Peripheral awareness correlates with performance in the random dot motion task

Poster Session F - Tuesday, April 16, 2024, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Sheraton Hall ABC

Kenneth Shinozuka^1,2 (kenneth.shinozuka@psych.ox.ac.uk), Sama Alsewaidi³, Maycee Lue McClure³, Milton Lim⁴, Chelsey Fasano⁵, Alfredo Spagna³; ¹Centre for Eudaimonia and Human Flourishing, University of Oxford, ²Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, ³Department of Psychology, Columbia University in the City of New York, ⁴Department of Statistics, Columbia University in the City of New York, ⁵Teachers College, Columbia University in the City of New York

Introduction: The random dot motion ("Dots") task is a well-established psychophysical paradigm for determining sensitivity to the orientation of moving stimuli in the *center* of their visual field. We wanted to determine whether performance in the Dots task predicts performance in a task assessing peripheral awareness, i.e. sensitivity to the orientation of objects in the *periphery* of the visual field. Methods: We designed a novel task in which participants were asked to assess the overall orientation of lines in a visual display. In all trials, less than 50% of the central lines were coherently oriented at one angle, and greater than 50% of the peripheral lines were coherently oriented at a different angle; hence, the correct response was always the dominant orientation of peripheral lines. From trial to trial, we modulated the proportion of coherently oriented central and peripheral lines, as well as the ratio of central to peripheral lines. We recruited 61 volunteers to complete both this task ("Lines") and the Dots task, 49 of whom we included in our analyses. Results: As expected, accuracy significantly decreased as the proportion of coherently oriented central lines increased. Furthermore, participants who performed well in the Dots task also tended to provide accurate responses in the Lines task. That is, there was no significant difference between the correlation of difficulty & accuracy in the Lines task and the correlation of difficulty & accuracy in the Dots task. Conclusions: Perceptual sensitivity to stimuli in the center of the visual field predicts peripheral awareness.

Topic Area: PERCEPTION & ACTION: Vision