Response time and accuracy revisited: converging support for the interactive race model.
The interactive race model embodies 2 central claims: that divided attention is best described as a race between separately processed codes and that the 2 types of design contingency to which the model is sensitive affect different processing stages. Previous support for the model has come from a series of redundant-target tasks examining reaction time (RT) (J.T. Mordkoff & S. Yantis, 1991). We tested both central claims using near-threshold, accuracy tasks. This approach capitalizes on a known difference between RT and accuracy measures: that (in simple tasks) accuracy is sensitive only to perceptual manipulations, whereas RT is affected by both perceptual and postperceptual factors (J.L. Santee & H.E. Egeth, 1982). The results from 3 experiments provide converging support for the proposed loci of the 2 contingency-sensitive mechanisms within the interactive race model, as well as additional evidence concerning the differential sensitivities of RT and accuracy measures.
Mordkoff
J T
JT
University of California, San Diego.
Egeth
H E
HE
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011601:Psychophysics; D011930:Reaction Time; D012684:Sensory Thresholds