Evidence for split attentional foci

Abstract

A partial report procedure was used to test the ability of observers to split attention over noncontiguous locations. Observers reported the identity of 2 targets that appeared within a 5 × 5 stimulus array, and cues (validity = 80%) informed them of the 2 most likely target locations. On invalid trials, 1 of the targets appeared directly in between the cued locations. Experiments 1, la, and 2 showed a strong accuracy advantage at cued locations compared with intervening ones. This effect was larger when the cues were arranged horizontally rather than vertically. Experiment 3 suggests that this effect of cue orientation reflects an advantage for processing targets that appear in different hemifields. Experiments 4 and 4a suggest that the primary mechanism supporting the flexible deployment of spatial attention is the suppression of interference from stimuli at unattended locations. There is a substantial body of research showing that when observers direct attention to specific parts of the visual field, information processing is facilitated at attended locations relative to unattended locations. A basic question is how flexibly attention can be deployed over space. Most models of spatial attention have assumed that attention is allocated over contiguous regions of space (e.g., Eriksen & Yeh, 1985