From detection to identification: Response to multiple targets in rapid serial visual presentation

Abstract

In four experiments, words were presented visually at a high rate; as has been found previously, subjects could identify individual target words and must therefore have gathered some information even about the unreportable nontargets. The novel feature of this study was that there were frequently two targets in the list; the occurrence of the first target disrupted identification of the second for a subsequent period of more than half a second. This happened whether the target word was designated by a single physical feature or by the semantic characteristic of belonging to a specified category. The two situations did differ, however, in that unidentified targets of the first type still disturbed an accompanying second target, whereas those of the second type did not. The results are interpreted as meaning that a simple undemanding process of detection triggers other and more demanding processes of identification, so that the occurrence of the latter for one target interferes with their occurrence for another. © 1987 Psychonomic Society, Inc.