Feature integration and spatial attention: More evidence of a dissociation between endogenous and exogenous orienting

Prior research using a visual orienting paradigm has shown that spatial attention appears to play a greater role in detecting a conjunction of features than in detecting simple features (W. Prinzmetal, D. E. Presti, & M. I. Posner, 1986; A. Treisman, 1985). However 1 study using this procedure (K. Briand & R. M. Klein, 1987) reported that this pattern is obtained only when spatial attention is oriented exogenously (reflexively), not when it is oriented endogenously (voluntarily). Five experiments attempted to replicate and extend this finding of Briand and Klein while including procedures that addressed some of the criticisms directed at these aforementioned studies by Y. Tsal (1989a, 1989b). The data indicate that the findings reported by Briand and Klein were reliable and robust; spatial orienting effects were greater when the task required detection of conjunctions as opposed to features, but only when attention was directed by exogenous cues. A reason for this dissociation is proposed.