Cite as:
Sperling G, Wurst S A, Lu Z-L, 2004, "Measuring the efficiency of attentional filtering" Perception 33 ECVP Abstract Supplement

Measuring the efficiency of attentional filtering

G Sperling, S A Wurst, Z-L Lu

Consider stimuli composed of two classes of items: A-items to which an observer must attend and B-items which the observer must ignore. To measure the efficiency of human observers in excluding information from the unattended B-items, we compared performance with three types of stimuli: AB, the mixed stimulus composed of both A-items and B-items; A-, the B-items are entirely removed, only A-items remain; AA, the feature B is changed to A so that all items contain A and no feature-distinction is possible. Various performance indices are computed, eg [P(A-) - P(AB)] / [P(A-) - P(AA)] gives the fraction of total possible benefit (physically excluding the ignored feature) achieved by attentional exclusion. This index includes a stimulus differentiation benefit in the AB stimuli, so a more complex, pure attentional-exclusion ratio was defined. Performance was measured in a character stream (10 items s^-1) with a repetition-judgment task that largely involves perceptual attentional filtering. Various A - B feature-pairs were tested: red - green, LARGE - small, black - white, 45° - 135° slant, high-versus-low spatial frequency, and two feature combinations: LARGE - black versus small-white and LARGE - high versus small - low spatial frequency. There are great individual differences; >60% efficiencies were achieved by some subjects for red - green, spatial bandpass, and both feature combinations.

These web-based abstracts are provided for ease of seaching and access, but certain aspects (such as as mathematics) may not appear in their optimum form. For the final published version of this abstract, please see
ECVP 2004 Abstract Supplement (complete) size: 1686 Kb