Images in Attentional Blink By Dwayne Guenther & Cole Wyatt

Introduction The Attentional Blink was first observed by Broadbent and Broadbent (1987) Studied for the first time using the rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) by Weichselgartner and Sperling (1987) Hypothesized by Raymond et el.,1992 to consist of one targets processing blocking the processing of the next target

Postulated Causation Shapiro, Caldwell, and Sorenson (1997) found that the use of names, and specifically the participants’ names as targets produced no AB, supporting Raymond, Shapiro and Arnell’s (1994) theory that the AB affect was interference in processing based on the “weighing” of the materials. In conjunction with this is Raymond’s (2003) finding using variations of shapes found that shapes that consisted of manipulated features alone produced no AB

The Mask Giesbrecht and DiLollo (1998) found that removing the probe after the target also eliminated the AB affect Shapiro, Caldwell, and Sorenson (1997) also found that the name as a T+1 produced an AB Thus the AB is not a function of the competition of just two items, but rather multiple items, suggesting a lower initial store and a higher store to which only “weighted” material with low thresholds are applied(Treisman,1960)

Build-up Tresiman and Gormican (1988) hypothesized that the AB affect would occur when the “target and non- target are not similar and the probes highly standardized. Shapiro et. Al (1994) deduced from several color studies that produced no AB that it must be the presence of pattern, of competing or numerous features that produce the Attentional Blink phenomenon However Ross and Jolicoeur (1999) have found an AB in color

Hypothesis To test the finding of the previous data an experiment was performed. If the previous findings are true then there should occur an Attentional Blink with the complex pictures of dogs. However we hypothesize that the use of dog pictures, because they could consist of the usage of a singular schema, would eliminate the AB effect

Method 15 Participants Caucasian Small Mid-Western College Students Intro students and volunteers years of age

Method Continued Equipment Window’s XP’s Internet Explorer on Gateway LCD monitors Google.com images search on Internet Explorer

Method Continued Procedure 2x6x2 with-in subjects design 15 repetitions 12 items per sequence Font Size, Fixation Duration, and Item Duration were set as default IV’s: Stimulus type and Order 2 conditions

Results Significant Main Effect for Stimulus Type F (1, 14) = 28.28, p <.001 Significant Main Effect for Order F (1, 14) = , p <.001 Interaction between Stimulus Type and Order F (1, 14) = 15.33, p <.005

Discussion As can be seen from the past two slides there was an AB present for both the picture and letter conditons However the picture stimulus did produce better recall than the letter condition indicating that the phenomenon is one of quality of the data supporting Shapiro, Caldwell and Sorenson’s (1997) findings. Also, because the Attentional Blink was found in our experiment our results can also not discount that quantity of information plays a factor in the attentional blink.

Discussion Continued Limitations Pictures Participants Future Research