COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY, 2002, 19 (4), 361–380

TRANSIENT BINDING BY TIME:

NEUROPSY CHOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FROM
ANTI-EXTINCTION

Glyn W. Humphreys and M. Jane Riddoch

University of Birmingham, UK

Gudrun Nys
University of Utrecht, The Netherlands

Dietmar Heinke
University of Birmingham, UK

Anti-extinction occurs when there is poor report of a single stimulus presented on the contralesional
side of space, but better report of the same item when it occurs concurrently with a stimulus on the
ipsilesional side (Goodrich & Ward, 1997). We report a series of experiments that examine the factors
that lead to anti-extinction in a patient GK, who has bilateral parietal lesions but more impaired identi-
fication of left-side stimuli. We show a pattern of anti-extinction when stimuli are briefly presented,
which is followed by an extinction effect when stimuli are left for longer in the visual field. In Experi-
ments 1 and 2 we present evidence that the anti-extinction effects are determined by stimuli onsetting
together, and it is not apparent when stimuli are defined by offsets. In Experiments 3 and 4 we report
that performance is not strongly affected by whether the same or different tasks are performed on the
ipsi- and contralesional stimuli, and the anti-extinction effect also survives trials where eye movements
are made to right-side stimuli. Experiment 5 provides evidence that anti-extinction is due to temporal
grouping between stimuli, rather than to increased arousal or cueing attention to the contralesional side.
Experiment 6 demonstrates that anti-extinction dissociates from GK’s conscious perception of when
contra- and ipsilesional stimuli occur together. We interpret the data as indicating that there is uncon-
scious and transient temporal binding in vision.

A basic question confronting vision scientists is
how a coherent visual world can be coded following
its initial decomposition by the brain into separable
dimensions. One answer to this question, suggested
by neurophysiological data on synchronised neural
firing, is that the different features of an object are
bound by time (e.g., Eckhorn, 1999; Singer &
Gray, 1995). Temporal binding can take place if
cells responding to features from one object are syn-
chronised and fire at a different time from cells
responding to other objects. Consistent with this
account, there can be time-locked firing of cells
when stimulus elements group but de-synchronised
firing when elements do not group (Singer & Gray,
1995). There is also some behavioural evidence for
temporal synchronisation in the input being impor-
tant for feature binding in humans (Elliott & Mul-
ler, 1998; Fahle, 1993). For instance, Elliott and

Requests for reprints should be addressed to Glyn W. Humphreys, Behavioural Brain Sciences, School of Psychology, University
of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK. (Email: g.w.humphreys@bham.ac.uk).
We thank GK for his unending good humour and patience in carrying out this work. The research was supported by grants from
the Medical Research Council (UK) and the European Union (Basic Research Action).

Ó 2002 Psychology Press Ltd 361

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/pp/02643294.html DOI:10.1080/02643290143000222
HUMPHREYS ET AL.
Muller reported that detection of a target formed by
grouped elements was facilitated if the positions of
the elements were pre-cued by features that
appeared synchronously, relative to when the pre-
cued features were presented asynchronously. This
facilitation occurred even when observers could not
detect when pre-cue features appeared synchro-
nously. In this paper we present converging neuro-
psychological evidence for unconscious, time-
based binding of visual elements, based on the
phenomenon of “anti-extinction” (Goodrich &
Ward, 1997).
Many patients manifest “extinction” following a
brain lesion: A contralesional stimulus can be
reported when presented in isolation but it is not
reported when an ipsilesional stimulus is exposed at
the same time (Karnath, 1988). This is frequently
attributed to a spatial bias in visual selection due to
the brain lesion, which either disrupts input into
the selection process or unbalances the selection
process itself (Duncan, Humphreys, & Ward,
1997). The bias in selection results in ipsilesional
stimuli winning the competition for selection when
ipsi- and contralesional items appear simulta-
neously (see Heinke & Humphreys, in press;
Mozer & Behrmann, 1990, for simulations). The
phenomenon of “anti-extinction” is the opposite of
this. Reported in only one previous paper by Good-
rich and Ward (1997), anti-extinction occurs when
a patient is unable to discriminate a contralesional
stimulus presented in isolation but is able to report
the same stimulus when an ipsilesional item is
exposed simultaneously. Goodrich and Ward
argued that anti-extinction came about due to a
form of response linkage between the stimuli. They
suggested that a single contralesional stimulus
alone may not have been sufficient to activate a
response. However, the presence of an ipsilesional
stimulus simultaneously primed the same response
to the contralesional item, so that responses could
then be made to both items. According to Good-
rich and Ward, this response priming benefit would
occur when (1) the contra- and ipsilesional task are
similar to each other, and (2) the same response
mechanisms are shared. Consistent with this they
found that anti-extinction was reduced when their
patient made different responses to the contra- and
362 COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY , 2002, 19 (4)
ipsilesional stimuli (e.g., identify the contralesional
item and detect the presence of the ipsilesional
one), relative to when identical responses were
made to both (identify both items). Nevertheless,
we note that trends for anti-extinction were present
in all cases. We test the effects of having the same
and different responses in Experiment 3 here, but
fail to find significant effects. Instead we provide
evidence that anti-extinction can be due to tran-
sient, temporal grouping between contra- and
ipsilesional items, due to the stimuli having a com-
mon onset. The phenomenon provides evidence for
time-based binding in human vision.
We report six experiments conducted on GK, a
patient with bilateral parietal lesions following two
consecutive strokes. Although GK has bilateral
lesions, he shows a strong spatial bias in visual selec-
tion, manifesting neglect on many clinical tasks
and, with stimuli presented for relatively long
durations, there is extinction for items on his left
(e.g., Boutsen & Humphreys, 2000; Gilchrist,
Humphreys, & Riddoch, 1996; Humphreys,
1998). Despite extinction occurring with long
exposures, we show here that there is anti-
extinction when stimuli are exposed more briefly.
Experiment 1 demonstrates the different time
courses of the two effects, with anti-extinction
being replaced by extinction as the time post-onset
increases. Experiment 2 reveals that common
onsets of contra- and ipsilesional stimuli may be
necessary for anti-extinction, since the effect did
not occur when the stimuli had common offsets.
Experiment 3 shows that the effect occurred irre-
spective of whether the same task was carried out on
the contra- and ipsilesional items, and Experiment
4 demonstrates that anti-extinction survives on tri-
als on which an eye movement is made to the
ipsilesional item. Experiment 5 contrasts an
account of anti-extinction in terms of temporal
binding with alternatives based on the spread of
spatial attention and on the influence of increased
arousal, and suggests that temporal binding pro-
vides a better explanation. Finally we assessed
whether GK was aware when stimuli onset
together. Experiment 6 evaluated the relation
between anti-extinction and “prior entry,” the ten-
dency of some patients with neglect to judge that an

