Abstract
Two-choice classification RTs were collected for eight conditions designed to vary the number of comparisons necessary between one or two visual patterns in perception and one or two in short-term memory (STM). Overall RT data supported both a serial self-terminating and parallel self-terminating model with distributed search times, while rejecting corresponding exhaustive models. Precise predictions for the parallel model proved difficult to derive; however, the serial model predicted the fine detail of the data surprisingly well. RTs suggested that Ss searched through all stimuli in memory first and that stimuli in both memory and perception were searched from right to left. Comparison times between identical stimuli were estimated to be longer than comparison times between different stimuli. Error rates increased with the number of hypothesized comparisons; predicted error rates, based on independence of rates within stages, also increased but failed to predict the empirical error rates very well.
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This study was supported by Research Grant MH 19165001 from the National Institute of Mental Health. The author is indebted to Robin Zelkowitz and Bruce Prussock for assistance in the collection and analysis of data. A short report of this research was presented at the meetings of the Eastern Psychological Association, Boston, Massachusetts, April 1971.
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Snodgrass, J.G. Reaction times for comparisons of successively presented visual patterns: Evidence for serial self-terminating search. Perception & Psychophysics 12, 364–372 (1972). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03207223
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03207223