Attentional Response of Humans and Squirrel Monkeys to Visual Patterns Varying in Three Physical Dimensions

Abstract

2 experiments were performed to investigate the importance to “attention” of 3 physical parameters of visual patterns: number of components, the angular variance of components (AV), and the number of turns characterizing the components (NT). In Exp. I 30 human Ss were employed and time spent viewing each of a set of nonsense patterns was used as the measure of attention. Patterns containing 18 components elicited longer viewing times than those containing 3 components ( P < .001), and patterns containing components of high AV were viewed longer than those with components of low AV ( P = .052). In Exp. II 8 squirrel monkeys served as Ss and a measure of attention based on performance in a discrimination-learning situation was employed. Again, patterns containing the larger number of components had a greater effect on behavior than patterns with fewer components ( P < .05); however, no effect on performance of AV or NT was observed. It was concluded that the number of elements present in visual patterns constitutes a variable of substantial importance to the attention of both the human and the squirrel monkey.