Hand Position Alters Vision by Modulating the Time Course of Spatial Frequency Use

International audienceThe nervous system gives preferential treatment to objects near the hands that are candidates for action.It is not yet understood how this process is achieved. Here we show evidence for the mechanism thatunderlies this process having used an experimental technique that maps the use of spatial frequencies(SFs) during object recognition across time. We used this technique to replicate and characterize withgreater precision the coarse-to-fine SF sampling observed in previous studies. Then we show that thevisual processing of real-world objects near an observer’s hands is biased toward the use of low-SFinformation, around 288 ms. Conversely, high-SF information presented around 113 ms impaired objectrecognition when objects were presented near the hands. Notably, both of these effects happenedrelatively late during object recognition and suggest that the modulation of SF use by hand position is atleast partly attentional in nature