ipsilesional stimuli precedes a contralesional one
when they are presented simultaneously (Rorden,
Mattingley, Karnath, & Driver, 1997). Report of
briefly presented stimuli was better with simulta-
neous than with staggered presentations, even
though the contralesional stimulus had to be pre-
sented first in order for the stimulus onsets to be
equated phenomenally. Hence GK’s conscious
judgements of temporal order dissociate from the
effects of temporal simultaneity on stimulus report.
There is unconscious binding of visual events by
time, to facilitate perceptual report.
GENERAL METHOD
For Experiments 1–3, 5, and 6, the stimuli were
presented on an Apple MacIntosh computer using
either V-scope (Experiments 1, 3, 5, and 6) or
Psyscope (Experiment 2). For Experiment 4, the
stimuli appeared on an IBM pentium computer
using MEL software. Letters were presented 7 mm
from their centre to fixation, and they were 6 mm x
6 mm drawn in Times Roman font. The viewing
distance was approximately 80 cm.
For Experiment 1 there were four types of dis-
play: blank trials (no letters present), one-left, one-
right, and two-letters (bilateral, one left and one
right). On two-letter displays, letters were never
repeated. Letters were drawn from the set A, B, C,
and D. Each letter appeared randomly to the left or
right of fixation an equal number of times. The dif-
ferent stimulus durations were presented in sepa-
rate trial blocks, with there being 72 trials in one
block: 24 two-letter, 12 one-left, 12 one-right and
24 blank trials. The trials were randomised within
each block. For six stimulus durations there were
four blocks of trials (75, 300, 450, 600, 750, and 900
ms respectively); there were six blocks of trials with
a stimulus duration of 150 ms. The order of the
stimulus durations was randomised. GK sat at a
viewing distance of about 80 cm. Each trial began
with a fixation asterisk for 1500 ms in the centre of
the screen. GK reported when he was fixated.
There followed a blank interval of 150 ms and then
the stimulus display. GK made a verbal letter iden-
tification response (either “nothing” or the identity
COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY , 2002, 19 (4)
TRANSIENT BINDING BY TIME
of one or two letters). The experimenter wrote
down the responses and initiated the next trial by
pressing the space bar.
The procedure for Experiment 2a was the same
except that, prior to the target display, two symmet-
rical figure-of-eight masks appeared along with the
fixation asterisk, each centred 7mm from fixation.
The target letters were L, H, T, or F, which could
be formed by removing contours from the pre-
masks. The durations were the same as for Experi-
ment 1, and there were two blocks of 72 trials for
each duration except 75 ms, for which there were
four trial blocks. Blocks were presented in a random
order. For Experiment 2b, there was no pre-mask
but stimulus displays were followed by a figure-of-
eight post-mask. With this post-mask, the con-
tours of letters (when present) remained in the field
and were added to by the contours of the mask. The
letters were the same as in Experiment 2a, but the
task was changed from letter identification to
detection; GK had to decide whether two, one, or
no letters were presented. There was just one stim-
ulus duration: 150 ms. There were three blocks of
72 trials.
Experiment 3 contained two subexperiments. In
Experiment 3a the letters A, B, C, and D were
again used. There were two task conditions: Same
task (identify the letters) and Different task (iden-
tify any letters on the left and detect any letters on
the right). There were two blocks of 72 trials for
each task condition (24 blank, 24 single-item—one
left or one right—and 24 two-item trials), with the
blocks presented in ABBA order. The stimulus
duration was 150 ms and no masks were employed.
In Experiment 3b the procedure was the same
except that only the letters X and O were used, rep-
licating Goodrich and Ward (1997). On two-item
trials the letters were identical half the time (either
OO or XX) and differed on the remaining trials
(OX or XO), for both the Same and the Different
task conditions.
In Experiment 4, the procedure was the same as
in Experiment 1 except that there were just two
durations: 180 ms (five blocks of 72 trials) and 450
ms (four blocks of 72 trials). The blocks were pre-
sented in random order. Unlike in the other studies,
GK’s eye movements were recorded using an
363
HUMPHREYS ET AL.
ISCAN remote pupil tracker system (resolution
0.3° of visual angle). Prior to each trial block, GK’s
eye movements were calibrated with dynamic stim-
uli (a circle containing a letter that moved from one
location to the next; GK had to identify the letter
present when the circle was stationary).
In Experiment 5, the fixation display was
changed to contain three black figure-of-eight
pre-masks, one at the centre and the other two
each separated by one letter width from the central
mask, in the left and right visual fields respectively.
GK was asked to fixate the central mask. After
1500 ms, contours in the central mask offset to
create a black target letter. Simultaneous with the
offsets in the central pre-mask, 0, 1, or 2 “onset”
target letters were presented in the gaps between
the three pre-masks. The target letters were drawn
at random from the set: L, H, T, and F. In Experi-
ment 5a there were four blocks of 72 trials in which
there were 24 displays with no new onsets, 12 with
one onset letter in the left field, 12 with one onset
letter in the right field, and 24 with two onset let-
ters (one right and one left). In blocks 1 and 4, the
onset letters appeared in red, to enhance their
grouping. In blocks 2 and 3, the onset letters were
black. There was a central offset letter on all trials.
The letter display appeared for 300 ms and GK
was asked to identify all the letters present irre-
spective of their colour or how they were created
(by an offset or onset). In Experiment 5b, the
onset letters were always red and the central letter,
created by the offset of contours from a mask, was
again black. In this experiment, GK was asked just
to identify the black letter. This provided a test of
whether poor report of the central target, in
Experiment 5a, was due to lateral masking from
the onset letters.
Experiment 6 examined two tasks: report of the
temporal order of red and green letters and report of
the colours of the letters present. For each task a
single block of trials contained three different time
relations between the stimuli when two letters were
present. In one block, the letters either (1) appeared
simultaneously or (2) the left preceded the right by
450 ms or (3) the right preceded the left by 450 ms.
In the other block the stimuli again appeared simul-
taneously or either (1) the left led the right by 720
364 COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY , 2002, 19 (4)
ms or (2) the right led the left by 720 ms. In the
temporal judgement task, only displays with two
letters were presented and there were 24 trials for
each of the sequential exposures and 48 trials with
simultaneous presentations. The left and right let-
ters always differed in colour and they were each red
on half the trials and green on the remaining. In the
colour identification task, the two-letter trials were
accompanied by 24 one-left and 24 one-right letter
trials, with the single target letter being red on half
the trials and green on the other. The blocks with a
450 ms stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) were run
in one session and the blocks with a 720 ms SOA
were run in another. Within each session there were
two blocks for each task (temporal order judgement
and colour identification), presented in an ABBA
order. Letters were presented following the expo-
sure of a central fixation cross for 1500 ms, and the
presentation time for the letters was always 345 ms.
There was no mask.
CASE REPORT
GK was 60 years old at the time of testing. Con-
secutive strokes in 1986 produced occipito-
parietal damage in the right hemisphere and bilat-
eral parietal-temporal damage. An MRI scan is
provided in Boutsen and Humphreys (2000). GK
has a number of neuropsychological deficits
including attentional dyslexia (Hall, Humphreys,
& Cooper, 2001) and Balint’s syndrome
(simultanagnosia and optic ataxia; Cooper &
Humphreys, 2000; Humphreys, Romam, Olson,
Riddoch, & Duncan, 1994). Although there is
generally poor selection of multiple visual stimuli,
performance is worse on his left-side. There is left
visual neglect and left-side extinction with relative
long stimulus exposures (Boutsen & Humphreys,
2000; Gilchrist et al., 1996; Humphreys, 1998).
The left-side extinction effect is modulated by
grouping based on the form and common surface
properties of items in the left and right fields (see
Humphreys, 1998, for a review). Despite these
difficulties, GK is well-oriented in time and place
and he has good comprehension.
 TRANSIENT BINDING BY TIME

