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Effects of distraction on visual enumeration in children and adults
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Maylor, Elizabeth A. , Watson, Derrick G. and Hartley, Emma L. (2011) Effects of distraction on visual enumeration in children and adults. Developmental Psychology, Vol.47 (No.5). pp. 1440-1447. doi:10.1037/a0024464 ISSN 0012-1649.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0024464
Abstract
Speeded enumeration of visual stimuli typically produces a bilinear function, with a shallow subitizing rate (<100 ms/item) up to 3–4 items (subitizing span) and a steeper counting rate (∼300 ms/item) thereafter. FINST theory (L. M. Trick & Z. W. Pylyshyn, 1993, L. M. Trick & Z. W. Pylyshyn, 1994) suggests that subitizing of targets is possible in the presence of distractors if attention is not required for target detection, but this has not been tested in children. The present study explored enumeration without distractors (Os alone) and with distractors (Os among Xs) in 35 children aged 6–11 years and 17 adults. Subitizing span increased significantly from childhood to adulthood, and counting rate increased significantly with age. Bilinear functions were significantly better than linear fits to the data for most children and adults both without distractors (97% and 100%, respectively) and with distractors (89% and 94%), consistent with their efficient visual search for a single O among multiple Xs. These findings are discussed in comparison with those from new modeling of earlier enumeration data from young and older adults, revealing striking asymmetries in subitizing with distractors between development and aging.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||
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Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology | ||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Science > Psychology | ||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Distraction (Psychology), Visual perception, Cognition -- Age factors , Human information processing -- Age factors | ||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Developmental Psychology | ||||
Publisher: | American Psychological Association | ||||
ISSN: | 0012-1649 | ||||
Official Date: | 2011 | ||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | Vol.47 | ||||
Number: | No.5 | ||||
Page Range: | pp. 1440-1447 | ||||
DOI: | 10.1037/a0024464 | ||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 16 December 2015 | ||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 16 December 2015 |
Data sourced from Thomson Reuters' Web of Knowledge
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