Abstract
In two experiments using foveal displays, an increase in reaction time was found for a T-L discrimination when number of letters was increased from one to four. No such increase was observed for a T-tilted T discrimination. In Experiment 1, acuity (manipulation of line width) did not interact with the effect of letter number. In Experiment 2, the retinal area (a manipula- tion of letter size and spacing) covered by the display also failed to affect the influence of letter number. The results indicate that the type of discrimination to be made determines whether or not processing is parallel, even when as few as four letters are presented.
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Prinzmetal, W., & Banks, W. Simultaneous vs. successive presentation of visual arrays revisited. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Washington, D.C., 1977.
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Ambler, B.A., Keel, R. & Phelps, E. A foveal discriminability difference for one vs. four letters. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 11, 317–320 (1978). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03336842
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03336842