Abstract

It is well documented that people can engage in flexible adjustments of attention using context cues from the environment. The most prolific cue used to assess such context-specific attentional control in the literature has been location (or spatial features). Context-specific attentional control using object features has been less well researched and some of the most conclusive evidence of object-based attentional control comes from designs where location and spatial features cannot be used to guide attentional control. Across five experiments, I investigate the interplay between object and spatial features in their usefulness to guide attentional control when both are available as cues for control. The bulk of the evidence suggested that when spatial features could be leveraged for attentional control, object features were disregarded. In only one experiment was there weak evidence for object-based control due to an increase in the variability of object features. Overall, object features were subsumed by spatial features as guides for attentional control.

Committee Chair

Julie Bugg

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Author's Department

Psychology

Author's School

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Document Type

Dissertation

Date of Award

4-18-2024

Language

English (en)

Author's ORCID

0000-0002-7177-6047

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