Object-specific preview benefit enhanced during explicit Multiple Object Tracking

OF THE THESIS OBJECT-SPECIFIC PRIMING BENEFIT ENHANCED DURING EXPLICIT MULTIPLE OBJECT TRACKING By HARRY HAROUTIOUN HALADJIAN Thesis Director: Dr. Zenon W. Pylyshyn The referential link between an external object and its corresponding mental representation has yet to be clearly defined. Visual indexes are primitive mechanisms that act as pointers to objects in a visual scene and can be linked to descriptive mental representations. These representations, or “object files”, have been demonstrated by object-specific preview benefits (OSPB), where a priming effect for object identity travels with the object in which information initially appeared. The present study explores OPSB effects during Multiple Object Tracking (MOT) to investigate the formation of object representations in a dynamic environment. All experiments reported used the MOT framework, where four identical circles moved unpredictably and independently on a computer screen. In Experiment 1, either one or two preview letters appeared briefly inside the circles during movement. At the end of the trial, one test letter appeared inside a circle and observers indicated whether or not the test letter matched any of the preview letters. Inter-stimulus intervals (ISI) between the preview and test letters