EXPERIMENT 1: FROM ANTI- contralesional letters on two-item trials; c2 (1) =

EXTINCTION TO EXTINCTION
Experiment 1 examined the time course of extinc-
tion and anti-extinction effects by varying the expo-
sure duration of contra- and ipsilesional stimuli in
an identification task. On each trial either no, one,
or two letters were presented, with single letters
appearing equally often on the contra- and
ipsilesional sides.
Results and discussion
The results are given in Figure 1. For stimulus
exposures under 300 ms there were significant
anti-extinction effects: There was poor report of
single contralesional letters and better report of
7.14, 5.01, and 3.94, all p < .05, for exposure dura-
tions of 75, 150, and 300 ms respectively. For dura-
tions of 600 ms and above, the opposite pattern
occurred: There was better report of single
contralesional letters than of contralesional letters
on two-item trials; c2 (1) = 7.25, 14.8, and 55.55, all
p < .01, for exposure durations of 600, 750, and 900
ms respectively). On two-item trials, performance
across durations 75–300 ms was better than that
across durations 450–900 ms, c2 (1) = 5.52, p < .02.
On trials with no letters there were only 2% false
alarms (708/720 correct). On trials with single
ipsilesional letters there were 21% errors across
exposures. On two-item trials 62.5% of the errors
were due to report of the right (ipsilesional) letter
only. On all trials where two letters were identified,

Figure 1. (a) Example displays from Experiment 1. (b) The percentage correct letter identification responses made by GK on trials with
one-left, one-right, or two (bilateral) letters being presented, as a function of the exposure durations of the letters.

COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY , 2002, 19 (4) 365

HUMPHREYS ET AL.
the right was reported first. This held across all the
experiments.
Experiment 1 demonstrates two clear patterns of
performance, which changed as a function of the
exposure duration of target letters. With brief expo-
sures (of up to 300 ms or so), there was an anti-
extinction effect. There was poor identification of
single left-side letters, but report of the same letters
improved when a second, ipsilesional (right) stimu-
lus was presented simultaneously. This mirrors the
results originally reported by Goodrich and Ward
(1997). However, as the stimulus duration
increased, then the pattern of anti-extinction
altered to one of extinction. There was then rela-
tively good identification of single stimuli pre-
sented in the left field, but poor identification of the
same items when an ipsilesional item appeared at
the same time. The results at longer durations repli-
cate the extinction effect previously documented
with this patient (Boutsen & Humphreys, 2000;
Gilchrist et al., 1996; Humphreys, 1998). Indeed,
GK’s performance on two-item trials decreased as
the stimulus exposure duration increased—a highly
unusual pattern of performance.
Prior studies with normal observers demonstrate
that stimulus onsets can serve as strong cues for
visual attention (Yantis, 1998; Yantis & Jonides,
1984, 1990). In Experiment 1, the stimuli were
defined by simultaneous onsets, and it may be that
these transient signals led to the anti-extinction
effect by cueing GK’s attention to the region occu-
pied by both stimuli, on a proportion of two-item
trials. There remains to explain why extinction
occurred subsequently, as the stimuli remained in
the field, and we will return to this point in Experi-
ment 4. Experiment 2, however, examined whether
common onsets were important by (1) presenting
the stimuli by means of offsets rather than onsets, so
removing any effects due to onsets (Experiment
2a), and (2) defining the stimuli by onsets but fol-
lowing them with masks designed so that the con-
tours of the letter targets did not offset (Experiment
2b). We ask, does the absence of common onsets
disrupt the effect (i.e., are common onsets neces-
sary?), and does the effect still arise when the stim-
uli do not offset together (i.e., are common offsets
necessary?)?
366 COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY , 2002, 19 (4)
EXPERIMENT 2: THE EFFECTS OF
COMMON OFFSET
Experiment 2a: Stimuli defined by offsets
Method
The method was the same as for Experiment 1,
except that the stimuli were defined by offsets
rather than by onsets. The procedure is outlined in
Figure 2a.
Results and discussion
The results are presented in Figure 2b. There was
no evidence for anti-extinction for durations below
300 ms; c2 < 1.0, for all comparisons between single
left and two-item trials. In contrast, there was a
clear extinction effect at longer exposures (450 ms
and above); c2(1) = 10.33, 7.01, 4.84, and 19.97, all
p < .05, for durations 450, 600, 750, and 900 ms
respectively. On two-item trials GK identified only
the right-side letter on 73% of the trials. On no-
item trials there were just 1% false alarms (380/384
correct).
Unlike in Experiment 1, there was no clear evi-
dence for anti-extinction at the shorter stimulus
exposures here. Performance on two-item trials was
no longer better than on trials with single left tar-
gets. This suggests that common onsets may be
necessary to generate anti-extinction (in Experi-
ment 1 but not Experiment 2a). In contrast to this,
common offsets seem not to be effective in isolation
(common offsets are not sufficient). Experiment 2b
sought to test the effects of stimulus offset in more
detail, by presenting new stimuli again that were
defined by common onset (as in Experiment 1), but
now replacing these stimuli with post-display
masks. The post-display masks contained the fea-
tures present in the letters, plus additional features
that fell around the same spatial area. When such
masks are used, there is no offset of contours that
uniquely make up each letter. However, it is the
case that the post-masks used here make perform-
ance more difficult, relative to when no masks are
employed (Experiments 1 and 2a). Consequently,
the task changed from letter identification to detec-
tion (2 vs. 1 vs. 0 items on a trial?). If the anti-
extinction effect is due to stimulus offsets occurring

