SIGNAL-DETECTION ANALYSES OF REPETITION BLINDNESS

Three experiments used a signal detection model to demonstrate that re petition blindness (N. Kanwisher, 1987) reflects a reduction in sensit ivity (d') for the detection of repeated compared with unrepeated visu al targets. In Experiment 1, repetition blindness (RB) was found for r apid serial visual presentation (RSVP) letter sequences, whether the v isual targets were specified by category membership (vowels) or as 1 o f 2 prespecified letters (e.g., A or O). In Experiment 2, RB was found to a similar degree even when the Ist critical item was displayed for twice as long as the other list items, although overall performance w as considerably improved. Experiment 3 found RB for displays containin g just 2 simultaneously presented letters. These results support Kanwi sher's (1987) account of RB as a genuine perceptual effect, and rule o ut alternative accounts of RB as the result of response bias, output i nterference, or guessing biases.