Citation

Folk CL, Egeth H. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 1989; 15(1): 97-110.

Affiliation

NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1989, American Psychological Association)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

2522536

Abstract

Several recent studies have shown performance decrements with increasing display size when background texture elements are present in a same-different feature discrimination task--a result that challenges the traditional notion that the identities of simple visual features are processed in parallel, preattentively. Four experiments are reported that explore the implications of these results. Experiment 1 replicates the recent studies but limits the generalizability of the results to small target numbers. Experiments 2 and 3 show that the observed performance decrements are not due to a serial or even limited-capacity, parallel process. Experiment 4 suggests that decision factors idiosyncratic to the use of texture elements in a same-different task are responsible for the effect. It is concluded that the identification of simple visual features proceeds in parallel, with unlimited capacity (i.e., preattentively).

Language: en