Information processing in the first half-second of vision

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In the next five years, I plan to work in three separate areas, all related to the broad field of attention. The planned experiments are mostly designed to study the perceptual/attentional events that occur during the first half-second of vision. 1. The attentional blink (AB). When two targets (T1 and T2) are displayed in rapid succession, accuracy is nearly perfect for T1 but substantially reduced for T2 (AB). It is known that information about the temporal order in which T1 and T2 are presented is impaired during the AB, but this has not been investigated systematically. I plan to examine how various factors such as task difficulty affect the perception of temporal order in the AB. I also plan to study the electrophysiological correlates of the AB, notably a component of the event-related potential recently discovered in our laboratory to which we refer as the “reactivation positivity” (PR). The outcome of this work will be related to extant theories of the AB. 2. Inhibition of return (IOR). IOR refers to the finding that reaction times are slower to a target presented at a previously attended location than to a target presented at a previously unattended location. The work planned in this area focuses on the role of observer expectation and attentional momentum on the magnitude of IOR. 3. Driving simulator studies. With the aid of a CFI grant, I have purchased a high-fidelity driving simulator. I plan to examine in a realistic natural setting the attentional phenomena that I have studied - and will continue to study - in the laboratory (e.g., AB and IOR).