Figure 2. (a) Example displays from Experiment 2a (targets defined by offsets). (b) The percentage correct letter identifications made by GK
in Experiment 2a.
close in time to onsets (under the short exposure
conditions of Experiment 1), then the effect should
not be found here. Just one short exposure duration
was used, 150 ms.
Experiment 2b: Eliminating common offsets
Method
The procedure is outlined in Figure 3a.
Results and discussion
The data are given in Figure 3b. There was a reli-
able anti-extinction effect: single left-side items
were detected worse than both letters on two-item
trials, c2(1) = 5.67, p < .025. On single-right item
trials there were 14% errors, all due to no-item
responses. There were 6% false alarms on blank
trials.
COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY , 2002, 19 (4)
TRANSIENT BINDING BY TIME
Experiment 2b confirmed the anti-extinction
effect with short durations in a detection task, when
target letters onset but did not offset together.
From this we conclude that common offsets are not
necessary for anti-extinction (though they still play
a contributory role when common onsets are pres-
ent). In contrast to this, Experiment 2a demon-
strated that the effect was eliminated when stimuli
were defined by offsets. The results suggest that
common onsets are critical.
Goodrich and Ward (1997), when first defining
the anti-extinction phenomenon, did not consider
stimulus factors such as common onsets in great
detail. Instead they suggested that the effect was
caused by response priming; report of the
contralesional stimulus was supported by the same
response being made to the ipsilesional item. We
tested this in Experiment 3. GK either had to iden-
367
HUMPHREYS ET AL.
Figure 3. (a) Example displays from Experiment 2b (targets followed by masks to prevent contour offsets). (b) Percentage correct detection
responses in Experiment 2b.
tify the letters on a trial (same task for both letters,
on two-item trials) or he had to identify the left-
side letter and detect the right-side one (present or
absent?; different task for both letters, on two-item
trials). According to the response priming account,
anti-extinction should occur in the same-task but
not the different-task condition.
EXPERIMENT 3: THE EFFECTS OF
RESPONSE LINKAGE
Experiment 3 contained two substudies. In Experi-
ment 3a we used the same letters as in the earlier
studies, with two different letters always being
employed on each trial. In Experiment 3b we
employed a procedure more directly modelled on
Goodrich and Ward’s (1997) study where, on two-
item trials, the letters were either the same or differ-
368 COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY , 2002, 19 (4)
ent (XX or OO vs. OX or XO). Goodrich and
Ward reported different effects of item similarity in
the Same and Different task conditions. In the
Same task condition (identify both letters), perfor-
mance was better when the letters were different
(OX or XO) than when they were the same (OO or
XX; see also Baylis, Driver, & Rafal, 1993). In the
Different task condition (detect right, identify left
letter), item similarity did not matter. The contrast-
ing effects of item similarity provides converging
evidence for contrasting response strategies in the
Same and Different task conditions.
Experiment 3a: Different letters
Method
The method was the same as in Experiment 1
except for the change to a detection response for
right-side item in the different response condition.

Results
The results are illustrated in Figure 4a. The data
were subjected to log-linear analysis with the fac-
tors being response (same vs. different), number of
items (one-left vs. two-items), and accuracy (num-
ber correct vs. error). There were proportionately
more correct to error responses on two-item com-
pared with one-left trials, c2 (1) = 7.05, p < .01.
There was also a trend for proportionately more
correct responses when different tasks were per-
formed on left- and right-field stimuli, relative to
when the same task was performed, c2(1) = 1.24, p >
.05. There was no evidence of an interaction
between number of items and the task factor, or for
a three-way interaction (both c2 < 1.0). Single-right
letters were both identified (same task condition)
Figure 4. (a) Percentage correct responses in Experiment 3a. In the
same task condition, GK made identification responses to left and
right-side letters. In the different task condition, GK identified any
left-side letters and made a detection response to any right-side
letters. The letters on each trial were always different. (b)
Percentage correct responses in Experiment 3b. The procedure was
the same as in Experiment 3a, except that the letters were identical
on half the trials and different on the remaining.
COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY , 2002, 19 (4)
TRANSIENT BINDING BY TIME
and detected accurately (different task condition).
There were 2% false alarms on blank trials (94/96).
Experiment 3b: Same and different letters
Method
This was the same as for Experiment 3a, except
that, on two-item trials, the letters were the same
on half the trials (OO or XX) and different on the
remainder (OX or XO).
Results
The results are presented in Figure 4b. The data
were again subject to a log linear with the factors
being response (same vs. different), number of
items (one- left vs. two-items), and accuracy (cor-
rect or error). There was a reliable interaction
between number of items and the proportion of
correct to error responses, c2 (1) = 9.49, p < .01, and
a trend for an interaction between response and
accuracy, c2 (1) = 2.35, p > 0.10. There were rela-
tively more correct to error responses on two-item
trials compared with single-left trials. There also
tended to be proportionately more correct
responses on different- than on same-response tri-
als. There was no evidence for an interaction
between response and number of items, or for a
three-way interaction between response, number of
items, and accuracy (both c2 < 1.0). The advantage
for two-item over single-left trials held irrespective
of whether the same or a different response was car-
ried out on letters in the left and right fields. There
was no difference in the accuracy of responses to
single-right letters in the two response conditions
(c2 < 1.0). There was just one false alarm on blank
trials (95/96 correct).
Performance on two-item trials was broken
down according to whether the letters were the
same (OO or XX) or different (OX or XO). On
same-response trials there were 3/24 correct
responses to two identical letters and 15/24 to two
different letters. On different-response trials there
were 11/24 correct responses on trials with identical
letters and 13/24 correct responses on trials with
different letters. The effect of item similarity
369
HUMPHREYS ET AL.
tended to be larger on same-response trials (identify
both the left and right letters) than on different-
response trials (identify the left letter and detect the
right), c2(1) = 2.75, p > .05. On same-response tri-
als, performance was better with different than with
identical letters, c2(1) = 10.76, p < .01. On differ-
ent-response trials letter identity had no significant
effect (c2 < 1.0). On different-response trials 19
errors were due to GK only detecting the right-side
letter; on the remaining 5 trials he detected the
right-side letter and assigned the wrong identity to
the left letter (3 on same-identity trials and 2 on dif-
ferent-identity trials). On same-response trials GK
made 20 errors by identifying only the right letter;
on the remaining 10 trials he identified the right-
side letter and misidentified the left letter. There
were nine such misidentifications on same-identity
trials and one on different-identity trials. This sug-
gests that GK was biased to guess that the identity
of the left letter was different to that of the right let-
ter, when he had to assign identities to both items
(on same-response trials).
Discussion
In both Experiments 3a and 3b we observed an
anti-extinction effect; left items were identified
more accurately on two-item trials than on single-
left trials. Also, in both experiments this effect was
almost identical when the same (identification) task
was performed on left- and right-field items as
when different tasks were used (identify left and
detect right). There was no evidence for a response
priming effect. In Experiment 3a it might be argued
that GK adopted the same response strategy irre-
spective of whether different tasks were formally
required to left- and right-side stimuli. However, in
Experiment 3b we found contrasting effects of item
similarity on same- and different-response trials,
with item similarity only affecting performance on
same-response trials. This provides converging evi-
dence that GK did adopt different response proto-
cols under the two task conditions. The finding that
identification performance was better when the let-
ters differed, relative to when they were the same,
matches the pattern of data reported previously by
370 COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY , 2002, 19 (4)
Baylis et al. (1993) and Goodrich and Ward (1997).
Baylis et al. interpreted their results as indicating
impaired formation of “object tokens,” when stim-
uli have the same response-relevant feature. How-
ever, the error patterns shown by GK suggest that
his results could reflect a response bias away from
giving letters the same identity. Nevertheless, this
bias was not apparent in the different-task condi-
tion. There was a shift in the response strategy on
different- compared with same-response trials.
So far we have presented evidence that two stim-
ulus factors are important for the anti-extinction
effect with GK: stimulus exposure and common
onset of the items. There was no effect of response
linkage. The effects of common onsets may arise
because of at least three factors: (1) the onsets may
cue attention to a spatial area subtended by the let-
ters, enabling left- as well as right-side items to be
reported (Yantis & Jonides, 1990); (2) the onsets
may increase arousal, and this enables both letters
to be reported more accurately than when only a
single-left stimulus appears (cf., Robertson &
Manley, 1999); or (3) letters than onset together are
bound by their common temporal signal (Singer &
Gray, 1995), and this form of grouping enables the
left as well as the right letter to be identified. In
Experiment 5 we return to provide an explicit test
between these different accounts. In Experiment 4,
though we explore one factor that might underlie
the effects of stimulus exposure on GK’s perfor-
mance: Whether identification changes at longer
exposure durations because GK then makes an eye
movement to the right item (on two-item trials). It
is possible that eye movements are responsible for
this shift from anti-extinction to extinction. For
example, GK may show extinction at long stimulus
durations because of a bias to make a right eye
movement, which then reduces his identification of
left-side items when two letters are present. Short
exposures may reduce the likelihood that eye move-
ments are made, enabling an anti-extinction effect
to emerge. To test this in Experiment 4, GK
received blocks of trials with stimulus durations of
180 and 450 ms, during which we recorded his eye
movements.
 TRANSIENT BINDING BY TIME

