Attentional requirements on feature search are modulated by stimulus properties

We report a series of dual-task experiments, in which a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task was combined with a visual search task. Orientation, motion, and color were used as the defining target features in the search task. Lag between target onsets was manipulated and interference between...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2013-01, Vol.8 (1), p.e53093-e53093
Main Authors: Ettwig, Janne F, Bronkhorst, Adelbert W
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Attention
Biology
Color
Color matching
Color Perception
Female
Handbooks
Human performance
Humans
Interference
Male
Motion detection
Motion Perception
Orientation
Orientation behavior
Pattern Recognition, Visual
Psychology
Rapid serial visual presentation
Reintroduction
Searching
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Visual perception
Visual task performance
Visual tasks
Young Adult
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We report a series of dual-task experiments, in which a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task was combined with a visual search task. Orientation, motion, and color were used as the defining target features in the search task. Lag between target onsets was manipulated and interference between the two tasks was quantified by measuring detection scores for the search task as a function of lag. While simultaneous performance of an orientation detection task with an RSVP letter identification task resulted in a performance decrease for lags up to 320 ms, no such decrease was detected for highly salient motion- and color-defined targets. Subsequently, detectability of the motion and color feature was matched to that of the orientation-feature resulting in the reintroduction of a (smaller) performance decrease, but only during simultaneous performance (lag 0 ms). The results suggest that there are two causes for the impaired search performance occurring when a feature search task is combined with an RSVP task. The first is short-lasting interference probably due to attentional competition; the second, which plays a role only when targets for both tasks share features, is interference that may be attributed to a central processing bottleneck.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0053093