The blinking spotlight of attention

@article{citeulike:2279941, abstract = {Increasing evidence suggests that attention can concurrently select multiple locations; yet it is not clear whether this ability relies on continuous allocation of attention to the different targets (a "parallel" strategy) or whether attention switches rapidly between the targets (a periodic "sampling" strategy). Here, we propose a method to distinguish between these two alternatives. The human psychometric function for detection of a single target as a function of its duration can be used to predict the corresponding function for two or more attended targets. Importantly, the predicted curves differ, depending on whether a parallel or sampling strategy is assumed. For a challenging detection task, we found that human performance was best reflected by a sampling model, indicating that multiple items of interest were processed in series at a rate of approximately seven items per second. Surprisingly, the data suggested that attention operated in this periodic regime, even when it was focused on a single target. That is, attention might rely on an intrinsically periodic process. 10.1073/pnas.0707316104}, author = {Vanrullen, Rufin and Carlson, Thomas and Cavanagh, Patrick }, citeulike-article-id = {2279941}, doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0707316104}, journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences}, keywords = {journalclub}, month = {December}, number = {49}, pages = {19204--19209}, posted-at = {2008-01-23 09:52:22}, priority = {2}, title = {The blinking spotlight of attention}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0707316104}, volume = {104}, year = {2007} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:2279941 L3 - citeulike-article-id:2279941 TI - The blinking spotlight of attention JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences VL - 104 IS - 49 SP - 19204 EP - 19209 N2 - Increasing evidence suggests that attention can concurrently select multiple locations; yet it is not clear whether this ability relies on continuous allocation of attention to the different targets (a "parallel" strategy) or whether attention switches rapidly between the targets (a periodic "sampling" strategy). Here, we propose a method to distinguish between these two alternatives. The human psychometric function for detection of a single target as a function of its duration can be used to predict the corresponding function for two or more attended targets. Importantly, the predicted curves differ, depending on whether a parallel or sampling strategy is assumed. For a challenging detection task, we found that human performance was best reflected by a sampling model, indicating that multiple items of interest were processed in series at a rate of approximately seven items per second. Surprisingly, the data suggested that attention operated in this periodic regime, even when it was focused on a single target. That is, attention might rely on an intrinsically periodic process. 10.1073/pnas.0707316104 KW - journalclub AU - Vanrullen, Rufin AU - Carlson, Thomas AU - Cavanagh, Patrick PY - 2007/12/04/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0707316104 ER -