Abstract
A series of experiments investigated concurrent discriminations of surface and nonsurface attributes, including color, brightness, texture, length, location, and motion. In all cases but one, results matched those previously reported: Interference occurred when two discriminations concerned different objects, but not when they concerned the same one. In the two-object case, interference was the same whether discriminations were similar (e.g., two surface discriminations) or different (e.g., one surface, one boundary). Such results support a model of visual attention in which separate visual subsystems are coordinated, converging to work on surface and boundary properties of the same selected object. A partial exception is color: For reasons that are unclear, color escapes twoobject interference except from other, concurrent surface discriminations
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This research was supported by a grant from the Human Frontier Science Program.
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Duncan, J., Nimmo-Smith, I. Objects and attributes in divided attention: Surface and boundary systems. Perception & Psychophysics 58, 1076–1084 (1996). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03206834
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03206834