The topographies of the transient and sustained attentional mechanisms
Project Completed
This basic research project compared letter recognition performance elicited by either sustained or transient focal attention. Note that sustained attention is slow and can be directed by volition, whereas transient attention is fast and functions reflex-like. They can be goal-directedly elicited by the timing (SOA) of the cue (pubmed).
See the previous screen for details about sustained attention. Here we concentrated on the transient component of focal attention, while the sustained component was the goal of a previous study (pubmed).
In general, the basic findings for transient attention were quite similar to the ones for sustained attention in that they showed strong topographic variations. However, they also showed that comparing one subject’s performance fields gained while using the transient vs. the sustained mechanism can differ significantly. Note that this is true while all physical variables (target size, duration and contrast), other than the timing of the cue, were identical.
This is strong evidence supporting the view that the measured differences in performance cannot be caused by differences in retinal resolution. Here too, performance is usually better on the horizontal meridian. Age was not a decisive factor in determining performance level.
Publications:
Nakayama, K. and MacKeben, M. (1989) Sustained and transient components of focal visual attention. Vision Research 29, No.11, 1631-1647 (pubmed)
MacKeben, M. (1999) Sustained focal attention and peripheral letter recognition. Spatial Vision 12/1, 51-71 (pubmed)
MacKeben, M. The topography of transient focal attention and peripheral letter recognition. (in preparation)