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  1. Home
  3. The Mind's Average: Unseen, Internally Generated Ensemble Representations Can Guide Visual Attention.
  1. Home
  3. The Mind's Average: Unseen, Internally Generated Ensemble Representations Can Guide Visual Attention.

Related Experiment Video

Investigating the Deployment of Visual Attention Before Accurate and Averaging Saccades via Eye Tracking and Assessment of Visual Sensitivity
06:46

Investigating the Deployment of Visual Attention Before Accurate and Averaging Saccades via Eye Tracking and Assessment of Visual Sensitivity

Published on: March 18, 2019

The mind's average: Unseen, internally generated ensemble representations can guide visual attention.

Kristina Knox1,2, Jonathan S Cant3, Jay Pratt4

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, ON, M5S 3G3, Canada. kristina.knox@mail.utoronto.ca.

Attention, Perception & Psychophysics
|June 9, 2026

View abstract on PubMed

Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Internally generated statistical representations, known as ensemble representations, can guide spatial attention. The strength of these ensemble representations influences whether attention is effectively deployed, showing a reciprocal interaction between attention and ensemble processing.

Keywords:
Attention and perceptionEnsemble perceptionSpatial attention

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Visual Perception

Background:

  • Attention influences ensemble processing, which creates statistical summaries of visual scenes.
  • The reciprocal influence of ensemble representations on attention remains largely unexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether internally generated ensemble representations can influence the deployment of spatial attention.
  • To determine if the strength of ensemble representations modulates attentional guidance.

Main Methods:

  • Two experiments used a modified attentional cueing paradigm with an ensemble task.
  • Participants viewed arrays of ovals and performed either an ensemble or probe task.
  • Varying the proportion of ensemble task trials and the relationship of foil objects to the ensemble size manipulated representation strength.

Main Results:

  • Attentional guidance was observed when the foil object was outside the ensemble size range and ensemble task trials were frequent (Experiment 1).
  • No attentional guidance was found when ensemble task trials were infrequent, suggesting weaker internal representations (Experiment 2).

Conclusions:

  • Ensemble representations can actively influence the deployment of spatial attention.
  • The cognitive mechanisms of ensemble processing and spatial attention exhibit a reciprocal interaction.