Abstract
The present study examined how observing consecutively presented numbers would shifts visual attention. We adapted the Posner’s cueing paradigm and prepared 4 types of consecutive presentation of two digits (1-5, 5-1, 5-9, 9-5). The first digit was presented for 300 ms, followed by a 100-ms blank and the second digit for 300 ms. The target appeared either the left or right side of the central fixation 200, 400, or 600 ms after the second digit. Participants were asked to detect the target. The results showed that the interval between the second digit and the target did not influence the detection time but observing the 1-5 and the 5-9 sequences caused shifts of spatial attention towards the right side. That is, attention was shifted rightward after observing an increase in the magnitude of the numbers. These results suggest that the relative magnitude of consecutively presented numbers may have influence on attentional shift.
