feature integration theory

 feature integration theory

Abstract

Anne Treisman and Garry Gelade developed a theory called the feature integration theory that tested the attention in reaction time in simple and conjunction feature. Simple feature required one feature and conjunction feature required two features to determine the target. The participants were psychology students at the University of Bradford. The experiment was conducted by taking repeated measures and within-subject design. The results show that conjunction required more reaction time, the distractors are more complicated, and they need more attention for determining the target.

Introduction

Visual search is the ability to observe the external environment using our eyes and sensory aspects, which allow us to move, read, see and other skills that make our life easier. Another meaning for visual search is the observation of the optical system that uses attentional methods to target something in a word full of other items. Recent researchers have defined visual research as “a signal detection problem with multiple noise sources” (Wolfe and Reynolds, 2008). Visual search is pursued by visual perception which is the sensory system that receives the information from the environment through the entry of lights in our eyes and transmission of sensory information to the brain that makes sense for the light, that the eye has received. Visual research experiment requires a distractor for the discovery of a target in the attendance of several non-target features. This depends on the reaction time necessary for a single development.

Visual attention is the capacity to concentrate on a specific location of an image. Visual attention requires lots of attention to determine the target. According to the researchers, visual attention is defined as using a cognitive process that helps to mediate the range of relevant and clarifying out irrelevant information from cluttered visual scenes (Treue and Katzner, 2009) — measuring optical attention links to measuring attention. On the other hand, other researchers measured concentration by spatial attention tasks. The standard by enhanced activity in retinol topic cortical areas has represented the location of the motivate attention. The results show that stimuli at attended locations are processed faster and more accurate compared to stimuli at unattended locations (Treue and Katzner, 2009).

In 1980, Anne Treisman and Garry Gelade developed an attention theory called feature integration theory which suggests reaction times (RT) increased linearly throughout a set of sizes upon examining the conjunction of two features. Still, it remained unchanged by set size upon examining for a single element. (Lynn and Robertson, 2005). This research depends on the ratio of the distractors range to target and attention, according to the previous experiment when there was small distracters range (distractors similar to each other) and the goal significantly different than all the other distractors. This is how the search would be faster then. When there are tremendous differences between the distractors, the destination is more difficult to determine (Avraham et al., 2008). Also, Treisman and Garry Gelade suggest that the time increased linearly with display size in the conjunction condition. The simple feature target required one feature (e.g., yellow or letter) to recognize the goal. In this regard, the distractors are similar to each other, and the goal is less identical to the distractors. The target can be detected with no attention limits. According to the previous studies, lots of researchers suggest that “if a target can be separated from distractors by a single line in a feature space, the search will be easy. On the contrary to this, the search will be difficult to accomplish” (Arguin and Saumier, 2000; Bauer et al., 1996; Nakayama and Martini, 2011; Vighneshvel and Arun, 2013).

Conjunction feature required several different characteristics (e.g., blue small letter in the background of red and blue big and small letters). It has a group of various distractors that has a standard feature with the target. Conjunction feature needs focal attention and a significant number of search features in the display (set size) for the recognition of the goal. Also, it needs a full serial scan of all the distractors to find the target. On the other hand, Wolfe and Horowitz suggest that when the number of distractions increases, the time to find a goal increased too.

Aim of the Experiment

The experiment aims to test the time that observes in finding single or conjunction feature targets from several different distractors and the requirement of attention limits. Based on previous literature, the hypothesis suggests RTs for simple feature search will remain consistent as display size increases. In contrast, for the conjunction feature search, the RTs will increase as display size increases.

Method to Conduct the Experiment

Participants

There were 80 participant students from the University of Bradford, and they were from the Cognitive Psychology class.

Design

The design of the experiment was within-subjects design repeated measure (one way ANOVA). The dependent variables are the reaction time taken to find the target and the independent variable is the number of distractors increasing in each display size. The experiment is directed at the participant using the university lab.

Materials

The participant used the lab for experimenting. The file is called TRIESMAN. ES2 FILE in canvas was accompanied by the messages that the file asked. There were two states to analyze simple and conjunction, and each one has four levels having (display size 1, 5, 15 and 30). There were 24 trials for each search state, 12 had the target-present, and 12 had the target-absent. Besides, the trials of different display sizes existed randomly.

Procedure

All the participants take place in cognitive psychology. The structure had been explained to the participant. The experiment takes around 3-4 minutes. Before the trails began, the participant gave a specific target. The target might be a letter or colour, for example, blue letter, brown or green letter O or green letter N. The participant presses the “Y” key if the target is on the screen and presses the “N” key if the goal is not on the screen. The participant presses “spacebar “to the next step. They had been told if their answer is correct or incorrect.

Results

The table displays the means and the slandered deviation for simple feature test:

This table shows the means and standard deviation for simple features. The pattern of methods and SD suggests that participants have convergent results for responding to the visual task. This indicates that participants respond more similarly to this group. The SDS is quite small, implying that there is no significant variance in the group. Even though there is a slight variance, Mauchly’s test of sphericity is non-significant (F (3,23) =.52, p>0.05).

The table displays the means and the slandered deviation for conjunction feature test:

The table shows the means and standard division for conjunction features. There is a big difference in means and SD between variables, the highest SD is (55.96) for conjunction _30, and lowest SD is (35.80) for combination _1. There is a noticeable increase in the means and SD, and the SD is a high number, which suggests that there is too much variance in each group.

There was a significant difference between the 1,5,15 and 30 conjunction features (F(2.58,203.9) = 37451.05, p<0.01 ). Pairwise comparison table reveals that the display size 1 was faster reaction time than display size 2,3and 4 (p<0.01), display size 2 was faster reaction time than display size 3 and 4 (p<0.01) and display size 3 was faster than display size 4 (p<0.01).

Discussion

According to the previous results, this experiment had supported the Treisman and Gelade feature integration theory. There are two features in the visual research experiment; the simple feature which had been identified rapidly according to the results. The means were similar, and the SD was low, that suggests that the distractors were identical, and the reaction time was fast. Therefore, the conjunction feature took a long time to identify. According to the results, the means and SD numbers were profoundly different between each variable, and that suggests the target was difficult to determine. It took long RT and required lots of attention. This experiment had matched and supported the previous literature that conjunction feature requests a longer time to examine than a simple function. Also, the results matched my hypothesis, which implies that the conjunction has more complicated distractors and needs more attention and RT to identify the targets.

There are some methodological problems in the experiment. One of the issues is the less number of the participant. There were less than 100 participants who had the effect of less accurate results. Some students might have attention and focus problems that day, and others might have pressed the wrong key while experimenting. These factors had the potential to impact the results accompanied by difficulty in finding significant relationships from the data. Large sample size in statistical tests helps to confirm a representative distribution of the population.

The experiment was aimed to test the visual attention, and the tutors must situate participants in specific situations ensuring that they are fully focused and have close attention during the experiment. Another experiment that helps to understand visual processing is guided search theory proposed in 1989 by a cognitive psychologist called Jeremy M. Wolfe, Susan L. Franzel, and Kyle R. Cave. It consists of 2 stages and focuses searched sets of items for targets stated by conjunctions of colour and form, colour and orientation, or colour and size. The reaction time and the set size were measured resultantly in the experiment.

References

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