Attentional Pacing and Temporal Capture in Slow Visual Sequences

摘要

Three experiments examined effects of temporally interleaved sequences of relevant and irrelevant information on selective attending to relevant visual items (letter pairs). In a serial monitoring task, viewers judged the physical match (same, different) of successive letter pairs in the relevant sequence under instructions to ignore irrelevant items. Irrelevant information comprised either visual information or tones. In all experiments the relative timing of relevant and irrelevant items was manipulated in slow visual sequences. Other manipulations included spatial formatting of irrelevant visual items (central vs displaced) and attentional set (speed vs accuracy). Results indicated that interleaved irrelevant information produced interference (slowed performance) relative to performance levels with relevant items alone only in certain timing conditions; in other conditions facilitation (faster responding occurred).