Citation

McElree B, Carrasco M. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 1999; 25(6): 1517-1539.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, New York University, New York 10003, USA. bdm@psych.nyu.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 1999, American Psychological Association)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

10641310

PMCID

PMC3313830

Abstract

Feature and conjunction searches have been argued to delineate parallel and serial operations in visual processing. The authors evaluated this claim by examining the temporal dynamics of the detection of features and conjunctions. The 1st experiment used a reaction time (RT) task to replicate standard mean RT patterns and to examine the shapes of the RT distributions. The 2nd experiment used the response-signal speed-accuracy trade-off (SAT) procedure to measure discrimination (asymptotic detection accuracy) and detection speed (processing dynamics). Set size affected discrimination in both feature and conjunction searches but affected detection speed only in the latter. Fits of models to the SAT data that included a serial component overpredicted the magnitude of the observed dynamics differences. The authors concluded that both features and conjunctions are detected in parallel. Implications for the role of attention in visual processing are discussed.

Language: en