The effects of number of pre-target items and order of conditions on attention in rapid serial visual presentation.

Using rapid serial visual presentation, the present study attempted to show that an attentional control error in integrating the target-definition dimension into the response-definition dimension caused a target intrusion error. It also examined the temporal relation between such attentional control and monitoring. Forty-eight undergraduate and graduate students participated. Two conditions, consistent or varied timing of target presentation, were used to manipulate attentional control in the dimension integration. Each series of stimuli consisted of 7 (consistent timing) or from 7 to 15 (varied timing) pre-target items, followed by target and 8 post-target items. Results showed that timing had an effect on mean probability of report, but not on confidence rating. In addition, average position of reported items came later for consistent than varied timing. These results suggested that average position of reported items was delayed because a portion of attentional resources was allocated to processing of timing. Further, average position of confident items was earlier than that of reported items. It was suggested that monitoring seemed to precede attentional control.