Processing redundant signals: Coactivation, divided attention, or what?

Abstract

The evidence for and against a redundancy gain in reaction time (RT) when the target is repeated in the visual display is reviewed. We consider the relevance of redundancy gains under these circumstances to the question of whether attention can be simultaneously directed to separate locations in the visual field. In the present experiments, two capital letters were the target stimuli in a two-alternative forced-choice RT paradigm. In addition to the usual conditions of single-target trials, trials on which the target is repeated in the display, and trials on which the target occurs with a noise letter, we introduced the innovation of a condition in which both targets occur in the display. In our two experiments, RT was fastest with single-target displays and slowest with displays containing a target and a noise letter. There was no significant difference in RT to displays in which the target was repeated and displays in which both targets were presented. Both conditions showed a redundancy gain when compared with displays containing a target and a noise letter. The lack of response competition in the both-targets condition and the overall pattern of the results were well explained by a unitary attentional focus that serially processed the letters in the display. Analyses of minima and maxima RTs were consistent with this interpretation. © 1989 Psychonomic Society, Inc.