Neumann O, Esselmann U, Klotz W
Abteilung für Psychologie, Universität Bielefeld, Germany.
Psychol Res. 1993;56(1):26-34. doi: 10.1007/BF00572130.
Theorists from both classical structuralism and modern attention research have claimed that attention to a sensory stimulus enhances processing speed. However, they have used different operations to measure this effect, viz., temporal-order judgment (TOJ) and reaction-time (RT) measurement. We report two experiments that compared the effect of a spatial cue on RT and TOJ. Experiment 1 demonstrated that a nonmasked, peripheral cue (the brief brightening of a box) affected both RT and TOJ. However, the former effect was significantly larger than the latter. A masked cue had a smaller, but reliable, effect on TOJ. In Experiment 2, the effects of a masked cue on RT and TOJ were compared under identical stimulus conditions. While the cue had a strong effect on RT, it left TOJ unaffected. These results suggest that a spatial cue may have dissociable effects on response processes and the processes that lead to a conscious percept. Implications for the concept of direct parameter specification and for theories of visual attention are discussed.
经典结构主义和现代注意力研究的理论家均声称，对感觉刺激的注意力会提高处理速度。然而，他们使用了不同的操作来测量这种效应，即时间顺序判断（TOJ）和反应时间（RT）测量。我们报告了两项实验，比较了空间线索对RT和TOJ的影响。实验1表明，一个未被掩盖的外周线索（一个盒子的短暂变亮）对RT和TOJ均有影响。然而，前者的影响明显大于后者。一个被掩盖的线索对TOJ有较小但可靠的影响。在实验2中，在相同的刺激条件下比较了被掩盖线索对RT和TOJ的影响。虽然该线索对RT有强烈影响，但对TOJ没有影响。这些结果表明，空间线索可能对反应过程和导致有意识感知的过程有可分离的影响。讨论了对直接参数指定概念和视觉注意力理论的影响。
