Foveal Task Complexity and Visual Funneling

Abstract

The current study was designed to examine whether increasing foveal task complexity would cause the functional field to shrink as a result of a visual funneling effect. Using 8 male participants, the study examined whether the effects of foveal task complexity on peripheral performance was most pronounced at the far periphery. The response time to an addition task using foveal vision tended to increase with the increase of the visual angle. The percentage correct, however, did not differ among 3 levels of task complexity or among 4 levels of visual angle. The miss rate in the peripheral vision task tended to increase with the increase in not only the complexity of the foveal task but also the visual angle. This is indicative of visual funneling. However, greater funneling was not necessarily observed for response time. In this study, response time was not a sensitive measure of visual funneling. Actual or potential applications of this research include safe driving and other vigilance tasks.