Attention and Feature Integration: Illusory Conjunctions in a Patient with a Parietal Lobe Lesion

Abstract

This article explores the relation between spatial attention and feature integration in a parietal patient. When the patient had to focus her attention in the middle of the visual field by performing a digit task, she committed a much larger number of illusory conjunctions on the side contralateral to her lesion than on the side ipsilateral to her lesion. When the digit task was eliminated, thereby relaxing the requirement of focused attention, the number of illusory conjunctions on the contralateral side was dramatically reduced. These results indicate that the spatial attention mechanism plays a central role in feature integration.