The reviewing of object files: Object-specific integration of information

doi:10.1016/0010-0285(92)90007-O

Cognitive Psychology

Volume 24, Issue 2, April 1992, Pages 175-219

https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(92)90007-O Get rights and content

Abstract

A series of experiments explored a form of object-specific priming. In all experiments a preview field containing two or more letters is followed by a target letter that is to be named. The displays are designed to produce a perceptual interpretation of the target as a new state of an object that previously contained one of the primes. The link is produced in different experiments by a shared location, by a shared relative position in a moving pattern, or by successive appearance in the same moving frame. An object-specific advantage is consistently observed: naming is facilitated by a preview of the target, if (and in some cases only if) the two appearances are linked to the same object. The amount and the object specificity of the preview benefit are not affected by extending the preview duration to 1 s, or by extending the temporal gap between fields to 590 ms. The results are interpreted in terms of a reviewing process, which is triggered by the appearance of the target and retrieves just one of the previewed items. In the absence of an object link, the reviewing item is selected at random. We develop the concept of an object file as a temporary episodic representation, within which successive states of an object are linked and integrated.

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^☆: This research was supported partly by grants from the Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council to Daniel Kahneman and to Anne Treisman, and partly by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Air Force Systems Command, USAF, under Grant AFOSR 88-0206 to Daniel Kahneman and Grant AFOSR 87-0125 to Anne Treisman. The manuscript is submitted for publication with the understanding that the U.S. Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for governmental purposes, notwithstanding any copyright notation thereon.

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The reviewing of object files: Object-specific integration of information☆

Abstract

Cognitive Science

Vision Research

Cognition

Cognition

Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive Psychology

Cognition

Movement and visual attention: The spotlight metaphor breaks down

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance

Context can constrain lexical access: Implications for models of language comprehension

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition

Color correspondence in apparent motion

Perception and Psychophysics

Distributed representations

Perceiving an integrated visual world

Visual memory and the perception of a stable visual environment

Perception and Psychophysics

Voluntary versus automatic control over the mind's eye movement

Perceptual organization and attention

Norm theory: Comparing reality to its alternatives

Psychological Review

Changing views of attention and automaticity

The facilitation of lexical decisions by a prime occurring after the target

Memory and Cognition

Record-based word recognition

Semantic facilitation in lexical decision as a function of prime-target association

Memory and Cognition

Frames and images: Sequential effects in mental rotation

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition

Establishing global and local correspondence between successive stimuli

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition