Introduction to Cognitive Psychology - Department of Psychological ...

Prof. Greg Francis 1/2/13Attentional blinkSuggests that processing the first targetletter, J uses up resources that would otherwise be usedto process second target letter, KSpeed readingEver seen the ads for speed reading?One is for a program called Mega Speed Reading claims to teach you to read 25,000 words per minuteJ attentional focus and refocus takes time and forthis task takes approximately 400 msSLNBJRKH...Once processing is done (afew hundred milliseconds),there is no difficultydetecting second letter.Purdue University ==> 2.4 milliseconds for each word impossible, if only by attentional blink!The seller is skimming at best,and lying at worstPurdue UniversityVisual searchVisual searchProofreadingMuch of our time is spent looking for various thingsTime and type of processing can also be measured byhaving observers respond as quickly as possible whenthey detect a target Staplers, Road signs hypothesize that tasks that involve attention will beslower than perceptually based tasks expect attention to depend on the number of things thatmust be searchedTypically, we distinguish between a target anddistracters by one or more features we vary the number of distracters and measure reaction timePurdue UniversityPurdue UniversitySet SizeSet SizeIn some situations, more distracters make search takelongerIn some situations, more distracters make search takelonger fast slowPurdue UniversityPurdue UniversityPSY 200: Intro. to Cognitive Psychology 2