Psychophysics of human attention, and sensory and time discriminatio

Kristofferson, A. B.

English

NASA Technical Reports Server

General Disclaimer 
One or more of the Following Statements may affect this Document 
 
 This document has been reproduced from the best copy furnished by the 
organizational source. It is being released in the interest of making available as 
much information as possible. 
 
 This document may contain data, which exceeds the sheet parameters. It was 
furnished in this condition by the organizational source and is the best copy 
available. 
 
 This document may contain tone-on-tone or color graphs, charts and/or pictures, 
which have been reproduced in black and white. 
 
 This document is paginated as submitted by the original source. 
 
 Portions of this document are not fully legible due to the historical nature of some 
of the material. However, it is the best reproduction available from the original 
submission. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Produced by the NASA Center for Aerospace Information (CASI) 
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19710018807 2020-03-11T19:58:02+00:00Z
A Study of Attention and Psychological Time
Final Report
Grant No. NGR-52-059-001
Submitted to:
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Washington, D.C.
by:
Alfred B. Kristofferson
McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
May, 1971
N'70	 ^1 -^ 2	 30 ^ACei-,SIOjlJ4UM ER)
	 (T,1U)$	 (f^(	 ` ^
0	 (PAGES (CODE)
J
Q (N45A CR bR TIAX OR AD NUMBER)
	 (C rE ORY)
rA Study of Attention and Psychological Time
The research funded by Grant No. NGR-52-059-001, with three
supplements, covered the period from September, 1965 to September, 1969.
Permission was obtained to continue the work, without additional funds,
for one additional year.
The program of which this research is a segment began in 1961
and it continues at the present time. It is now wholly supported by the
National Research Council of Canada.
Prior to the period which is the subject of this report, the
program was supported by NASA Contracts 2-1790 and 2-2486 with Bolt
Beranek and Newman, Inc., of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
This report consists of nine items, four published papers and
five Technical Reports. Copies of the items are enclosed as References
1 through 9 of this report. These items will be summarized briefly
below.
In addition, a number of other items were produced under this
grant. They are as follows:
1. Attention. Annual Review of Psychology, 21, 1970, pp. 339-366
(with John A. Swets).
2. Aufinerksamkeit. Lexikon der Psychologie. Ed. by W. Arnold, H.-J.
Eysenck and R. Meili. Verlag Herder K. G. Freiburg (in press).
3. Review of: Attention. Selective Processes in Vision and Audition.
By N. Moray. Contemporary Psychology, 16, No. 1, Jan. 1971, pp.
20-22.
4. Sensory Attention. In symposium on attention (chairman A. B.
Kristofferson) XIX International Congress of Psychology, London,
England, Aug. 1969.
2S. Mechanisms for Temporal numerosity in audition. Sharon Abel.
Ph.D. Ll;,.^sis, McMaster University, 1970.
6. Recovery of masked visual targets by inhibition of the masking
stimulus. Robert Hansen. B.Sc. thesis, McMaster University, 1968.
7. Duration discrimination of short visual stimuli. E. W. Wiens.
B.A. thesis, McMaster University, 1969.
8. The recovery effect in visual backward masking as a function of the
intermask interval. John Galloway. B.A. thesis, McMaster University,
1969.
9. Effects of temporal summation on the discrimination of successive
sensory impulses. David Giles. B.A. thesis, McMaster University, 1969.
10. Duration discrimination of brief visual off-flashes. Marnie McKee.
B.A. thesis, McMaster University, 1970.
11. Some evidence for a unit of psychological time. Invited paper.
Symposium on Temporal Factors in Vision. Center for Visual Sciences,
University of Rochester, June, 1966.
12. Detailed presentation at Conference on Temporal Factors in Behavior.
University of California, LaJolla, June, 1966.
13. Some temporal aspects of attention. Symposium at meetings of American
Psychological Association. New York, September, 1966.
14. Attention and Psychophysical Time. Symposium No. S "Orienting reflex,
alertness and attention", XVIII International Congress of Psychology.
Moscow, USSR, Aug. 1966.
15. Some attempts to manipulate the human alpha frequency and the
application of a Fourier analysis to the E.E.G. frequency spectrum.
John Santa Barbara. M.A. thesis, McMaster University, October, 1967.
A total of 30 papers, technical reports, theses and invited
addresses resulted from this program during the six years of NASA support.
In addition, two of the papers have been reprinted in books of readings.
I3
Summary of the Program
Reference 1.	 Attention and Psychophysi.cal Time. A.B. Kristofferson.
Acta Psychologica, 27, (1967), 93-100. This volume
published separately as "Attention and Performance".
Ed. A. F. Sanders. This article reprinted in "Information-
Processing Approaches to Visual Perception." Ed. R. N.
Haber, Holt, Rinehart anJ Winston, 1969.
This reference presents a concise account of the basic theory
and of the initial experiments which led to its formulation.
The theory states that there is a fixed-frequency "clock" within
the human central nervous system which controls and integrates the flow
of information into and through the brain. The clock emits a succession
of equally-spaced time points and the psychophysical "time quantum" is
defined as the time between two adjacent time points. Two functions are
attributed to the time points. They control the admission of information
into the central processor by controlling the switching of attention
between input channels. Specifically, a time point represents an
opportunity for attention to switch; it cannot switch at other times.
Secondly, information which is within one stage within the central
processor can proceed into a subsequent stage only when a time point
occurs.
In the experiments three kinds of measurements are made.
Successiveness discrimination determines the ability to discriminate
that two sensory signals in different channels are successive rather
