Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Does Attentional Slippage Conform To A Simple Gradient?, Katie Rennie

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

The following graduate thesis describes research designed to examine flanker interference at varying spatial distances from a target stimulus. Traditionally, much evidence has accumulated that the distribution of visual attention conforms to a monotonically decreasing gradient in which distractors at the farthest separations produce the least interference (e.g., Erikson & St. James, 1986). Different from this traditional conceptualization, Müller, Mollenhauer, Rösler, and Kleinschmidt (2005) describe what they termed a Mexican hat distribution of visual attention showing flankers at an intermediate zone produce less interference. The current study is designed to investigate whether flanker interference declines monotonically with distance or follows …