TY - JOUR

T1 - Does attention speed up processing?

T2 - Decreases and increases of processing rates in visual prior entry

AU - Tünnermann, Jan

AU - Petersen, Anders

AU - Scharlau, Ingrid

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2015 ARVO.

PY - 2015/1/1

Y1 - 2015/1/1

N2 - Selective visual attention improves performance in many tasks. Among others, it leads to “prior entry”—earlier perception of an attended compared to an unattended stimulus. Whether this phenomenon is purely based on an increase of the processing rate of the attended stimulus or if a decrease in the processing rate of the unattended stimulus also contributes to the effect is, up to now, unanswered. Here we describe a novel approach to this question based on Bundesen's Theory of Visual Attention, which we use to overcome the limitations of earlier prior-entry assessment with temporal order judgments (TOJs) that only allow relative statements regarding the processing speed of attended and unattended stimuli. Prevalent models of prior entry in TOJs either indirectly predict a pure acceleration or cannot model the difference between acceleration and deceleration. In a paradigm that combines a letter-identification task with TOJs, we show that indeed acceleration of the attended and deceleration of the unattended stimuli conjointly cause prior entry.

AB - Selective visual attention improves performance in many tasks. Among others, it leads to “prior entry”—earlier perception of an attended compared to an unattended stimulus. Whether this phenomenon is purely based on an increase of the processing rate of the attended stimulus or if a decrease in the processing rate of the unattended stimulus also contributes to the effect is, up to now, unanswered. Here we describe a novel approach to this question based on Bundesen's Theory of Visual Attention, which we use to overcome the limitations of earlier prior-entry assessment with temporal order judgments (TOJs) that only allow relative statements regarding the processing speed of attended and unattended stimuli. Prevalent models of prior entry in TOJs either indirectly predict a pure acceleration or cannot model the difference between acceleration and deceleration. In a paradigm that combines a letter-identification task with TOJs, we show that indeed acceleration of the attended and deceleration of the unattended stimuli conjointly cause prior entry.

KW - Psychology

KW - Cueing

KW - Prior entry

KW - TOJ

KW - TVA

KW - Visual attention

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84924805291&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1167/15.3.1

DO - 10.1167/15.3.1

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 25733608

VL - 15

SP - 1

EP - 27

JO - Journal of Vision

JF - Journal of Vision

SN - 1534-7362

IS - 3

M1 - 1

ER -