EXPERIMENT 4: THE EFFECTS OF

EYE MOVEMENTS

Method
The method was the same as that employed in
Experiment 1, except that GK’s eye movements
were recorded whilst he undertook the task. Letter
identification performance was scored according to
whether a rightwards eye movement was made
whilst the stimulus was displayed.

Results and discussion

Data were summed across the two exposure dura-
tions, since they were similar in both cases. In Fig-
ure 5 we present the number of correct letter
identifications as a function of trials where either a
rightwards eye movement occurred (Figure 5a) or
there was no eye movement (Figure 5b). There was
a rightwards eye movement during the stimulus
presentation on 106/540 (20%) of the trials and no
eye movement on 409 trials (76%). There were just
25 trials where a left eye movement occurred (less Figure 5. (a) Percentage correct letter identifications made on
than 5% of the time). Trials with left eye move- trials when a rightwards eye movement occurred when letters were
ments were not analysed further. present. (b) Percentage correct letter identifications made on trials
There was a reliable anti-extinction effect both when no eye movements occurred whilst the letters were exposed.
on trials where no eye movement occurred and on
trials where a rightwards eye movement was initi- from anti-extinction to extinction, is not simply due
ated. For trials without an eye movement, c2 (1) = to a change in the probability of an eye movement
4.52 for one-left trials (6/85) vs. two-item correct occurring. Whatever the factor is that determines
trials (28/156). For trials with a rightwards eye the better report of the left letter on two-item trials,
movement, Fisher exact probability = .03 for one- it survives an eye movement being made to the
left (0/17) vs. two-item correct trials (11/49). On right.
blank trials there were 9% false alarm errors on trials
without an eye movement (73/80 correct) and 15%
errors (17/20 correct) when a rightwards eye move- EXPERIMENT 5: TEMPORAL
ment occurred. On one-right trials performance BINDING, ATTENTIONAL CUEING,
was slightly better when there was a rightwards eye OR AROUSAL
movement relative to when no eye movement took
place (12/20—60% vs. 41/80—51%). Experiments 1–4 reveal a reliable anti-extinction
The results were quite clear. The anti-extinction effect when left- and right-field stimuli onset
effect survives even when an eye movement is initi- together and are presented for a short duration. We
ated to the right during stimulus presentation. have discussed three accounts of the onset effect:
Hence the time course of performance, the change that it is due to (1) cueing attention to a common

COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY , 2002, 19 (4) 371

HUMPHREYS ET AL.
spatial region; (2) increased arousal; or (3) temporal
binding of the letters. These alternative accounts
were tested in Experiment 5.
Each trial began with a display of three pre-
masks, one at fixation and two flankers (Figure 6a).
The critical left and right target letters appeared as
onsets in the gaps between the central and the outer
two masks. At the same time as these onset letters
were presented, a central letter was created by off-
setting contours in the pre-mask. In Experiment
5a, GK was asked to report any letters he could,
irrespective of their colour, spatial location, or
whether they were created by an onset or an offset.
In all the prior experiments, GK adopted a right-
to-left report procedure reflecting his spatial bias in
selection, and we expected the same here. With
these conditions, and this order of report, the
grouping account makes a different prediction to
the attentional cueing and arousal proposals. The
cueing account holds that there is improved report
on two-letter trials because GK’s attention is cued
to the spatial region covering the two onsets. It fol-
lows that GK should show good report of the cen-
tral letter on trials when he identifies a left-side
letter created by an onset, since the central letter
should be selected prior to the left one (as it falls fur-
ther to the right, within the attended area of space).
This same prediction is made by the arousal
account. The two onsets, on two-item trials, should
increase GK’s arousal, and this should improve his
ability to report all the letters present. On this
account, report of the central letter on trials with
two onsets should be better than on trials with one
or no onsets. In contrast, according to the binding
proposal, the left and right letters should be
grouped and selected together without the central
letter necessarily being selected too (since the cen-
tral letter is created by an offset rather than an
onset). Given GK’s right-side bias, then the group
falling further into the right field should be selected
first—the onset group. If both group members are
identified before any other stimuli present, then it is
even possible that the left-side letter (grouped with
the right letter) will be identified before the central
letter. This should lead to trials on which the left
(onset) letter is reported and the central (offset) let-
ter is not (e.g., because the central letter is reported
372 COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY , 2002, 19 (4)
last). In contrast, on trials with a single left onset
letter, the right bias in report should lead to the cen-
tral letter being reported prior to, and more accu-
rately than, the left letter.
Experiment 5b used a procedure identical to that
in Experiment 5a, except that the central letter
always differed in colour from the more peripheral
letters (it was black and they were red), and GK was
asked only to identify the central (black) letter. This
study was run as a control to test if poor report of the
central letter on two-onset trials in Experiment 5a
was due to lateral masking of the central letter by
the more peripheral onsets. Such masking should
arise irrespective of whether the onset letters have
to be reported.
Experiment 5a: Report all the letters
Method
The main details of the procedure are given in the
General Method. There were four blocks of trials.
In two blocks, the onset letters were in red and the
pre-masks and offset letters were in black, to
emphasise grouping differences between the onset
and offset items. In the other two blocks the onset
and offset letters were all black. In all blocks, GK
was simply asked to identify all the letters present.
Results and discussion
Figure 6b presents the overall percentage correct
reports of the flanking onset letters. There was a
reliable anti-extinction effect: Identification was
higher on two-item than on one-left trials, c2 (1) =
4.10, p < .05. There were no false alarms on blank
trials. Performance did not differ whether the onset
letters were black (17/48 vs. 4/24, on two-item and
one-left trials) or red (16/48 and 4/24 on two-item
and one-left trials). Figure 6c gives the percentage
of reports of the central offset letter, as a function of
the number of onset letters present. Performance
was better on one-left than on two-item trials, c2 (1)
= 23.41, p < .01. There was also a trend for worse
report of the central letter on two-item trials than
on trials with only right letters (Figure 6c). Poor
report of the central letter on two-item trials could
be due to the right onset letter being identified
first–although in this case we would not expect the

Figure 6. (a) Example displays from Experiment 5, with “offset”
as well as “onset” target letters. (b) Percentage correct identification
of the onset letters. (c) Percentage correct identification of the
central offset letter, as a function of the whether no, one-left, one-
right, or two onset letters were presented.
central item to suffer more on two-item than on
one-right trials. More critical is to assess report of
the central letter on two-item and one-left trials
when the left onset letter was identified. The
“spreading attention” and arousal accounts main-
tain that the central letter should typically be identi-
fied prior to the left-side letter; hence report of the
COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY , 2002, 19 (4)
TRANSIENT BINDING BY TIME
central letter should be good on trials on which the
left, onset letter is identified. This should hold for
one- and two-item trials alike. Contrary to this
account, identification of the central letter
remained better on one-item than on two-item
trials even when the left letter was identified (8/8 vs.
2/33 trials; Fisher exact probability, p = .000). On
the one-item trials when the left letter was identi-
fied, GK always reported the central letter first (8/
8). On the two-items trials when the left letter was
identified, he never identified the central letter
before the left letter (0/33). On two-item trials,
report of the central letter did not differ whether the
onset letters were red (1 correct) or black (1 correct),
with the left letter identified.
The data indicate that, on one-item trials, GK
identified the central letter on all occasions where
he able to name the left-side target. Also, on all of
these trials, GK identified the central letter before
the left letter was reported. In contrast, on two-item
trials, GK was poor at reporting the central offset
letter even when he identified the left onset letter
correctly. He then also always reported the left let-
ter before the central one. These data are consistent
with the binding account rather than the
attentional cueing and arousal accounts. According
to the binding account, the anti-extinction effect
occurs because the left and right letters are grouped
by common onset. GK is biased to select the
rightmost items for report and, in this case, there is
selection of the onset group prior to the central let-
ter since members of the onset group fall in his right
field. This leads to the left-side letter being selected
prior to the central letter, and to it being identified
even when the central letter is not reported. In con-
trast, there was no evidence for attention spreading
across the spatial region covering the two onsets
(due either to cueing visual attention or to increased
arousal). If attention simply spread across the
region, GK’s tendency to report from right-to-left
would lead him to reporting the central letter before
the left. On two-item trials where he identifies the
left letter, he should also typically identify the cen-
tral letter. He did not—even though this was the
pattern on single-left trials.
Other accounts of the data from Experiment 5a
are not easy to sustain. One possibility is that GK
373
HUMPHREYS ET AL.
opted to report the peripheral onsets before the
central offset letter, perhaps because of an
attentional bias to stimuli created by onsets rather
than offsets (e.g., Yantis, 1998). However, we
would expect this bias to hold across the one- and
two-item trials here, which occurred randomly.
This was not the case. GK did not identify a single
left onset letter before the central offset letter. A
more viable possibility is that the central letter was
difficult to report on two-onset trials because of
masking from the onsets1. A single left onset may
not generate such a strong masking effect, enabling
the central letter then to be reported before the left
flanker. To test this, we ran Experiment 5b. This
study was the same as Experiment 5a, except that
GK was asked just to report the central letter. To
help him select the central item, it always differed in
colour from the flanking onset letters. The masking
effect should be caused by the presentation of the
onsets and so it should occur even without report of
the flankers. On the other hand, if the relatively
poor report of the central letter was due to GK
selecting the two flankers for report, then this effect
should be lessened here.
Experiment 5b: Reporting only the central
black letter
Method
This was the same as for Experiment 5a, except that
the central letter was always black and the flankers
red.
Results
Figure 7 shows the number of correct reports of the
central black letter as a function of whether no
(blank), one-left, one-right, or two onsets occurred.
Unlike Experiment 5a, there was only a small, non-
significant trend for identification of the central let-
ter to be worse on two onset trials relative to trials in
which only a single left flanker was presented (c2 <
1.0). On one-left trials GK made 1/14 error by
reporting the left letter rather than the right letter.
On one-right trials there were 7/19 errors due to
reporting the right letter rather than the left letter,
1
Our thanks to Rob Ward for this suggestion.
374 COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY , 2002, 19 (4)
Figure 7. The percentage of correct identifications of the central
offset letter as a function of whether no, one-left, one-right, or two
onset letters occurred in Experiment 5b.
and there were reports of the right rather than the
central letter on 10/36 of the errors on trials with
two flankers. On all such occasions GK maintained
that he reported the black letter. Prior studies have
demonstrated that GK is susceptible to illusory
conjunctions of letters and colour (Humphreys,
Cinel, Wolfe, Olson, & Klempen, 2000), and these
incorrect letter reports may reflect illusory binding
of the central colour with the identity of a flanker
letter. More importantly for our present purposes,
the decreased report of the central item was less
apparent here than when flanker letters had to be
selected for report (Experiment 5a). The decreased
report on the central letter in the two-item condi-
tion of Experiment 5a does not seem to be due to
lateral masking.
EXPERIMENT 6: TEMPORAL ORDER
JUDGEMENTS AND SEQUENTIAL
LETTER PRESENTATIONS
Experiments 1–5 have demonstrated an anti-
extinction effect, where, under brief exposure con-
ditions, report of a left-side letter was facilitated by
simultaneous presentation of a right-side letter. We
have proposed that anti-extinction is caused by
temporal binding based on common onset of the
letters. According to this account, the stimuli may
need to occur simultaneously in order for the anti-
extinction effect to occur. We examined this possi-

