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    The interplay between attention, working memory, and linked neural signatures in visual tracking and inhibition

    Panesar, Gurmukh Singh (2021) The interplay between attention, working memory, and linked neural signatures in visual tracking and inhibition. PhD thesis, Birkbeck, University of London.

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    Abstract

    The aims of this thesis began with investigating whether inattentional blindness was associated with a propensity for lower sensitivity to semantic violations in image textures. Inattentional blindness has recently been investigated through methods such as manipulation of low-level image statistics in artificial textures. However, work in this thesis aimed to transition such research into more natural contexts. Whilst a variety of methods were explored, results specifically related to inattentional blindness and working memory capacity remained inconclusive. Therefore, work in this thesis moved from investigating differences across inattentional blindness groups to how potential strategies of object tracking and relationships to working memory capacity can influence tracking performance. Results from the first half of this thesis provide novel insights into methods that can help to investigate sensitivity to distractors in a naturalistic setting, with both behavioural and neural data. This shift away from investigating inattentional blindness to patterns of tracking across working memory capacity also coincided with a shift to linear mixed effects modelling. This allowed the thesis to remove any artificial grouping through median scores of capacities, and instead focus more on sensitivity across the spectrum. Over five tracking studies, a number of findings suggest of differences across working memory capacity can compensate in performance for such capacity limitations. Findings also suggest that participants, regardless of capacity, employ a post-probe approximation estimation when tracking targets over a trial gap, as opposed to active tracking. Results from the tracking studies emphasise the differing approaches that individuals with varying working memory employ when tracking multiple and single objects.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Thesis
    Copyright Holders: The copyright of this thesis rests with the author, who asserts his/her right to be known as such according to the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. No dealing with the thesis contrary to the copyright or moral rights of the author is permitted.
    Depositing User: Acquisitions And Metadata
    Date Deposited: 10 Sep 2021 13:28
    Last Modified: 01 Nov 2023 14:41
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/45938
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.18743/PUB.00045938

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