Abstract
The same set of Ss was run In an LT (single late target letter followed an earher multiletter display) and an ET (single early target preceded a later multiletter display) condition. On one-half the trials, the multiletter set included the target. and on the other half, the target was absent. The task of S was to push the “yes” (“no”) button if the target was present (absent), and reaction times were recorded. The most plausible processing model assumed that LT comparisons took place in a verbal-acoustic store and that ET comparisons took place in a visual store. It further assumed that processing within these stores was self-terminating, with rates that differed on “same” and “different” comparisons and which changed as the multiletter set increased. Classes of serial and parallel models that are falsified or supported by the present and similar data are discussed.
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The authors would like to thank Dennis Mohrman and Donna Johnson for helping to prepare and run these experiments. Michael Richards for computer programming assistance, and Donna Lucas for and with numerical calculations and typing. Part of the work on this manuseript was completed while the first author was Visiting Associate Professor at the laboratory of W. K Estes at the Rockefeller University under the support of Grant GM 16735 from the National Institute for General Medical Sciences. We are indebted to H Lgeth. W. K. Estes. J. L. Holmgren and J S Lappin for a number of helpful remarks on an earlier version of this manuseript.
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Townsend, J.T., Roos, R.N. Search reaction time for single targets in multiletter stimuli with brief visual displays. Memory & Cognition 1, 319–332 (1973). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03198116
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03198116