bility in Experiment 6. In so doing, we also evalu-
ated the relations between the anti-extinction effect
and GK’s conscious judgements of when onsets
were simultaneous. To do this, we compared GK’s
identification and temporal order judgements.
Rorden et al. (1997) demonstrated that patients
with extinction frequently show biased temporal
order judgements so that, when ipsi- and
contralesional stimuli are presented simulta-
neously, they judge that the ipsilesional item pre-
cedes the contralesional one. In order for ipsi- and
contralesional events to be judged as simultaneous,
the contralesional event needs to lead the
ipsilesional one by some time period: the phenome-
non of “prior entry”. If GK manifested prior entry,
then we expected him to be poor at judging that
simultaneously occurring letters did onset at the
same time, and that we would need to present the
left letter first for judgements of simultaneity to be
made. In contrast, the report of briefly presented
left letters may be best under simultaneous presen-
tations. There may be a dissociation between GK’s
conscious perception of simultaneity and the effects
of simultaneous onsets on letter identification. This
would suggest that GK is not conscious of temporal
binding, even though it affects his conscious letter
report.
Method
The procedure is outlined in the General Method.
For the temporal order judgements, GK was pre-
sented with one red and one green letter on each
trial, and he had to decide which colour appeared
first. We required report of the temporal order of
the colours, rather than of the left and right letters,
in order to eliminate possible response biases
favouring the right-side letter. The letters were pre-
sented simultaneously or they were staggered in
time—the left preceding or following the right by
450 ms or by 720 ms (presented in separate trial
blocks). To match the attributes being reported, the
identification task required GK to report the
colours present. The two-item trials were the same
as for the temporal order judgement task but, for
the identification task, there were also single colour
trials (one-left or one-right). Within a block one
COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY , 2002, 19 (4)
TRANSIENT BINDING BY TIME
third of the trials had simultaneous presentations,
on another third the left letter preceded the right
one, and on the remaining third the right preceded
the left.
Results and discussion
The results for the temporal order judgements are
presented in Figure 8a, and Figure 8b gives the per-
centage of correct colour identifications. For colour
identification, there was an anti-extinction effect
when the stimuli appeared simultaneously (report
on two-item trials was better than on one-left trials;
c2(1) = 6.71, p < .01. There was no reliable effect
when the onsets of the letters were staggered (c2 <
1.0 for left-first and for right-first). In the temporal
order judgement task, though, GK showed a strong
effect of “prior entry”, judging that the right letter
appeared before the left on the vast majority of tri-
als. This tendency varied across the different tem-
poral presentation conditions, but even when the
left letter led the right one by 720 ms, GK reported
that the right came first on over half the trials.
Experiment 5 shows that the anti-extinction
effect occurred when right and left letters appeared
simultaneously, but not when they were staggered
in time. In contrast, under these same conditions
GK consistently judged that the right letter was
presented first and the left letter had to precede by
at least 720 ms for the onsets to be judged as simul-
taneous. The effects of time on anti-extinction dis-
sociated from the effects on conscious temporal
order judgements.
Across Experiments 1–5, when the onset letters
always had the same colour, the advantage varied
from 12–22% for the identification of left letters on
two-item relative to one-left trials. In Experiment
6, when the onset letters differed in colour, the
advantage was 14.5%. The colour difference
between the letters had little influence on the effect.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
We have demonstrated a reliable anti-extinction
effect when left and right stimuli are presented
simultaneously for brief exposure durations in
375
HUMPHREYS ET AL.

Figure 8. (a) Percentage of trials on which GK reported that the letter on the right appeared first, as a function of the stimulus onset
asynchrony (SOA) between the left and right letters. (b) Percentage of correct colour identifications across the different SOAs and on one-left
and one-right letter trials. + indicates that the left letter preceded the right letter; – indicates the opposite.

