Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Dalhousie University, 1355 Oxford St., Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 4R2, Canada.
Mem Cognit. 2024 Jan;52(1):1-6. doi: 10.3758/s13421-023-01438-y. Epub 2023 Jun 30.
Alertness has been construed as one of three fundamental components of attention. When generated by a warning signal, phasic changes in alertness ubiquitously decrease reaction time. But how does it do so? Based on earlier findings, in 1975, Posner proposed a theory of phasic alertness with two postulates: (i) phasic alertness does not affect the accumulation of information; (ii) phasic alertness accelerates when a response based on the accumulating information will be generated. When targets are continuously presented, this theory predicts that alertness will reduce reaction at the expense of an increase in errors-that is, generate a speed-accuracy trade-off. Los and Schut, Cognitive Psychology, 57, 20-55, (2008), while endorsing Posner's theory, claimed to have failed to replicated the tell-tale trade-off reported by Posner et al. Memory and Cognition, 1, 2-12, (1973, Experiment 1). The primary goal of this commentary was to use all the data from Los and Schut to see if the predicted speed-accuracy trade-off would be verified or not. With the increased power, it was confirmed that the conditions that benefited the most in reaction time from alertness also had higher error rates. It is noteworthy that recent studies have generated replications and extensions of the methods and findings of Posner et al; thus, it appears that the empirical pattern predicted by Posner's theory of phasic alertness is relatively robust.
警觉被认为是注意力的三个基本组成部分之一。当由警告信号产生时，警觉的相位变化普遍会减少反应时间。但是，它是如何做到的呢？根据早期的发现，1975 年，波西格提出了一个具有两个假设的相位警觉理论：（i）相位警觉不会影响信息的积累；（ii）当基于积累的信息将产生反应时，相位警觉会加速。当目标连续呈现时，该理论预测警觉会以增加错误为代价来减少反应——也就是说，产生速度-准确性权衡。洛斯和舒特，《认知心理学》，57，20-55，（2008 年），在赞同波西格理论的同时，声称未能复制波西格等人报告的明显权衡。《记忆与认知》，1，2-12，（1973 年，实验 1）。本评论的主要目标是使用洛斯和舒特的所有数据，看看预测的速度-准确性权衡是否会得到验证。随着功率的增加，确认了从警觉中最受益于反应时间的条件也具有更高的错误率。值得注意的是，最近的研究已经对波西格等人的方法和发现进行了复制和扩展；因此，看来波西格的相位警觉理论所预测的经验模式是相对稳健的。
