Dd303 Tma1
Investigation whether the global superiority effect is affected by the types of symbol in reaction times
Abstract
This study examined whether participant’s response times to global target were faster than local targets. Participants had to identify global and local shapes and letters as quick as possible and the response times which were recorded to the computer data. The study was a replication of Navon’s (1977), (cited in Ness Smith and Thirkettle, 2014) experiment but differed, as it was a focused attention task whereas this experiment was a divided attention task. This was the same as Yovel (2001), (cited in Ness, Smith and Thirkettle, 2014) mixed attention task study which tested the global to local accounts. The current experiment used a 2x2 repeated measures design, and all of the participants performed on all four conditions. Results showed that overall it took longer for participants to identify local stimuli compared to global stimuli.
Introduction
A visual scene or any object in our environment contains both global features (whole) and local features (detailed). The question is do our eyes fixate on the global stimulus which is an overall image or do we perceive feature by feature in more detail?
Navon (1977) cited in Ness et al. (2014), claimed that perceptual processes are temporarily organised, so that they proceed from global structuring towards more and finer grained analysis. His experiments aimed to show that perceptual systems process every scene starting with the global feature, leading to the local features. In Navon’s (1977) ‘focused attention tasks’ (cited in Ness et al. 2014), participants were directed to look at either the large global letter or the small local letters. He used large letters for his visual stimuli (the global level) which were made out of smaller letters (the local level). Participants had to identify either the larger characters or the smaller ones. The focus had to be globally or locally to stimuli that were
Abstract
This study examined whether participant’s response times to global target were faster than local targets. Participants had to identify global and local shapes and letters as quick as possible and the response times which were recorded to the computer data. The study was a replication of Navon’s (1977), (cited in Ness Smith and Thirkettle, 2014) experiment but differed, as it was a focused attention task whereas this experiment was a divided attention task. This was the same as Yovel (2001), (cited in Ness, Smith and Thirkettle, 2014) mixed attention task study which tested the global to local accounts. The current experiment used a 2x2 repeated measures design, and all of the participants performed on all four conditions. Results showed that overall it took longer for participants to identify local stimuli compared to global stimuli.
Introduction
A visual scene or any object in our environment contains both global features (whole) and local features (detailed). The question is do our eyes fixate on the global stimulus which is an overall image or do we perceive feature by feature in more detail?
Navon (1977) cited in Ness et al. (2014), claimed that perceptual processes are temporarily organised, so that they proceed from global structuring towards more and finer grained analysis. His experiments aimed to show that perceptual systems process every scene starting with the global feature, leading to the local features. In Navon’s (1977) ‘focused attention tasks’ (cited in Ness et al. 2014), participants were directed to look at either the large global letter or the small local letters. He used large letters for his visual stimuli (the global level) which were made out of smaller letters (the local level). Participants had to identify either the larger characters or the smaller ones. The focus had to be globally or locally to stimuli that were