Concurrent visual search and time reproduction with cross-talk

Abstract Previous experiments indicate that humans can reproduce a time interval while concurrently searching a visual display presented near the beginning of the reproduced interval (Fortin, C., Rousseau, R., Bourque, P. & Kirouac, E. (1993). Time estimation and concurrent nontemporal processing: Specific interference from short-term-memory demands. Perception & Psychophysics , 53 , 536–548.). In the earlier experiments, reproduced intervals were either insensitive to or shortened with increasing duration of visual search, suggesting that reproduction and search proceeded concurrently but sometimes with cross-talk. Here we test concurrency of time reproduction and visual search using a different methodology than before. Assuming the underlying mental processes are in a critical path network, factors selectively influencing concurrent processes are predicted to produce certain patterns in response time means and, through recent developments, certain patterns in cumulative distribution functions. Processes in an experiment were influenced by manipulating four factors, the time interval to be produced, stimulus onset asynchrony, display size, and target presence/absence. Patterns in response times provide evidence for concurrent time reproduction and visual search. However, a prediction based on selective influence failed in a manner suggesting the presence of cross-talk produced by a filled interval illusion.

[1]  J. Artieda,et al.  Time, internal clocks, and movement , 1996 .

[2]  R. Rousseau,et al.  Time estimation and concurrent nontemporal processing: Specific interference from short-term-memory demands , 1993, Perception & psychophysics.

[3]  Salah E. Elmaghraby,et al.  Activity networks: Project planning and control by network models , 1977 .

[4]  Ewart A. C. Thomas,et al.  Cognitive processing and time perception , 1975 .

[5]  Todd S. Horowitz,et al.  Visual search has no memory , 1998, Nature.

[6]  James L. McClelland,et al.  Conjunctive search for one and two identical targets. , 1989, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[7]  Mario Fifić,et al.  Parallel versus serial processing and individual differences in high-speed search in human memory , 2004, Perception & psychophysics.

[8]  Jeff Miller,et al.  Divided attention: Evidence for coactivation with redundant signals , 1982, Cognitive Psychology.

[9]  C Fortin,et al.  Temporal interval production and processing in working memory , 1995, Perception & psychophysics.

[10]  Ewart A. C. Thomas,et al.  Time perception and the filled-duration illusion , 1974 .

[11]  A. Treisman,et al.  A feature-integration theory of attention , 1980, Cognitive Psychology.

[12]  Richard Schweickert,et al.  A critical path generalization of the additive factor method: Analysis of a stroop task , 1978 .

[13]  R. Duncan Luce,et al.  Response Times: Their Role in Inferring Elementary Mental Organization , 1986 .

[14]  James T. Townsend,et al.  The Stochastic Modeling of Elementary Psychological Processes , 1983 .

[15]  Donald L. Fisher,et al.  Stochastic PERT networks as models of cognition: Derivation of the mean, variance, and distribution of reaction time using Order-of-Processing (OP) diagrams , 1983 .

[16]  P. Fraisse.  The psychology of time , 1963 .

[17]  Jeremy M. Wolfe,et al.  Just Say No: How Are Visual Searches Terminated When There Is No Target Present? , 1996, Cognitive Psychology.

[18]  R. Schweickert,et al.  Response time distributions: Some simple effects of factors selectively influencing mental processes , 1999, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[19]  J. Gibbon,et al.  Timing and time perception. , 1984, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

[20]  Louis Buffardi,et al.  Factors affecting the filled-duration illusion in the auditory, tactual, and visual modalities , 1971 .

[21]  Scott W. Brown.  Attentional resources in timing: Interference effects in concurrent temporal and nontemporal working memory tasks , 1997, Perception & psychophysics.

[22]  David E. Kieras,et al.  A computational theory of executive cognitive processes and multiple-task performance: Part 2. Accounts of psychological refractory-period phenomena. , 1997 .

[23]  M. Wenger.  On the whats and hows of retrieval in the acquisition of a simple skill. , 1999, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[24]  Walter Schneider,et al.  Controlled and automatic human information processing: II. Perceptual learning, automatic attending and a general theory. , 1977 .

[25]  Scott W. Brown.  Time, change, and motion: The effects of stimulus movement on temporal perception , 1995, Perception & psychophysics.

[26]  J. Palmer.  Attention in Visual Search: Distinguishing Four Causes of a Set-Size Effect , 1995 .

[27]  J. Townsend,et al.  Search reaction time for single targets in multiletter stimuli with brief visual displays , 1973, Memory & cognition.

