Color segregation and selective attention in a nonsearch task

Abstract

Relations between selective attention and perceptual segregation by color were investigated in binary-choice reaction time experiments based on the non search paradigm of Eriksen and Eriksen (1974). In focused attention conditions (Experiment 1), noise letters flanking a central target letter caused less interference when they differed from the target in color, although color carried no information as to whether or not a letter was the target. When blocking of trials favored a strategy of dividing attention between target and noise letters (Experiment 2), no benefit accrued from difference between target color and noise color. The results supported an attentional interpretation of the effect of color demonstrated in Experiment 1, implying that perceptual segregation by color improved the efficiency of focusing attention on the target. © 1983 Psychonomic Society, Inc.