How Attention Works on the Periphery of the Field of Vision

Most people are not even aware that they only see clearly in a small part of their field of vision. CITEC researcher Dr. Katharina Weiß studies how people perceive objects at the edge of their visual field – and how attention is controlled in doing so.

Dr. Katharina Weiß studies how the interaction of the eyes and the brain makes it possible to observe things even at the distant periphery of the visual field.

How do we actually see things that are not at the center of our visual field? And how do we shift our spatial attention to the outermost edge of our visual field? “There’s only a small area in which we see really clearly,” says Dr. Katharina Weiß, from the Cluster of Excellence CITEC. Since April 2019, the psychologist has been a member of the Scientific Board of CITEC, an academic institution at Bielefeld University.

The fovea is the area of the eye where people see with the most visual acuity. It is located at the center of the so-called “yellow spot” in the eye. When people look at an object, they move their body, their head, and their eyes in such a way that the rays of light fall into this area of the eye. This allows for the object to be seen with high visual acuity. Objects outside of this area of acuity in visual field are perceived as rough and blurry – unless something interesting happens there that calls attention to it. This, in turn, improves information processing in this area.

Most People Are Not Aware That They Do Not See Everything Clearly

Because the brain is so good at integrating impressions, most people do not even know that much of what they see is not clear, but rather blurry. “Visual acuity drops very quickly moving from the outside of the fovea to outermost edge of the field of vision,” explains the postdoctoral researcher. “At an angle of 20 degrees, for instance, visual acuity is only about a tenth of the sharpness in the fovea.”

Dr. Weiß works together with Professor Dr. Werner Schneider on researching the following question: to what extent are people able to attend to what is going on at the outermost edge of their field of vision when something interesting happens – and while their gaze is still focused on another object? Their project titled “Visual Attention and Prediction in the Far Periphery” was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) for a period of three years, and will run through August 2019.

“When the conditions are right, we are good at recognizing something from out of the corner of our eye,” says Weiß. An example of this is seeing a single letter in the visual periphery. This works best, though, if there is only one letter there. “If there are multiple letters there in the visual periphery, we then have difficulty in recognizing an individual letter.” Most people also do well when it comes to perceiving changes, such as when a single letter suddenly appears or if something new pops up in their visual field.

Working on How Attention is Controlled

Study participants look straight ahead while something happens on the periphery of their field of vision. Photo: CITEC/Bielefeld UniversityDr. Weiß also investigates how attention is controlled at the moment in which the eyes remain focused and do not wander off to the periphery where something interesting is happening. “A typical situation for this is when you meet someone at a conference and you can’t remember their name,” she says. “You then try to read the name on their nametag by peeking out the corner of your eye while still maintaining eye contact with that person.” In the lab, study participants are thus instructed to keep their gaze on an plus sign or a point, while in the meantime a symbol appears  on the outermost edge of their visual field.

In order to show objects at the outermost edge of the field of vision (the so-called “far periphery”), the study participants are seated in front of a large screen instead of a much smaller computer screen. Weiß was able to demonstrate that the positive effects of attention on information processing can also be seen at the far periphery of the field of vision. This is particularly interesting given that this area cannot be accessed with eye movements: the strong correlation that exists between attention and eye movements might have thus implied that there would therefore be no positive effects of attention to be found in the far periphery.

In her work, psychologist Dr. Weiß is conducting basic research. There are, however, many potential areas of application for her findings. “To this point, I’m thinking about smart technology in particular,” says Weiß. If it is known how exactly to control attention at the distant periphery of the visual field, it might become easier, for instance, to help the elderly manage their lives at home.

Dr. Katharina Weiß, Bielefeld University
Cluster of Excellence CITEC / “Neurocognitive Psychology” research group
Telephone: +49 521 106-4504
Email: katharina.weiß

Written by: Maria Berentzen