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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 6, 2026

Using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation to Measure Set-Specific Capture, a Consequence of Distraction While Multitasking

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Practiced card sorting for multiple targets.

¹Cornell University, 14850, Ithaca, New York.

Memory & Cognition

|November 9, 2013

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Participants improved card sorting speed with practice, matching single-target performance when searching for multiple targets. However, difficult targets were missed more often in the multiple-target condition.

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Human Perception

Background:

Card sorting tasks are used to study visual search and attention.
Understanding how practice affects performance in complex visual search is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the impact of extended practice on visual search efficiency in a card sorting task.
To determine if participants can maintain performance with multiple targets compared to a single target.

Main Methods:

Participants engaged in extended practice with a card sorting task.
Each card contained nine letters, with a target letter present on half the cards.
Performance was measured by sorting speed and error rates under single- and multiple-target conditions.

Main Results:

With practice, participants sorted cards as rapidly with eight targets as with one difficult target.
Overall error rates remained consistent across single- and multiple-target conditions.
The specific difficult target was identified less accurately in the multiple-target scenario.

Conclusions:

Extended practice enhances visual search efficiency, allowing for comparable speed in single- and multiple-target scenarios.
While overall performance is maintained, practice does not fully eliminate the increased difficulty of identifying specific targets among distractors.
This suggests that while attentional capacity can be optimized with practice, target-specific recognition may still be a limiting factor.