title: A new estimation of the duration of attentional dwell time.
abstract: How rapidly can attention move from one object to the next? Previous studies in which the dwell time paradigm was used have estimated attentional switch times of 200-500 msec, results incompatible with the search rate estimates of 25-50 msec shown in numerous visual search studies. It has been argued that dwell times are so long in the dwell time paradigm because the attentional shifts measured are unlike those used in visual search. In the present experiment, a variation of a visual search task was used, in which serial endogenous (volitional) deployments of attention were measured directly by means of a probe reaction time task. The experiment revealed a dwell time of about 250 msec, consistent with the faster estimates from other dwell time studies. This result suggests that endogenous shifts of attention may be relatively slow and that the faster attentional shifts estimated from visual search tasks may be due to the involvement of bottom-up processes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Psychology, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. j.theeuwes@psy.vu.nl
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Theeuwes
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Godijn
authors.forename: Jay
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pratt
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D006801:Humans; D011930:Reaction Time; D014796:Visual Perception