Abstract: Attention plays an important regulatory role in the visual feature binding. There are two possibilities that attention binds the suitable features together. Firstly, through paying attention to spatial location, features on the same location are bound. Namely, spatial location serves as binding clues. Secondly, attention binds different features according to temporal synchronization of features from the same object. Namely, binding is based on the temporal synchronization or adjacency. This study explored the mechanism of attention in feature binding which base on temporal synchronization or spatial location. Two paradigms, rapid serial visual presentation(RSVP) and feature dissociation were used to artificially mimic a condition of temporal synchronization. Three experiments were designed in this study. Experiment 1 and experiment 2 used RSVP paradigm, and they held two experiment conditions, fixing presentation and changing presentation. In former condition, 4 distractors and 1 target were rapidly presented on the location of fixation point in turn, and then to observe temporal binding effects on the same location. In latter condition, distractors and target appeared alternately above and below fixation point, and then to explore temporal binding effects on different location. Dependent variables are illusory conjunction(IC) of target's color. The main results are as follows: no matter what the distance between target and distractors, in fixing presentation conditions, color IC were more likely to take place in temporal adjacent events, t(34)=81.23，P＜.0001；In changing presentation conditions, color IC were more from the same location events, t(34)=－17.29，P＜0.0001，which revealed that features from the same location were more easily to combine than temporal adjacent features, F(1,34)＝142.1，P＜.001. Experiment 3 using feature dissociation paradigm, artificially separated attributes(letter and frame color) of objects on different location. There were three temporal synchronization conditions. The first one is the control condition, in which two letters and color frames simultaneously presented on different location. On this condition, the numbers of IC from frame color and letter are baseline. The second condition is temporal synchronization of different location, in which color frame in one position appeared together with letter in another position. The third condition is temporal synchronization of the same location, in which letters and color frame in the same location appeared in the meantime. The experiment will examine the difference of IC among three conditions. If the second IC numbers are higher than baseline level, but the third was lower, temporal synchronization theory will be proved. The result showed that there was a significant difference of IC among three conditions, F(2,58)＝25.103，P＜.0001. Temporal synchronization on different location and same location were both apparently higher than baseline level(P＜.0001), but difference of temporal synchronization between different location and same location was not significant(P＞.05). Although there was IC on second condition which seemed showing temporal synchronization, IC also appeared on the third condition. Both of ICs were higher than baseline and the difference between two types of IC was not significant. It shows that temporal synchronization assumption was not be proved. In conclusions: 1) When features were located in same spatial position, temporal adjacent features tended to be bound; Temporal adjacent features located in different position could not be bound. 2) When the distance between objects on different locations decreased, the feature binding was still based on same location instead of temporal synchronization. 3) There were more ICs on both temporal synchronization conditions of features on same and different locations, which shows no evidence to support temporal synchronization theory.

Key words: feature binding, illusory conjunction, temporal synchronization, spatial location

摘要： 通过操纵客体呈现的空间位置和时间顺序，来考察视觉特征捆绑是基于相同空间位置线索还是基于时间邻近线索。在两个实验中，给被试在固定的注视点位置（固定呈现条件）或在注视点上/下位置（变换呈现条件）快速地系列呈现刺激，记录靶子前后各两个时间位置（-2、-1、+1、+2）的错觉性结合（IC）率。结果发现，在固定呈现条件下，IC更多地出现在-1和+1的时间位置上；而在变换呈现条件下，错觉性结合更多地出现在-2和+2时间位置上。为了进一步排除特定实验范式的影响，在实验3中，我们采用特征分离范式，使被分离的刺激特征同时呈现在相同（相同位置同步）或不同（不同位置同步）的空间位置上。结果表明，这两种条件下的IC率无显著差异，这说明错觉性结合不受时间同步模式的影响。综上所述，来自三个实验的结果表明，时间范围内的特征捆绑机制是按空间位置，而不是按时间邻近，线索进行的：若特征的空间位置相同，时间邻近的特征才被捆绑起来；若空间位置不同，即使时间邻近的特征也不能被捆绑到一起。

关键词: 特征捆绑, 错觉性结合, 时间同步, 空间位置