Redundant-target detection and processing capacity: The problem of positional preferences

Mullin, Paul A.; Egeth, Howard E.; Mordkoff, J. Toby

doi:10.3758/bf03207751

Cited by 31 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…This fixed favored dimension test (see Biederman & Checkosky, 1970;Miller & Lopes, 1988;Mullin, Egeth, & Mordkoff, 1988) is much more conservative than the simple redundancy-gain test: It corrects for artifactual redundancy gains arising because one dimension is processed more slowly than the other, which would affect the single-target mean to a greater extent than the redundanttarget mean.…”

Section: Divided Attention 359mentioning

confidence: 99%

Dividing attention between color and shape: Evidence of coactivation

Mordkoff¹,

Yantis

1993

Perception & Psychophysics

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121

164

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When attention is divided between spatially distinct objects, the time to detect a target decreases when two or more targets are present. This redundancy gain can be accounted for by an interactive race model (Mordkoff & Yantis, 1991) in which separate decisions are made about each object, but environmental contingencies among the objects can influence decision times. In the present study, we examined whether the model also accounts for performance when attention must be divided between stimulus attributes other than spatial location. Subjects made targetpresent responses when displays included a prespecified color, a prespecified letter, or both target features. The data violated the predictions of all separate-activations models, including the interactive race model. Two control experiments ruled out an alternative account based on task complexity. We conclude that coactivation occurs when target attributes from two separable dimensions are simultaneously present, but not when target attributes come from the same dimension. A modular hybrid of race and coactivation models is tentatively proposed.

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Section: Divided Attention 359mentioning

confidence: 99%

Dividing attention between color and shape: Evidence of coactivation

Mordkoff¹,

Yantis

1993

Perception & Psychophysics

Self Cite

121

164

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“…More importantly, the favored position models that have been presented as possible serial explanations of a redundancy gain (e.g., Biederman & Checkosky, 1970;van der Heijden, La Heij, & Boer, 1983; discussed in Mullin, Egeth, & Mordkoff, 1988) cannot produce violations of Inequality 1 either. Thus, violations of this inequality constitute strong evidence against serial processing.…”

Section: Testing For Spatially Parallel Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detecting conjunctions of color and form in parallel

Mordkoff

Yantis

Egeth

1990

Perception & Psychophysics

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Certain theories of visual attention assume that at least one processing stage must be serial when the target of search is defined as the conjunction of two or more separable features. To explain why conjunction-search response times do not always form linearly increasing functions of display size, recent versions of this general model have posited the existence of an early parallel process that guides the serial stage toward display elements that are likely targets. Other models have relaxed the seriality assumption, allowing for a limited number of parallel decisions. In the three experiments reported here, a redundant-target detection task was used with conjunctively defined targets and display sizes of two (Experiment 1), one or two (Experiment 2), and six (Experiment 3). In all three experiments, strong evidence for parallel processing was observed. The implications for models of elementary visual processes are discussed.

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“…It is worth noting that the same contingencies are not implied by the presence of an inversion: Inversion of one feature (e.g., the eyes) is not predictive of the inversion of the other feature (e.g., the mouth), because given an eye inversion, the proportion of trials with a mouth inversion is .5. Secondly, the RTs for the single-inversion trials can be artificially slowed if the participant preferentially attends to one location or another (Mullin, Egeth, & Mordkoff, 1988). For example, if the participant attends to the eye location, an eye inversion would result in faster responses than would a mouth inversion.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%