Attention and size in a global/local task.

Two-letter stimuli, consisting of one small letter inside a much larger one (in Experiments 1A, 1B, and 2) or inside a "blob" (in Experiment 3), were used to examine the role of size difference in global/local tasks. The small letter was placed at locations that avoided contour interactions. The results showed no identity interference, in that the specific identity of the large letter did not differentially affect identification of the small one.

Encoding features of complex and unfamiliar objects.

This study explored the acquisition of features from complex, unfamiliar objects. It tested the principle of top-down encoding, which predicts that the time needed to detect a difference between stimuli that differ in only one critical feature increases and recognition decreases as the level of that feature decreases. Results of Experiment 1 supported these hypotheses.

Inattention and the perception of visual feature conjunctions.

Visual processing of objects in the absence of focused attention appears to be limited. We varied the degree of attention, or visual processing, that observers paid to objects using an instruction set manipulation. In 2 experiments, subjects performed tasks that required superficial or detailed visual analysis of the objects involved.

Lateral masking as a determinant of global dominance.

The term compound letter refers to a large (global) letter made up of small (local) letters. Reaction time to identify local letters is longer when local and global letters are different than when they are the same (the global dominance effect). The possible contribution of lateral masking to this effect was investigated.