Dividing attention between form and motion during transparent surface perception

Attending to objects implies the concurrent process of features that are analyzed in different visual subsystems or domains. Previous works have shown that attention cannot be simultaneously directed to the components of motion present in two transparent surfaces [M. Valdés et al., Cognition 66 (1998) B13–B23], even though they occupy overlapping regions of space. In this paper, possible across-domain effects in object-based attention were examined using a conjunction of form and motion in transparent superimposed surfaces. After directing attention to one surface, different combinations of motion and form judgements were performed. If both attributes belonged to the same surface, no interference was found. If the two judgements concerned features from different surfaces, a large performance cost was present for the attribute belonging to the uncued surface. The fact that these effects cut across feature domains supports the integrated competition hypothesis [J. Duncan, Attention and Performance XVI, The MIT Press, 1996, pp. 549–578].