Attention, Automaticity and Priority Learning
Abstract
It is widely held that there is a distinction between attentive and automatic cognitive processing. In research on attention using visual search tasks, the detection performance of human subjects in consistent mapping paradigms is generally regarded as indicating a shift, with practice, from serial, attentional, controlled processing to a parallel, automatic processing, while detection performance in varied mapping paradigms is taken to indicate that processing remains under attentional control. This paper proposes a priority learning mechanism to model the effects of practice and the development of automaticity, in visual search tasks. A connectionist simulation model implements this learning algorithm. Five prominent features of visual search practice effects are simulated. These are: (1) in consistent mapping tasks, practice reduces processing time, particularly the slope of reaction times as a function of the number of comparisons; (2) in varied mapping tasks, there is no change in the slope of the reaction time function: (3) both the consistent and varied effects can occur concurrently; (4) reversing the target and distractor sets produces strong interference effects; and (5) the benefits of practice are a function of the degree of consistency.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1991
- Accession Number
- ADA242226
Entities
People
- Prahlad Gupta
- Walter Schneider
Organizations
- Carnegie Mellon University