Abstract
When an observer is visually presented with a sinusoidal grating, he will often do worse in detecting a given grating when he is uncertain about its spatial frequency than when he is certain. Theoretical explanations of such uncertainty effects assume that the observer has attentional control over multiple spatial-frequency channels. This attentional control can be selectively allocated. If one grating is presented on most of the trials, randomly intermixed with trials of gratings of other spatial frequencies, an experienced observer will use a stationary single-band attention strategy. If two gratings, separated in spatial frequency by four octaves, are randomly presented on most of the intermixed trials, an experienced observer will use a more complex attention strategy; he can monitor the spatial frequencies of the two extreme stimuli with little or no monitoring of intermediate spatial frequencies.
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This research was partially supported by NSF Grant BNS-76-18839 to Norma Graham and was conducted at Columbia University.
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Davis, E.T. Allocation of attention: Uncertainty effects when monitoring one or two visual gratings of noncontiguous spatial frequencies. Perception & Psychophysics 29, 618–622 (1981). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03207381
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03207381