Ml. Cheal et M. Gregory, EVIDENCE OF LIMITED CAPACITY AND NOISE-REDUCTION WITH SINGLE-ELEMENT DISPLAYS IN THE LOCATION-CUEING PARADIGM, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance, 23(1), 1997, pp. 51-71
Precuing a location facilitates accuracy of identification of a target
at that location and reduces noise from other nontarget characters in
a multicharacter field. In 5 experiments, evidence for facilitation i
ncluded higher accuracy with long precue-target intervals than with sh
ort intervals and higher accuracy when a precue indicated the correct
location than when it indicated the wrong location. These results were
found for each target-mask condition used (1 target with 1 mask, 1 ta
rget with 4 masks, or 1 target and 3 nontargets with 4 masks) in exper
ienced and inexperienced observers. Evidence for noise reduction was f
ound because accuracy was higher in the 1 target-1 mask condition than
in the other conditions on correctly cued trials with short cue-targe
t intervals and on incorrectly cued trials. Data are related to method
ological factors that are important to obtaining these effects and to
capacity and noise reduction models.