TEMPORAL COURSE OF SELECTIVE ATTENTION

Studies of visual memory have used a technique where a brief presentation of a display is followed some msec. later by a bar or line indicator designating the position that had been occupied by an element of the display. While the major interest has been in the decreasing accuracy in reporting the element as the indicator is increasingly delayed, an equally important problem is the ability of these indicators to selectively determine attention in a matter of msec. The present experiments using undergraduates compared the effectiveness of 4 different kinds of indicators and obtained estimates of the time required to process them or apprehend their meaning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1969 American Psychological Association.