Abstract
Three experiments were performed to determine whether displays processed in parallel would be processed serially if the information requirements in the task were increased. In Experiments 1 and 2, this increase consisted of an additional nonvisually confusing input. Mean reaction time increased, but parallel processing of the displays was still observed. In Experiment 3, the difficulty of the task was increased by including displays requiring fine discriminations. For both these visually confusing displays and the highly discriminable displays processed in parallel in Experiments 1 and 2, serial processing was observed.
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I would like to thank Dominic W. Massaro and Robert C. Calfee for their help in the preparation of this manuscript. This research was supported in part by a NIMH predoctoral grant to the author.
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Connor, J.M. Effects of increased processing load on parallel processing of visual displays. Perception & Psychophysics 12, 121–128 (1972). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03212856
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03212856