376 COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY , 2002, 19 (4)


patient GK, who has a bias favouring right-side
stimuli after bilateral parietal damage. The effect is
dependent on the stimuli having simultaneous
onsets (Experiments 2 and 6), and is unaffected by
eliminating the common offset of the stimuli
(Experiment 2b), by varying the tasks performed on
left and right-side items (Experiment 3), and by a
rightwards eye movement occurring whilst stimuli
are exposed (Experiment 4). The anti-extinction
effect reduced as the time since stimulus onset
increased, being replaced by left-side extinction at
longer stimulus durations (Experiments 1 and 2). It
also dissociated from GK’s conscious judgements of
temporal order; the anti-extinction effect occurred
when letters appeared simultaneously whereas left
letters had to precede right letters by 720 ms or
more before GK tended to judge that the letters
appeared simultaneously (Experiment 6).
Experiment 5 provided evidence that the anti-
extinction effect was due to temporal binding
rather than to increased arousal or due to a spread
of spatial attention across a region activated by the
left and right stimuli. In that study, we presented a
central letter defined by an offset between the left
and right letters, which were defined by onsets.
We found that, on two-item trials where GK
reported the left as well as the right letter, he was
poor at identifying the central letter. On one-left
trials, however, he could report the central letter in
addition to the left one (indeed he identified the
central one first). This result was found both when
the onset and offset letters had the same colours
and when they had different colours, so that col-
our grouping did not appear important. We con-
clude that GK did not attend to the region
subtended by the left and right onset letters and
report the letters there in right to left order.
Instead, the left and right letters were grouped by
common onset and reported together, prior to the
central letter being selected. Consistent with this,
there was not a reliable drop in performance on
two-item relative to one-left trials when only the
central letter had to be identified, when selection
of the flankers was not required (Experiment 5b).
Identification of the central letter dropped partic-
ularly when onset letters were selected for a
response.
COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY , 2002, 19 (4)
TRANSIENT BINDING BY TIME
These results suggest that there can be grouping
based on common onset between visual stimuli.
This form of binding dissociates from GK’s con-
scious judgements about the temporal order of
occurrence of the stimuli (Experiment 6). Thus the
temporal code that “binds” the left and right letters
was not consciously available to GK. The findings
are consistent with the notion that that temporal
codes are important for binding in vision (Eckhorn,
1999; Singer & Gray, 1995), and with one signal
for binding being based on actual (rather than per-
ceived) synchronous onsets (Elliott & Muller,
1998; Fahle, 1993). Once bound, both left and
right stimuli could be selected for report even when
an eye movement was first made to the item on the
right side.
Our evidence also indicates that binding by com-
mon onset produces only a transient influence on
visual selection. Thus the anti-extinction effect
lasted for stimuli presented for up to 400–500 ms,
before being replaced by extinction as the exposure
duration of the stimuli increased. With longer expo-
sures single left letters could be identified, but there
was then biased selection favouring the right letter
on two-item trials. How can we explain this shift to
an extinction effect at longer stimulus durations?
To account for the effects of stimulus duration,
we suggest that there is a decay in the temporal tag
that binds the right and left stimuli, even though
the letters may remain present in the field. This idea
is illustrated in Figure 9, in which we separate two
forms of binding, a temporary effect based on co-
occurrence of a transient signal generated by the
onsets of the stimuli (perhaps also reinforced by off-
sets, when offsets occur relatively close in time to
the onsets), and a longer-lasting effect based on
sustained (form and colour) information derived
from stimuli. In other studies with the patient
tested here, GK, we have shown that the magnitude
of extinction (at longer stimulus durations) can be
modulated by grouping based on the form and sur-
face properties of objects (Boutsen & Humphreys,
2000; Gilchrist et al., 1996; Humphreys, 1998).
The anti-extinction effect, though, was little
affected by whether onset letters had the same or
different colours (Experiment 1–5 vs. Experiment
6). This is consistent with different forms of bind-
377
HUMPHREYS ET AL.
Figure 9. An illustration of two proposed neural signals for binding in vision: a transient signal that links stimuli having common onsets,
and a more sustained signal determined by the form and surface details of objects. Note that the strength of the transient signal decreases over
time even if the stimulus remains in the field.
ing between visual stimuli, operating across con-
trasting time courses. There is transient binding
between stimuli that have synchronous onsets. This
may provide the visual system with a “quick but
dirty” representation of the world, useful perhaps
for fast actions. However, since stimuli that onset
together may have different form and surface prop-
erties, binding by common onset may be of little use
for object recognition. In order to construct a more
accurate representation, the transient binding may
be replaced over time by a more sustained binding
process, sensitive to form and surface-based simi-
larities between stimuli.
To account for the extinction effect at longer
duration, we propose that GK has a spatial bias in
using the sustained information for selection. Thus
if two stimuli are presented bilaterally for relatively
long durations (long enough to establish the
378 COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY , 2002, 19 (4)
sustained signal), GK tends to select the item on the
right before the one on the left, generating an
extinction effect. The exception to this is if the
stimuli group by form or surface property, in which
case they may be selected together (Boutsen &
Humphreys, 2000; Gilchrist et al., 1996;
Humphreys, 1998). Due to this spatial bias in using
sustained information from a stimulus, the anti-
extinction effect is replaced over time by extinction.
If there is temporary binding based on common
onsets of stimuli, we might ask why anti-extinction
effects have not been found more frequently in
patients. There may be several reasons for this. One
is that, in patients showing poor report of single
contralesional items, experimenters may not exam-
ine performance with double simultaneous stimu-
lation due to an assumption that two-item trials
would in any case be more difficult than single-item

trials. As we have demonstrated, this assumption is
not necessarily valid. A second reason relates to the
magnitude of the effects. The differences between
two-item and one-left trials reported here (and also
by Goodrich & Ward, 1997) are quite subtle, with a
benefit of about 15% on two-item trials. It is possi-
ble that such a small difference may not be detected
when small numbers of trials are collected. A third
possibility is that other patients may have more
rapid development of sustained information from
the stimulus than is the case for GK, and they too
may have a spatial bias in using the sustained infor-
mation. Consequently, there may not be a sufficient
time window for anti-extinction to be demon-
strated before extinction effects emerge. A fourth
suggestion is that such effects depend on
subcortical structures, sensitive to dynamic changes
in visual stimulation. Effects at this level may only
become apparent in patients like GK, with rela-
tively large lesions, who are impaired at responding
using cortical mechanisms, at least under brief
exposure conditions. In the only other case of anti-
extinction reported previously, Goodrich and
Ward (1997) argued that the effect was caused by
response priming: The contralesional item could be
recovered if its response was primed by the response
to the ipislesional item. However, we found no evi-
dence for this (Experiment 3). It may be that differ-
ent types of anti-extinction exist, though we note
that Goodrich and Ward’s patient continued to
show a trend for anti-extinction even on trials
where different responses were required to ipsi- and
contralesional stimuli, so that factors additional to
response priming may also have played a role.
Clearly future work needs to assess the factors that
can determine anti-extinction in other patients.
Interestingly, Rorden, Simon, Gore, and Baylis
(2001) have recently reported another dissociation
between perceptual report and conscious identifi-
cation of the temporal relations between stimuli, in
the phenomenon of extinction. They found that
extinction was maximal when stimuli appeared
simultaneously, and decreased as the temporal
interval between ipsi- and contralesional items
increased (see also Di Pellegrino, Basso, &
Frassinetti, 1997). However, all the patients tested
also showed a prior entry effect, with the
COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY , 2002, 19 (4)
TRANSIENT BINDING BY TIME
contralesional item having to precede the
ipsilesional one in order for them to be judged as
occurring simultaneously. It may be that any com-
petition for selection between developing sustained
codes for ipsi- and contralesional stimuli is maxi-
mised when the codes begin to develop at the same
time (with simultaneous stimulus exposures), or it
may be that this competition is pronounced when
there is an initial temporal tag to bind the stimuli.
Whichever is the case, their result suggests again
that the effect of time on perceptual report is inde-
pendent of conscious awareness of the temporal
relations between events.
Manuscript received 5 June 2001
Revised manuscript received 7 November 2001
Revised manuscript accepted 21 November 2001
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