Summary
Two experiments are reported that studied changes in saccade latencies (SLs) in a target-identification task as a function of target discriminability and eccentricity. SLs were found to be longer when target discriminability was low and eccentricity was large, both factors showing a significant interaction. Variable-criterion theory (Grice, 1968) was used to derive a working model of the perceptual and decisional processes influencing SLs in the present task. Application of the measurement operations of the theory provided a good quantitative description of individual SL distributions. The analyses in terms of variable-criterion theory suggest that the perceptual process influencing SLs starts earlier and operates at a faster rate when the saccade target can be discriminated on the basis of global-visual features (e. g., size) than when local features (e. g., gaps) have to be extracted.
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Nazir, T.A., Jacobs, A.M. The effects of target discriminability and retinal eccentricity on saccade latencies: An analysis in terms of variable-criterion theory. Psychol. Res 53, 281–289 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00920481
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00920481