A new estimation of the duration of attentional dwell time

How rapidly can attention move from one object to the next? Previous studies in which the dwell time paradigm was used have estimated attentional switch times of 200–500 msec, results incompatible with the search rate estimates of 25–50 msec shown in numerous visual search studies. It has been argued that dwell times are so long in the dwell time paradigm because the attentional shifts measured are unlike those used in visual search. In the present experiment, a variation of a visual search task was used, in which serial endogenous (volitional) deployments of attention were measured directly by means of a probe reaction time task. The experiment revealed a dwell time of about 250 msec, consistent with the faster estimates from other dwell time studies. This result suggests that endogenous shifts of attention may be relatively slow and that the faster attentional shifts estimated from visual search tasks may be due to the involvement of bottom-up processes.

[1]  Kimron Shapiro,et al.  Direct measurement of attentional dwell time in human vision , 1994, Nature.

[2]  K. Cave,et al.  Flexibility in Spatial Attention Before and After Practice , 1997 .

[3]  Matthias M. Müller,et al.  The time course of cortical facilitation during cued shifts of spatial attention , 1998, Nature Neuroscience.

[4]  M. Pomplun,et al.  Distractor Ratio Influences Patterns of Eye Movements during Visual Search , 2000, Perception.

[5]  Visual attention is no faster than the eyes. , 2001 .

[6]  J. Wolfe,et al.  Attention is fast but volition is slow , 2000, Nature.

[7]  D. E. Irwin,et al.  Our Eyes do Not Always Go Where we Want Them to Go: Capture of the Eyes by New Objects , 1998 .

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

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

[10]  J. Driver,et al.  Priming from the Attentional Blink: A Failure to Extract Visual Tokens but Not Visual Types , 1997 .

[11]  C. Bundesen.  A theory of visual attention. , 1990, Psychological review.

[12]  J. Duncan,et al.  Effects of similarity, difficulty, and nontarget presentation on the time course of visual attention , 1997, Perception & psychophysics.

[13]  H. Egeth,et al.  Are attentional dwell times inconsistent with serial visual search? , 1996, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[14]  J. Wolfe,et al.  Guided Search 2.0 A revised model of visual search , 1994, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[15]  A. Treisman,et al.  Conjunction search revisited. , 1990, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[16]  Geoffrey F. Woodman,et al.  Electrophysiological measurement of rapid shifts of attention during visual search , 1999, Nature.

[17]  E. Vogel,et al.  Electrophysiological Evidence for a Postperceptual Locus of Suppression during the Attentional Blink Time-based Attention and the Attentional Blink , 1998 .

[18]  J. Theeuwes,et al.  Programming of endogenous and exogenous saccades: evidence for a competitive integration model. , 2002, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[19]  J. Wolfe,et al.  What Can 1 Million Trials Tell Us About Visual Search? , 1998 .