Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-c75p9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-25T06:22:45.127Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Local vs. Global Covert Visual Attention: Are Two States Necessary? Comment on Liechty et al., 2003

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

Erik D. Reichle  and
Jessica R. Nelson
Erik D. Reichle*
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Jessica R. Nelson
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
*
Requests for reprints should be sent to Erik Reichle, 635 LRDC, University of Pittsburgh, 3939 O'Hara St., Pittsburgh, PA 15260. E-Mail: reichle@pitt.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Liechty, Pieters, and Wedel (2003) report an eye-tracking experiment that is taken to support the distinction between two states of covert visual attention: local versus global. We discuss several logical problems with this dichotomy and their experiment, and then provide an alternate account of their data using a model, E-Z Reader, that requires only a single attention state.

Keywords

advertisementsE-Z Readerreadingsaccadesvisual attention

Information

Type
Commentary
Information
Psychometrika , Volume 68 , Issue 4 , December 2003 , pp. 543 - 549
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 The Psychometric Society

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

We thank Keith Rayner and two anonymous reviewers for comments on an earlier version of this paper.

References

Becker, W., Jürgens, R. (1979). An analysis of the saccadic system by means of double step stimuli. Vision Research, 19, 967–983.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Duncan, J. (1984). Selective attention and the organization of visual information. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 113, 501–517.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eriksen, C.W., Yeh, Y.-Y. (1985). Allocation of attention in the visual field. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 11, 583–597.Google ScholarPubMed
Henderson, J.M., Hollingworth, A. (1999). High-level scene perception. Annual Review of Psychology, 50, 243–271.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Inhoff, A.W., Radach, R. (1988). Definition and computation of oculomotor measures in the study of cognitive processes. In Underwood, G. (Eds.), Eye guidance in reading and scene perception (pp. 29–53). New York, NY: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Kramer, A.F., Hahn, S. (1995). Splitting the beam: Distribution of attention over noncontiguous regions of the visual field. Psychological Science, 6, 381–386.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liechty, J., Pieters, R., Wedel, M. (2003). Global and local covert visual attention: Evidence from a Bayesian hidden Markov model. Psychometrika, 68, 519–542.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McConkie, G.W., Kerr, P.W., Reddix, M.D., Zola, D. (1988). Eye movement control during reading: I. The location of initial eye fixations in words. Vision Research, 28, 1107–1118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrison, R.E., Rayner, K. (1981). Saccade size in reading depends upon character spaces and not visual angle. Perception & Psychophysics, 30, 395–396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pitt, M.A., Myung, I.J., Zhang, S. (2002). Toward a method of selecting among computational models of cognition. Psychological Review, 109, 472–491.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Posner, M.I., Cohen, Y. (1984). Components of visual orienting. In Bouma, H., Bouwhuis, D.G. (Eds.), Attention and performance, X: Control of language processes (pp. 531–556). London, U.K.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Rayner, K. (1998). Eye movements in reading and information processing: 20 years of research. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 372–422.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rayner, K., Rotello, C.M., Stewart, A.J., Keir, J., Duffy, S.A. (2001). Integrating text and pictorial information: Eye movements when looking at print advertisements. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 7, 219–226.Google ScholarPubMed
Reichle, E.D., Rayner, K., Pollatsek, A. (2003). The E-Z Reader model of eye movement control in reading: Comparisons to other models. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 26, 445–526.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vecera, S.P., Farah, M.J. (1994). Does visual attention select objects or locations?. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 123, 146–160.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wolfe, J.M. (1994). Guided Search 2.0: A revised model of visual search. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 1, 202–238.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zangemeister, W.H., Sherman, K., Stark, L. (1995). Evidence for a global scanpath strategy in viewing abstract compared with realistic images. Neuropsychologia, 33, 1009–1025.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed