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Publications by Gordon LoganLogan, G. D. (1978). Attention in character classification: Evidence for the automaticity of component stages. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 107, 32-63.Maintains that the attention demands of mental operations within the choice task can be assessed by extending S. Sternberg's (1969) additive-factors method. Parameters associated with those processing stages that demand attention will interact with the amount of concurrent activity but parameters associated with automatic processing stages will not. This analysis was applied to 8 character-classification experiments with 76 Ss. The classification task was either performed alone or in the retention interval of a short-term memory task which required ordered recall of 7 digits. In the 1st 2 experiments, interactions were obtained between memory load and target-set size whose magnitude depended on the amount of practice with specific target sets. The remaining 6 experiments examined 4 stages sufficient to perform a visual-search task (encoding, comparison, decision, and response selection). Memory load did not interact with parameters associated with encoding, decision, and response-selection stages; and of 3 parameters associated with the comparison stage (target-set size, array size, and the presence or absence of a bar marker indicating the target's position), only target-set size interacted with memory load (Exps I and II). It is concluded that most of the processing involved in character classification does not require attention, and this was taken as evidence against models that identify attention with specific processing structures. |
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