The role of attentional breadth in perceptual change detection

Previous research has shown that changes to scenes are often surprisingly h ard to detect. The research reported here investigated the relationship bet ween individual differences in attention and change detection. We did this by assessing participants' breadth of attention in a functional field of vi ew task (FFOV) and relating this measure to the speed with which individual s detected changes in scenes. We also examined how the salience, meaningful ness, and eccentricity of the scene changes affected perceptual change perf ormance. In order to broaden the range of individual differences in attenti onal breadth, both young and old adults participated in the study. A strong negative relationship was obtained between attentional breadth and the lat ency with which perceptual changes were detected; observers with broader at tentional windows detected changes faster. Salience and eccentricity had la rge effects on change detection, but meaning aided the performance of young adults only and only when changes also had low salience.