tesis doctoral - e-Spacio - Uned

311
Apéndice II
Our results contradict the opinion of some authors who suggest that the term
"preattentive" has outlived its usefulness (Cave & Batty, 2006; Mack & Rock, 1998; Nakayama
& Joseph, 1998; Palmer, 1999). Our position is similar to that of Wolfe, Treisman & Horowitz
(2003). They supported that certain uses of "preattentive" should be avoided but, at the same
time, argued against abandoning the concept altogether. What are these dispensable meanings
of preattentive? At least, three assumptions about preattentive processing should be ruled out:
1. The relationship between preattentive and attentive processes are univocal and
sequential
2. Preattentive processing depends on a preattentive brain
3. Preattentive processing can directly control behaviour
Contrary to these assumptions, Wolfe, Treisman & Horowitz (2003) suggest that no part
of the brain is exclusively preattentive. The same anatomical areas from V1 to higher visual
areas in both ventral and dorsal pathways can participate in a feed-forward preattentive
processing of visual scene and then in a selective attentional proccesing through subsequent
reentry (Ahissar y Hochstein, 2002, 2004); Di Lollo, Enns y Rensink, 2000).
According to this new view, our results point out the critical importance of the temporal
course of preattentive processing. Visual representations generated by preattentive proccesing
may influences selective attention not only in a facilitatory way but also in an inhibitory one
depending of the temporal course of processing without attention.
4.2. EXPERIMENTAL PHASE II: Experiments 5-6
PARTICIPANTS
A total of forty four undergraduate students from the UNED participated in the
experiments, thirty four women and ten men, and received credits for their participation (ages
20-59, mean = 33.7, SD = 9.9). They all had normal or corrected-to-normal vision and one of
them was left-handed.