Journal article
Stimulus Recognition Occurs Under High Perceptual Load: Evidence From Correlated Flankers
Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance, Vol.42(12), pp.2077-2083
12/2016
DOI: 10.1037/xhp0000278
PMID: 27854456
Abstract
A dominant account of selective attention, perceptual load theory, proposes that when attentional resources are exhausted, task-irrelevant information receives little attention and goes unrecognized. However, the flanker effect-typically used to assay stimulus identification-requires an arbitrary mapping between a stimulus and a response. We looked for failures of flanker identification by using a more-sensitive measure that does not require arbitrary stimulus-response mappings: the correlated flankers effect. We found that flanking items that were task-irrelevant but that correlated with target identity produced a correlated flanker effect. Participants were faster on trials in which the irrelevant flanker had previously correlated with the target than when it did not. Of importance, this correlated flanker effect appeared regardless of perceptual load, occurring even in high-load displays that should have abolished flanker identification. Findings from a standard flanker task replicated the basic perceptual load effect, with flankers not affecting response times under high perceptual load. Our results indicate that task-irrelevant information can be processed to a high level (identification), even under high perceptual load. This challenges a strong account of high perceptual load effects that hypothesizes complete failures of stimulus identification under high perceptual load.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Stimulus Recognition Occurs Under High Perceptual Load: Evidence From Correlated Flankers
- Creators
- Joshua D Cosman - Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt UniversityJ Toby Mordkoff - Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of IowaShaun P Vecera - Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa
- Contributors
- James T Enns (Editor)
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance, Vol.42(12), pp.2077-2083
- Publisher
- American Psychological Association
- DOI
- 10.1037/xhp0000278
- PMID
- 27854456
- ISSN
- 0096-1523
- eISSN
- 1939-1277
- Grant note
- name: National Science Foundation, award: BCS 11-51209; DOI: 10.13039/501100003499, name: Nissan Motor Company; name: Toyota Motor Company
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 12/2016
- Academic Unit
- Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute
- Record Identifier
- 9984066144902771
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