This project concerns the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying the analysis of visual scenes. The aim is to uncover how the information initially gathered by the visual system is subsequently organized for use in thinking or acting. To interact appropriately with the visual world one needs to keep track of specific objects over time, even if they move or are blocked from view. The research focuses on the process whereby early visual information is organized into short term memory representations for objects (hereafter termed individuation). The studies test the assumption that the phenomena of repetition blindness and the attentional blink occur during individuation and so can be used as tools to study the individuation process. Repetition blindness is the failure to see or report the second occurrence of an item in a briefly-presented list. One set of studies tests the assumption that repetition blindness reflects a constraint on establishment of short-term memory representations: two separate memory representations cannot be established for identical objects during a short period of time. The attentional blink is the finding that the processing of an item hinders the processing of subsequent items for as long as a half-second. Several studies test the view that the attentional blink occurs because establishing a memory representation for the first item uses the limited resources available for individuation and thereby hinders the processing of subsequent items. The results of the studies will add to our understanding of how people identify, represent, and interact with objects in the visual world.
