Attentional set interacts with perceptual load in visual search

In the present study, we examined the hypothesis that perceptual load is the primary factor that determines the efficiency of attentional selection. Participants performed a visual search task under conditions of high- and low-load. In line with the perceptual load hypothesis, presenting conditions...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychonomic bulletin & review 2004-08, Vol.11 (4), p.697-702
Main Authors: THEEUWES, Jan, KRAMER, Arthur F, BELOPOLSKY, Artem V
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attention
Biological and medical sciences
Experiments
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Hypotheses
Perception
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reaction Time
Sensory perception
Vision
Visual Perception
Visual task performance
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Summary:In the present study, we examined the hypothesis that perceptual load is the primary factor that determines the efficiency of attentional selection. Participants performed a visual search task under conditions of high- and low-load. In line with the perceptual load hypothesis, presenting conditions of high- and low-load in separate blocks of trials resulted in processing of to-be-ignored stimuli only in the low-load condition (Experiment 1). However when high- and low-load conditions were randomly mixed in blocks of trials, the participants showed processing of to-be-ignored stimuli in both conditions, suggesting that high perceptual load is not necessarily sufficient to obtain perceptual selectivity (Experiment 2). An analysis of intertrial transition effects showed that on high-load trials, processing of to-be-ignored stimuli occurred only when the previous trial was a low-load trial. The results suggest that low perceptual load can engender broad attentional processing. On the other hand, when a high-load trial was preceded by another high-load trial, little processing of task-irrelevant stimuli was observed. The present results are discussed in terms of the interaction between expectancies and bottom-up factors in the efficiency of attentional selection.
ISSN:1069-9384
1531-5320
DOI:10.3758/BF03196622