Citation

Castiello U, Umiltà C. Acta Psychol. 1990; 73(3): 195-209.

Affiliation

Università di Parma, Italy.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1990, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

2353586

Abstract

By following Eriksen and St. James (1986) the experiments reported in this study focused upon three questions: (a) Can the spatial extent of the attentional focus be made to vary in response to precues? (b) As the area of the attentional focus increases, is there a decrease in processing efficiency for stimuli within the focus? (c) Is the boundary of the focus sharply demarked from the residual field or does it show a gradual dropoff? The results seem to provide answers to these questions: (a) the size of the attentional focus can be adjusted so that it covers areas of the visual field of different size; (b) there is a decrease in processing efficiency when the area of the attentional focus increases; and (c) there is a gradual dropoff in processing efficiency around the attentional focus.

Language: en