1-B-30 Temporal limits of visual attention on order perception(Awarded Presentations at the 21st Annual Meeting)

Abstract

When four letters are repeatedly presented by the RSVP method with a gradually increasing duration of exposure, an observer can identify the letters but misreports their order (Holcombe, Kanwisher, & Treisman, 2001). Holcombe et al. (2001) argued that the order illusion is caused by an observer failing to direct their attention to the arbitrary initial item. However, our findings in Experiment 1 of the present study indicated that the accuracy of the order does not depend on the ease of directing attention to the salient item. In addition, the order illusion occurred when the target letters were presented in a decelerating manner. We found in Experiment 2 that an order illusion occurred when the observer attended to a letter presented very briefly and was required to report the order of the subsequent letters presented within 466ms. These results suggest that an order illusion is caused by the temporal limits of visual attention which also cause an attentional blink.