Erroneous selection of a non-target item improves subsequent target identification in rapid serial visual presentations

• Authors: Yuki Yamada , Atsunori Ariga , Kayo Miura , Takahiro Kawabe

Abstracts

EN

The second of two targets (T2) embedded in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) is often missed even though the first (T1) is correctly reported (attentional blink). The rate of correct T2 identification is quite high, however, when T2 comes immediately after T1 (lag-1 sparing). This study investigated whether and how non-target items induce lag-1 sparing. One T1 and two T2s comprising letters were inserted in distractors comprising symbols in each of two synchronised RSVPs. A digit (dummy) was presented with T1 in another stream. Lag-1 sparing occurred even at the location where the dummy was present (Experiment 1). This distractor-induced sparing effect was also obtained even when a Japanese katakana character (Experiment 2) was used as the dummy. The sparing effect was, however, severely weakened when symbols (Experiment 3) and Hebrew letters (Experiment 4) served as the dummy. Our findings suggest a tentative hypothesis that attentional set for item nameability is meta-categorically created and adopted to the dummy only when the dummy is nameable.

Keywords

EN

attentional blink; RSVP; category; attentional set; lag-1 sparing

• Publisher: Wyższa Szkoła Finansów i Zarządzania w Warszawie
• Journal: Advances in Cognitive Psychology
• Year: 2010
• Volume: 6
• Pages: 35-46

Contributors

author

Yuki Yamada

• Faculty of Human-Environment Studies, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

author

Atsunori Ariga

• Department of Psychology, The University of Tokyo, Japan

author

Kayo Miura

• Faculty of Human-Environment Studies, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

author

Takahiro Kawabe

• Faculty of Human-Environment Studies, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/v10053-008-0075-3