EFFECTS OF STIMULUS-DURATION, TEMPORAL DELAY, AND COMPLEXITY ON THE JUDGMENTS OF DOT LOCATION

The present study investigated how information on location was process ed at an early stage of information processing by the task of recogniz ing dots presented briefly and followed by a masking stimulus. 8 subje cts were asked on 1528 trials to recognize the positions of dots prese nted on a circumference. Effects of number of dots (1, 2, and 3), dura tion of presentation (36, 56, 200, and 500 msec.), and lime delay (int erval between the offset of display and the onset of recognition stimu lus, 100 and 500 msec.) were examined. Analyses showed that the percen tage of correct recognition increased with the duration of presentatio n and that the effect of duration decreased with the number of dots. M eanwhile, no significant effect was found for Lime delay. Consequently , with increased duration, the information on location is transferred to short-term visual memory. However, the ratio of transfer from iconi c storage to short-term visual memory with duration varied with the co mplexity of visual stimulus.