Neuropsychological evidence for a competitive bias against contracting stimuli

Two experiments examined extinction to stimuli presented either with contracting or expanding motion. Experiment 1 used solid shapes which either increased or decreased in size rapidly, consistent with looming motion. Experiment 2 employed random dots so that stimulus size was not confounded with type of motion. In both experiments extinction was modulated by the type of motion presented, with extinction most evident when a contracting object was in the weaker visual field. In addition, in Experiment 2 there was evidence for grouping modulating extinction, when there were looming stimuli in both fields. The results suggest that looming motion is a powerful determinant of stimulus salience in selective attention.