than simultaneous. This ability is limited by the switching of attention
and this measurement yields one estimate of the time quantum. Uncertainty
as to which channel will contain the next signal increases reaction time
because attention must switch on some trials. This gives another estimate
4of the quantum. Finally, frequency distributions of reaction times
have quantal characteristics suggesting quantal control over the
movement of information from stage to stage.
These three measurements yield identical magnitudes for the
quantum, averaging 50 msec. over individuals. They are correlated over
subjects and independent of input channel, confirming a central locus.
Finally, they are equal in magnitude and correlated with the interval
between zero-crossings of the alpha rhythm of the electroencephalogram,
hence the latter may be a fourth measure of the quantum which is precise
and easy to obtain.
Reference 2.	 Attention. A. B. Kristofferson. Ch. in "Applications
of Research on Human Decision-making." Ed. by R. M.
Patton, T. A. Tanner, J. Markowitz and J. A. Swets.
NASA SP-209. 1970, pp. 49-65.
This chapter recapitulates the material in reference 1 in
greater detail, relates it to the work of others, and integrates it with
some of the more recent experimental results. Additional evidence for
the time quantum is given and some of the problems associated with practical
applications of the theory are discussed.
This reference is the most detailed, complete and up-to-date
statement of the program which is available in any one place.
Reference 3. Successiveness discrimination as a two-state quantal
process. A. B. Kristofferson. Technical Report No. 7,
Department of Psychology, McMaster University, Hamilton,
Ontario, July, 1967.
Following the completion of the research described above in ref.
1, I set out to try to achieve a more complete understanding of the three
basic parameters and of the behaviors from which they are abstracted.
3
9
5This goal has been reached as far as successiveness discrimination is
concerned and the outcome is described in this report. A somewhat
more elaborate theory of successiveness discrimination is presented
along with much more extensive data and additional data which confirm
the quantum hypothesis in another way. The relationship between the
quantum ar_d the alpha half-period is also confirmed.
Reference 4. Successiveness discrimination as a two-state quantal
process. A. B. Kristofferson, SCIENCE, 8 December,
1967, Vol. 158, pp. 1337-39.
This brief paper is a concise account of the principle aspects
of the work described in ref. 3 above.
Reference 5. Sensory Attention. A. B. Kristofferson. Technical Report
No. 36, Department of Psychology, McMaster University, July,
1969. A paper presented in the symposium on attention at
the XIX International Congress of Psychology, London,
England, August, 1969.
When the research into successiveness discrimination was finished
I returned to reaction time with the initial intention to develop more
adequate quantal models of the form of reaction time frequency distributions.
This effort has gone in many directions, none of which have led to a
decisive result. One such direction is described in this reference as
an interim report.
This work is continuing at the present time as one of the two
major components of the program.
Reference 6. Duration discrimination of brief visual stimuli. L. G.
Allan. A. B. Kristofferson, E. W. Wiens. Technical Report
No. 38, Department of Psychology, McMaster University,
January, 1970.
I6
Reference 7. Duration discrimination discrimination of brief visual
off-flashes. M. E. McKee, L.G. Allan. A. B. Kristofferson.
Technical Report No. 42, Department of Psychology,
McMaster University, June, 1970.
Reference 8. Duration discrimination of brief light flashes. L. G.
Allan, A. B. Kristofferson, L. W. Wiens. Perception
and Psychophysics, 1971, Vol. 9 (3B), pp. 327-334.
Reference 9. Discrimination of brief empty time intervals. R. Carbotte
and A. B. Kristofferson. Technical Report No. 21, Depart-
ment of Psychology, McMaster University, March, 1971.
This group of references describes the second major, current
component of the program.
In parallel with the work on reaction time I began an attempt
to discover another function for the time points in addition to their
role in attention-switching and information transfer. The new hypothesis
in this connection is that the time quantum is involved in time discrimination
and time perception. Does the central clock also provide a basis for the
human time sense?
There are no adequate, and few inadequate, quantitative theories
of time perception and we are taking a broad approach to this area. One
theory which we have found useful is one proposed by D. Creelman a number
of years ago which posits that the human observer takes a measure of a
time interval by counting a random pulse source during the interval. This
theory maps continuous physical time into continuous psychological time.
We have developed several other theories which are quite
different from Creelman's. Some of these assume that continuous physical
time is mapped into discrete psychological states and that these states
are quantized by the central clock. The most complete report of this is
7contained in reference 9 which also reports data which are encouraging
with respect to this kind of theory. However, memory factors become
important here and have to be contained in this theory.
The most promising theory at the present time is the quantal
onset — offset theory which we set forth in reference 8. This theory
differs from those alluded to above in that it portrays continuous
physical time as mapped into continuous psychological time but through
the mediation of quantal mechanisms. Excellent data supporting this
theory are reported in reference 8 as well.
All of the various theories of duration are being compared
with each other using data from many different kinds of experiments.
We have made substantial progress on Lhis problem but we do not yet
have a final answer to propose. This work continues into the future.


A study of attention and psychological time Final report

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

NASA Technical Reports Server