Rachel Pitman¹ (), Daryl Wilson¹; ¹Queen's University

Despite the dynamic nature of real-world environments, previous research on change detection has primarily used static stimuli. However, research exploring the impact of motion on attention (Suchow & Alvarez, 2011) and memory (Blalock et al., 2014; Chung et al., 2023), two necessary components for successful change detection, suggests that motion can impair both processes. Consequently, the objective of the present experiment was to determine whether motion impairs change detection, as well as whether different motion types (i.e., synchronous and asynchronous) have different effects on detection accuracy. Additionally, we sought to determine whether perceptual load moderates the impact of motion. To address these objectives, we conducted a gradual change blindness experiment in which participants were presented with task-relevant (colourful, randomly-oriented isosceles triangles) and task-irrelevant (gray circles) stimuli that were either stationary, moving synchronously, or moving asynchronously. In each trial, one task-relevant stimulus gradually changed while participants attempted to identify the change target. Change detection was examined as a function of Change Type (Color, Orientation), Motion Type (Stationary, Synchronous, Asynchronous), and Load (3, 6, 9, 12 task-relevant stimuli). Interestingly, results showed that Motion Type significantly affected change detection for orientation changes, but not for color changes. Within the Orientation condition, detection accuracy was highest in the Stationary condition, lower in the Synchronous condition, and lowest in the Asynchronous condition. As hypothesized, we observed an interaction between Load and Motion in the Orientation condition, such that the effects of motion were absent when load was low (Load = 3), but emerged at higher loads (Load = 6, 9, 12). It was concluded that motion only impaired orientation change detection because, unlike color, the inherent movement of the orientation changes were masked by the Synchronous and Asynchronous movement.