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Published on: April 11, 2025
The perceptual span during foveally-demanding visual target localization
Harold H Greene1, Deborah Simpson, Jennifer Bennion
1Department of Psychology, University of Detroit Mercy, Detroit, MI, USA. greenehh@udmercy.edu
Acta Psychologica
|February 11, 2012
Summary
Increased processing load shrinks the perceptual span in vision-guided tasks. This occurs when distractors require active processing, impacting target localization performance.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Visual Perception
- Human Factors
Background:
- Foveal processing load can impair performance in vision-guided tasks.
- Understanding how processing load affects visual search is crucial for human factors research.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether increased processing load alters the size or shape of the perceptual span.
- To determine the impact of processing distractors on target localization.
Main Methods:
- Participants performed a visual search task with targets among coded distractors.
- High processing load was induced by requiring participants to use distractor codes.
- Low processing load involved participants not using the distractor codes.
Main Results:
- A significant reduction in the size of the perceptual span was observed under high processing load.
- No significant changes were found in the shape of the perceptual span.
- Processing distractors beyond simple rejection led to a shrinking perceptual span.
Conclusions:
- Increased processing load, particularly when distractors are actively processed, reduces the perceptual span size.
- Findings contrast with theories predicting performance changes without perceptual span alteration.
- This suggests a mechanism where cognitive load directly impacts the scope of visual attention.
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