Evidence for split attentional foci

A partial report procedure was used to test the ability of observers to spl it attention over noncontiguous locations. Observers reported the identity of 2 targets that appeared within a 5 x 5 stimulus array, and cues (validit y = 80%) informed them of the 2 most likely target locations. On invalid tr ials, 1 of the targets appeared directly in between the cued locations. Exp eriments 1, 1a, and 2 showed a strong accuracy advantage at cued locations compared with intervening ones. This effect was larger when the cues were a rranged horizontally rather than vertically. Experiment 3 suggests that thi s effect of cue orientation reflects an advantage for processing targets th at appear in different hemifields. Experiments 4 and 4a suggest that the pr imary mechanism supporting the flexible deployment of spatial attention is the suppression of interference from stimuli at unattended locations.