Effects of Duration of Stimulus and Variability of Foreperiod on the Identification of Multidimensional Stimuli

Abstract

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of duration of stimulus and variability of foreperiod on the identification of multidimensional stimuli. Statistical analysis showed that performance speed and accuracy deteriorated as duration of stimulus was severely limited. Further, subjects seemed to change the allocation of attentional resources according to the attributes of stimulus. They tended to distribute more attentional resources to the less salient attribute which resulted in a statistically nonsignificant effect of order of report under time stress. Variability of foreperiod had very little effect on performance and may not be important to consider in reactions. Implications of these results for the design of multidimensional displays and for human information processing were discussed.