Shifting attention in visual space: tests of moving-spotlight models versus an activity-distribution model.
Participants were induced to concentrate preparatory attention at a central location, to identify a letter there, to identify a 2nd letter to the extreme left or right of a central horizontal range of 5 locations, and then to identify a 3rd letter at 1 of the central 5 locations. Analog and discrete versions of the moving-spotlight model predict that response times to the 3rd letter will be most rapid at the location of the 2nd letter, whereas an activity-distribution model predicts that the most rapid responses to the 3rd letter will be at the central location, where preparatory attention is strongest. The data from 3 experiments, taken together, are inconsistent with the moving-spotlight models and are consistent with the activity-distribution model.
LaBerge
D
D
Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine 92717, USA. dlaberge@uci.edu
Carlson
R L
RL
Williams
J K
JK
Bunney
B G
BG
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011601:Psychophysics; D011930:Reaction Time; D013028:Space Perception; D014794:Visual Fields