Set-specific contingent attentional capture is a particularly strong form of capture that occurs when multiple attentional sets guide visual search (e.g., "search for green letters" and "search for orange letters"). In this type of capture, a potential target that matches one attentional set (e.g. a green stimulus) impairs the ability to identify a temporally proximal target that matches anothe...

We previously reported that low vision readers do not benefit from a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) display relative to a scroll display. Each reader in those studies was presented with only one letter size, and it was the same for both displays. In the current study, we systematically varied the size of the letters and compared reading rates from the 2 displays for letters that were 2...

Participants performed an attentional blink (AB) task including digits as targets and letters as distractors within the visual and auditory domains. Prior to the rapid serial visual presentation, a visual or auditory prime was presented in the form of a digit that was identical to the second target (T2) on 50% of the trials. In addition to the "classic" AB effect, an overall drop in performance...

When two orthographically similar words are displayed using rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP), the repeated letters in the second critical word (W2) are not detected, leading to a deficit in reporting this word, a phenomenon known as repetition blindness (RB). The unrepeated letters in W2 do appear to be detected and available to feed activation to words compatible with them (Morris & Har...

In previous eye movement research on word length effects, spatial width has been confounded with the number of letters. McDonald (2006) unconfounded these factors by rendering all words in sentences in constant spatial width. In the present study, the Arial font with proportional letter spacing was used for varying the number of letters while equating for spatial width, while the Courier font w...

S. T. L. Chung (2002) has shown that rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) reading speed varies with letter spacing, peaking near the standard letter spacing for text and decreasing for both smaller and larger spacings. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that the dependence of reading speed on letter spacing is mediated by the size of the visual span-the number of letters recognized with...

OBJECTIVE We explored the constituents of the graphemic buffer in a patient with acquired dysgraphia and tested the hypothesis that the graphemic buffer is composed of 2 dissociable components: letter selection and letter assembly. BACKGROUND Research on dysgraphia has established the graphemic buffer as a component of the spelling mechanism, and the buffer is considered a short-term memory s...

In 4 experiments, the authors attempted to replicate an improvement in recall of target memories produced by a post-learning clue enabling participants to reorganize and segregate interfering material, as shown by G. H. Bower and T. Mann (1992). The 1st three experiments studied retroactive interference (RI) in free recall of an initial word list after participants were informed post-learning o...

Visual recognition is achieved by a hierarchy of bidirectionally connected cortical areas. The entry of signals into higher areas involves the serial sampling of information within a movable window of attention. Here we explore how the cortex can move this window and integrate the sampled information. To make this concrete, we modeled the process of visual word recognition by hierarchical corti...

An experiment of McLean, D. E. Broadbent, and M. H. P. Broadbent (1983) using rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) was replicated. A series of letters in one of 5 colors was presented, and the subject was asked to identify the letter that appeared in a designated color. There were several innovations in our procedure, the most important of which was the use of a response menu. After each tri...