[28]  Claus Bundesen,et al.  Serial Attention Mechanisms in Visual Search: A Direct Behavioral Demonstration , 2002, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[29]  Donald L. Fisher,et al.  Stochastic networks as models of cognition: deriving predictions for resource-constrained mental processing , 1992 .

[30]  Saul Sternberg,et al.  The discovery of processing stages: Extensions of Donders' method , 1969 .

[31]  F. Vidal,et al.  Functional Anatomy of the Attentional Modulation of Time Estimation , 2004, Science.

[32]  H. Lejeune.  Switching or gating? The attentional challenge in cognitive models of psychological time , 1998, Behavioural Processes.

[33]  D. Fisher,et al.  Molar and latent models of cognitive slowing: Implications for aging, dementia, depression, development, and intelligence , 1996, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[34]  R M Church,et al.  Scalar Timing in Memory , 1984, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

[35]  J. C. Johnston,et al.  Can practice eliminate the psychological refractory period effect , 1999 .

[36]  C Fortin,et al.  Order information in short-term memory and time estimation , 1999, Memory & cognition.

[37]  E. Dzhafarov.  Selective influence through conditional independence , 2003 .

[38]  Moshe Shaked,et al.  Stochastic orders and their applications , 1994 .

[39]  James T. Townsend,et al.  A trichotomy: Interactions of factors prolonging sequential and concurrent mental processes in stochastic discrete mental (PERT) networks , 1989 .

[40]  Ehtibar N. Dzhafarov,et al.  Mental architectures with selectively influenced but stochastically interdependent components , 2004 .

[41]  R Schweickert,et al.  Effects on response time of factors selectively influencing processes in acyclic task networks with OR gates. , 1993, The British journal of mathematical and statistical psychology.

[42]  James T. Townsend,et al.  Toward the trichotomy method of reaction times: laying the foundation of stochastic mental networks , 1989 .

[43]  Gordon D. Logan,et al.  Dependence and independence in responding to double stimulation: A comparison of stop, change, and dual-task paradigms. , 1986 .

[44]  Walter Schneider,et al.  Controlled and Automatic Human Information Processing: 1. Detection, Search, and Attention. , 1977 .

[45]  Dan Zakay,et al.  Chapter 10 Subjective Time and Attentional Resource Allocation: An Integrated Model of Time Estimation , 1989 .

[46]  Donald L. Fisher,et al.  Stochastic networks as models of cognition: derivation of response time distributions using the order-of-processing method , 1991 .

[47]  H. Egeth,et al.  Parallel versus serial processing in visual search: further evidence from subadditive effects of visual quality. , 1991 .

[48]  J. Townsend,et al.  Self-terminating versus exhaustive processes in rapid visual and memory search: An evaluative review , 1993, Perception & psychophysics.

[49]  A. Greenwald,et al.  On doing two things at once: time sharing as a function of ideomotor compatibility. , 1972, Journal of experimental psychology.

[50]  J. Townsend,et al.  Spatio-temporal properties of elementary perception: an investigation of parallel, serial, and coactive theories , 1995 .

[51]  R. Shiffrin,et al.  Controlled and automatic human information processing: I , 1977 .

[52]  A. Treisman,et al.  Search asymmetry: a diagnostic for preattentive processing of separable features. , 1985, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[53]  J. C. Johnston,et al.  Chronometric Evidence for Central Postponement in Temporally Overlapping Tasks , 2003 .

[54]  Raymond Klein,et al.  Inhibitory tagging system facilitates visual search , 1988, Nature.

[55]  R. Schweickert,et al.  Selective Influence and Response Time Cumulative Distribution Functions in Serial-Parallel Task Networks. , 2000, Journal of mathematical psychology.

[56]  R. Block,et al.  The role of attention in time estimation processes , 1996 .

[57]  Denis Cousineau,et al.  Termination of a visual search with large display size effects. , 2004, Spatial vision.

[58]  J. Brožek.  Attention and Performance II. , 1971 .

[59]  S. Sternberg.  Discovering mental processing stages: The method of additive factors. , 1998 .

[60]  Roger Ratcliff,et al.  A Theory of Memory Retrieval. , 1978 .

[61]  D. Navon,et al.  Role of outcome conflict in dual-task interference. , 1987, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[62]  Dan Zakay,et al.  Time and human cognition : a life-span perspective , 1989 .

[63]  D E Kieras,et al.  A computational theory of executive cognitive processes and multiple-task performance: Part 1. Basic mechanisms. , 1997, Psychological review.