Citation

Poth CH, Petersen A, Bundesen C, Schneider WX. Front. Psychol. 2014; 5: e930.

Affiliation

Neuro-Cognitive Psychology, Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University Bielefeld, Germany ; Center of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology, Bielefeld University Bielefeld, Germany.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Frontiers Research Foundation)

DOI

10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00930

PMID

25191303

PMCID

PMC4140074

Abstract

Monitoring the environment for visual events while performing a concurrent task requires adjustment of visual processing priorities. By use of Bundesen's (1990) Theory of Visual Attention, we investigated how monitoring for an object-based brief event affected distinct components of visual attention in a concurrent task. The perceptual salience of the event was varied. Monitoring reduced the processing speed in the concurrent task, and the reduction was stronger when the event was less salient. The monitoring task neither affected the temporal threshold of conscious perception nor the storage capacity of visual short-term memory nor the efficiency of top-down controlled attentional selection.

Language: en