Cues facilitate detection of motion in dynamic random-dot patterns.
In 1981 Ball and Sekuler showed that a briefly flashed line which primed the subject to the direction of target motion improved the detection of a target. Our aim was to study whether a pointing arrow and random-dot patterns that move in one of four possible directions can prime detection of motion for higher-contrast stimuli. When the motion of a target was primed and the cue validity was 100%, the target's position was more easily detected. Improvement was significant when the direction indicated by the cue and a target's direction were either the same or opposite relative to each other. When the subjects (n = 5 each experiment) did not know the direction of the target before the presentation of the stimulus field, no improvement was found. A discussion of attention to the cue is presented.
Laarni
J
J
Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki, Finland. jari.laarni@helsinki.fi
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D003463:Cues; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005260:Female; D005556:Form Perception; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception; D011930:Reaction Time