The Preattentive Emperor Has No Clothes: A Dynamic Redressing

Preattentive models of early vision have not been supported by the evidence. Instead, an input filtering system, which is dynamically reconfigured so as to optimize performance on the task at hand, is proposed. As a case in point, the authors examined Sagi and Julesz's (1985a) claim that detect...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of experimental psychology. General 2001-09, Vol.130 (3), p.479-492
Main Authors: Lollo, Vincent Di, Kawahara, Jun-ichiro, Zuvic, Samantha M, Visser, Troy A. W
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attention
Biological and medical sciences
Discrimination Learning
Eyes & eyesight
Field Dependence-Independence
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Humans
Orientation
Pattern Recognition, Visual
Perception
Psychology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Psychophysics
Reaction Time
Vision
Visual Discrimination
Visual Search
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Preattentive models of early vision have not been supported by the evidence. Instead, an input filtering system, which is dynamically reconfigured so as to optimize performance on the task at hand, is proposed. As a case in point, the authors examined Sagi and Julesz's (1985a) claim that detection tasks are processed preattentively and efficiently (shallow search slopes), whereas discrimination tasks require focal attention and yield inefficient steep slopes. In 5 visual search experiments, efficiency was found to depend not on the nature of the task but on whether the task is single or dual. The second component of a dual task, whether detection or discrimination, is performed inefficiently if it does not fit the configuration of the input system, which had been set optimally for the first component. But, even the second component is processed efficiently if there is enough time to reconfigure the system after processing the first component.
ISSN:0096-3445
1939-2222
DOI:10.1037/0096-3445.130.3.479