Spatial Cueing
From MerrimackWiki
Contents |
Experiment Summary
. In this experiment each trial began with an arrow that pointed to the left or right, or no arrow at all. Eighty percent of the time the left or right arrows would correctly indicate where the target stimulus would appear, a red square. On trials without the arrow, the stimulus had an equal probabilty of appearing on either said. The task was to respond to the appearance of the red square as quickly as possible.
Independent Variable(s)
.The type of cue used. The cue could be neutral (no arrow), valid (an arrow that pointed where the target actually appeared), or invalid (an arrow that points opposite to where the target actually appeared).
Dependent Measure(s)
. The reaction time between the appearance of the target and your response
Expected Results
. The expected results for this experiment are that the reaction time for the valid condition will be less that that of the neutral condition, and the invalid condition's reaction time will be greater that both the valid AND neutral conditions.
Theoretical Significance
This pattern of results indicates that one effect of attention is to process information more quickly. The valid cue allows you to move attentional focus to where the target will appear and respond to the stimulus more quickly. The invalid cue causes you to move attention to the incorrect side and thus you process the target more slowly.
- This is important because it shows that when attention is directed to one place on an object, the enhancing effect of this attention spreads throughout the object. Environment (location-based) and specific object (object-based) are two modes of visual attention involving two different mechanisms that operate under different conditions. The two modes of attention activate two different areas of the brain (Goldstein 2008).
