A 2-STAGE MODEL FOR MULTIPLE-TARGET DETECTION IN RAPID SERIAL VISUAL PRESENTATION

When 2 targets are presented among distractors in rapid serial visual presentation, correct identification of the 1st target results in a de ficit for a 2nd target appearing within 200-500 ms. This attentional b link (AB; J. E. Raymond, K. L. Shapiro, & K. M. Arnell, 1992) was exam ined for categorically defined targets (letters among nonletters) in 7 experiments. AB was obtained for the 2nd letter target among digit di stractors (Experiment 1) and also for a 3rd target (Experiment 2). Res ults of Experiments 3-5 confirmed that AB is triggered by local interf erence from immediate posttarget stimulation (Raymond et al., 1992) an d showed that AB is modulated by the discrinability between the 1st ta rget and the immediately following distractor. Experiments 5-7 further examined the effects of both local interference and global discrimina bility. A 2-stage model is proposed to account for the AB results.