Serial deployment of attention during visual search.
This study examined whether objects are attended in serial or in parallel during a demanding visual search task. A component of the event-related potential waveform, the N2pc wave, was used as a continuous measure of the allocation of attention to possible targets in the search arrays. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the relative allocation of attention shifts rapidly, favoring one item and then another. In Experiment 2, a paradigm was used that made it possible to track the absolute allocation of attention to individual items. This experiment showed that attention was allocated to one object for 100-150 ms before attention began to be allocated to the next object. These findings support models of attention that posit serial processing in demanding visual search tasks.
Woodman
Geoffrey F
GF
Department of Psychology, University of Iowa, Iowa City 52242-1407, USA. geoffrey.f.woodman@vanderbilt.edu
Luck
Steven J
SJ
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D011601:Psychophysics; D011930:Reaction Time