Selective attention in vibrotactile tasks: detecting the presence and absence of amplitude change.
Selective spatial attention has a greater effect on detection of the absence of an amplitude change than it has on detection of the presence of such a change. Attention to one of four fingertips was manipulated by an 80% valid tactile cue in two-interval forced-choice tasks. In one task, the target was a vibrotactile amplitude change appearing among constant-amplitude distractors; in the other task, targets of constant amplitude had to be detected amid amplitude changes at the other fingertips. Cuing had a greater effect on the latter task than it did on the former. This asymmetry is consistent with the presence-absence asymmetry found in visual search and does not depend on the difficulty of the two tasks. A statistical model shows that a pooled activity mechanism could account for these experimental results.
Whang
K C
KC
Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110.
Burton
H
H
Shulman
G L
GL
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D011930:Reaction Time; D012684:Sensory Thresholds; D014110:Touch; D014732:Vibration