Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Two experiments tested the predictions of an integrative buffer model of visual processing, regarding the illusory conjunction of components of rapidly presented displays. Color pictures of objects were presented at a rate of 9/s, in the same spatial location. Experiment 1 used a modified report procedure to test the hypothesis that Stroop-like response competition, during naming, not a perceptual error, resulted in the high confidence "illusory conjunctions" reported in previous research. Subjects were provided with the naem of a picture in advance and reported "yes" or"no" to indicate if that picture was the one in the frame. Contrary to the response competition hypothesis, high confidence errors occured frequently under these conditions. Experiment 2 tested the hypothesis that the direction of migration (preceding or following picture) is the result of a difference in the sequential allocation of attention to the frame first or to its "host" picture first on different trials. As predicted by the integrative buffer model, subjects were faster in detecting the frame when they confidently reported it around the preceding picture than around the followuing picture in the sequence, and reaction times associated with correct reports fell between the two.