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The effect of betel nut chewing on contour and object masking.
Ho, Ming-Chou; Wang, Chin-Kun.
Afiliação
  • Ho MC; Department of Psychology, Chung-Shan Medical University, No. 110, Sec. 1, Chien-Kuo N. Road, Taichung 402, Taiwan. mingchou@csmu.edu.tw
Atten Percept Psychophys ; 73(8): 2583-93, 2011 Nov.
Article em En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-21976155
ABSTRACT
The betel nut is a common stimulant in many Asian countries. We employed the masking task developed by Enns and Di Lollo (Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4, 345-352, 1997) to investigate the effects of betel nuts on sensory and attentional processing. In the masking task, participants needed to identify a target that was masked by either a contour mask or an object mask. Sensory processing was assessed by examining target identification in the contour mask condition when the target was presented only centrally, whereas attentional processing was assessed by examining target identification in the object mask condition when the target was presented randomly in either a central or a parafoveal location. The results showed that chewing betel nut and chewing gum produced significant contour masking with a large effect size, similar to the pure control condition, in which participants chewed nothing, and the placebo control condition, in which what participants chewed was disguised. This suggests that neither betel nut nor gum affects sensory processing. Alternatively, betel nut chewing could produce a reduction in object masking for the habitual chewers and the nonchewers, suggesting an effect of betel nut on attentional processing. This concentrated attention was also observed in the placebo control condition; thus, it cannot be exclusively driven by the expectation effect. Also, chewing per se reduced the attentional distribution foveally.
Assuntos

Texto completo: 1 Base de dados: MEDLINE Assunto principal: Orientação / Mascaramento Perceptivo / Areca / Atenção / Discriminação Psicológica / Percepção de Forma Idioma: En Ano de publicação: 2011 Tipo de documento: Article

Texto completo: 1 Base de dados: MEDLINE Assunto principal: Orientação / Mascaramento Perceptivo / Areca / Atenção / Discriminação Psicológica / Percepção de Forma Idioma: En Ano de publicação: 2011 Tipo de documento: Article