Abstract
Recent evidence suggests that people can simultaneously activate attentional control settings (ACSs) for two distinct colors. However, it is unclear whether both ACSs must operate globally across the visual field or whether each can be constrained to a particular spatial location. Using two different paradigms we investigated participants ability to apply independent color ACSs to distinct regions of space. In both experiments, participants were told to identify red letters in one hemifield, and green letters in the opposite hemifield. Additionally, some trials used a "relevant distractor" - a letter that matched the opposite sides target color. In Experiment 1, four letters appeared simultaneously in each hemifield for a brief period of time and were masked. Relevant distractors increased the error rate and resulted in a greater number of distractor intrusions than irrelevant distractors. Similar results were observed in Experiment 2 in which red and green targets were presented in two rapid serial visual presentation streams. Relevant distractors were found to produce an attentional blink similar to an actual target and increased the false alarm rate. The results of both experiments suggest that letters matching either ACS were selected by attention and were processed as if they were targets, providing strong evidence that both ACSs were applied globally, rather than being constrained to a particular location.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2014