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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 5, 2026

Methods for Presenting Real-world Objects Under Controlled Laboratory Conditions

Methods for Presenting Real-world Objects Under Controlled Laboratory Conditions

Published on: June 21, 2019

A new object captures attention--but only when you know which objects are old.

¹Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Kent Ridge Crescent, Singapore, 119260. fkchua@nus.edu.sg

Attention, Perception & Psychophysics

|January 26, 2011

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Sudden visual onsets capture attention by updating short-term memory. However, this effect depends on observers encoding the initial display; without it, new objects fail to attract attention.

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Visual Perception

Background:

The new object hypothesis posits that sudden onsets capture attention due to visual short-term memory updating.
Previous research demonstrated that objects inserted without onset transients do not capture attention.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the role of initial display encoding in the new object hypothesis.
To determine if the failure of new objects to capture attention in prior studies was due to a lack of display encoding.

Main Methods:

Three experiments were conducted using a modified display procedure.
The procedure allowed object insertion without onset transients, manipulating the ease of initial display encoding.

Main Results:

When initial display encoding was possible, newly introduced objects successfully captured attention.
When initial display encoding was difficult or impossible, newly introduced objects failed to capture attention.

Conclusions:

The new object hypothesis is supported, but contingent on successful encoding of the visual display.
Attention capture by new objects is dependent on the ability to distinguish them from pre-existing information in visual short-term memory.