Global precedence in attention and decision.
Abstract
This article examines the order in which people recognize and respond to different levels of structure within a visual display. Certain previous experiments have been interpreted as showing that information about global characteristics of an array is extracted by the visual system before information about local characteristics. Results from a task in which the observer must attend to both global and local information demonstrate that local information has a large influence on reaction time even when information at the global level is sufficient to determine the response. This finding implies that local information becomes available to decision processes with a time course similar to that of global information. Effects previously attributed to the order in which different levels of structure are recognized may result from differential ease of directing attention to these different levels and selecting responses based on them.
Cites (2)
- Forest before trees: The precedence of global features in visual perceptionNavon, David · 1977 · Cognitive Psychology
- On data-limited and resource-limited processesNorman, Donald A, Bobrow, Daniel G · 1975 · Cognitive Psychology
Cited by (3)
- Task combination and selective intake of informationBroadbent, Donald E. · 1982 · Acta Psychologica
- The forest revisited: More on global precedenceNavon, David · 1981 · Psychological Research
- Consequences of Magnocellular Dysfunction on Processing Attended Information in SchizophreniaMartinez, A., Hillyard, S. A., Bickel, S., Dias, E. C., Butler, P. D., Javitt, D. C. · 2012 · Cerebral Cortex
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Global precedence in attention and decision. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1037//0096-1523.7.6.1161
- The paper
- Miller, J. (1981). Global precedence in attention and decision. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. https://doi.org/10.1037//0096-1523.7.6.1161
Data sources
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Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.