Currently, there is an increasing interest in the mechanisms and functions that underlie UFOV performance. As already mentioned, the UFOV has been suggested to measure central vision and processing speed, divided attention, and selective attention, and it has been so used in various studies (see, e.g., Belchior et al.,
2013; Broman et al.,
2004; Gray et al.,
2014; Rutherford, Richards, Moldes, & Sekuler,
2007). However, apart from processing speed, no study has yet, to our knowledge, confirmed this idea. Instead, a number of studies have shown that other perceptual and cognitive functions are also involved. For example, after relating scores on several perceptual and cognitive tests to UFOV performance, Matas, Nettelbeck, and Burns (
2014) concluded that UFOV1 performance is primarily explained by low-level visual functions. Interestingly, they reported that the inspection-time task, which is highly similar to this subtest, did not explain additional variance when they included other low-level functions in their model, including visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, and change detection. They suggested that UFOV2 reflects efficiency of divided attention, while low-level visual and attentional factors, as well as general cognitive ability, were the strongest predictors of UFOV3 performance. Furthermore, O'Brein, Lister, Peronto, and Edwards (
2015) have reported correlations between UFOV subtest scores and event-related brain potentials related to low-level visual processes as well as higher processes of attention control and processing speed. These and other studies show that the UFOV tasks may be tapping into other functions in addition to or instead of those that were initially proposed.