2):114-22. DOI: 10.1111/j.0956-7976.2005.00791.x. View

20.

Chun M, Jiang Y . Contextual cueing: implicit learning and memory of visual context guides spatial attention. Cogn Psychol. 1998; 36(1):28-71. DOI: 10.1006/cogp.1998.0681. View