Full Citation

Mitroff, S. R. & Scholl, B. J. (2004). Seeing the disappearance of unseen objects. Perception, 33, 12-67 - 1273.

Introduction

The visual system must parse and group the incoming input into discrete units, but it has proven difficult to determine when and how this occurs. Here you can view demonstrations of how we have shown that both object and group representations can be formed, disrupted, and updated without awareness. We did so using the phenomenon of motion-induced blindness (MIB), wherein salient and attended objects will fluctuate into and out of conscious awareness when superimposed onto certain global moving patterns.

 

If you are using a Macintosh computer, you can experience the phenomenon by downloading a demo application.  
 

 
Downloadable Macintosh Application

This application is custom software written with help from the VisionShell graphics libraries.
If you have any questions, please contact Steve Mitroff.

Note
To use this application, you must be using a Macintosh computer running OS 9 either natively, or via 'Classic' emulation from OS X.

Instructions for Using Application
1. Download and read these instructions carefully.
2. Download the application by clicking here.
3. Decompress the application archive with a tool such as Stuffit Expander.
4. Double-click the resulting application (which will be called "MIB_OnlineParsing Application").
5. Follow the instructions to experience the effects!

Note
If you are unable to run this demonstration for any reason (e.g., you are not running on a MAC in OS 9), but would like to experience these effects, please contact Steve Mitroff for more information.

More Demonstrations

You can see more MIB related demonstrations from our lab by clicking here . These include Quicktime demos too.
You can also see demonstrations from other ongoing projects in our lab by clicking here .