Abstract
To study the processes underlying selective attention in visual search, the relation between the accuracy of "where" (location) and "what" (same/different orientation matching) decisions was analysed under various display conditions. Target-non-target discriminability was varied by contrasting single and multiple element displays; further, attention was directly manipulated by spatial cueing. In Experiment 1, analyses for both single and multiple displays showed that localization accuracy remained above chance when same/different matching failed; the inverse also obtained. It seems that accurate matching is not a prerequisite for target localization, nor is accurate localization a prerequisite for same/different matching. However, localization is a prerequisite for the accurate recognition of target orientation (Experiment 2). In this case, it seems that features critical for localization "call" attention to a particular candidate location. This facilitates further (shape) analysis of the stimulus that is found there. This orienting process is by-passed if attention is cued to the location in advance.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 747-773 |
| Number of pages | 26 |
| Journal | Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A: Human Experimental Psychology |
| Volume | 41 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Publication status | Published - Nov 1989 |