Professor of Psychology,
Johns Hopkins University
Ph.D., 1966 - University of Michigan
Phone: (1) 410-516-5324
Fax: (2) 410-516-4478
Perception and cognition, attention and attentional selectivity, eyewitness testimony.
200.114 Lab in Analysis of Psychological Data
200.811 Research Seminar: Human Performance
200.652 Proseminar: Cognitive Psychology
200.670 Advanced Seminar: Vision
200.811 Research Seminar: Human Performance
Several lines of evidence suggest the existence of two
functionally separate visual systems. One is the preattentive system; it
can quickly, effortlessly, and in parallel detect differences in a variety
of conspicuous features. The other system involves focal attention; it is
used when difficult or complex discriminations must be made. It proceeds
serially and effortfully.
Dr. Egeth is concerned with the following sorts of issues:
1. How do the preattentive and focal attentive systems work together? Presumably the preattentive system guides the focal system; how does such guidance work? How does focal attention "know" what to look at next?
2. What are the spatial and temporal characteristics of the focal attention system? Is it narrow like the beam of a spotlight? If so, to what extent can stimuli outside the beam be processed? If focal attention is like a "spotlight," does it move in an analog fashion across the visual field the way a real spotlight moves, or does it make discrete jumps? How quickly can attention moved from one item to another?
3. Attention is not just a process that facilitates processing at
favored locations or of favored objects; there appear to be inhibitory
aspects of attention as well. Recent research has uncovered a variety of
such effects including: inhibition of return, negative priming,
repetition blindness, and the attentional blink. What is the functional
purpose of these inhibitory processes? What, if anything, do they have in
common?
Larence Becker
Kwak, H.-W., Dagenbach, D., & Egeth, H. (1991). Further evidence for a time-independent shift of the focus of attention. Perception & Psychophysics, 49, 473-480.
Egeth, H.E., & Mordkoff, J.T. (1991). Redundancy gain revisited: Evidence for parallel processing of separable dimensions. J. Pomerantz and G. Lockhead (Eds), The perception of structure (pp. 131-143). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.
Kwak, H.-W., & Egeth, H.E. (1992). Consequences of allocating attention to locations and to other attributes. Perception & Psychophysics, 51, 455-464.
Egeth, H.E. (1993). Eyewitness testimony: An update. American Psychologist, vol. 58, 5,pp. 577-580.
Gibson, B.S. & Egeth, H.E. (1994). Inhibition of return to object-based and environment-based locations. Perception & Psychophysics, 55 (3), 323-339.
Egeth, H.E., & Yantis, S. (1997). Visual attention: Control, representation, and time course. Annu. Rev. Psychology, 48, 269-97.
Moore, C.M., & Egeth. H.E. (1997). Perception without attention: Evidence of grouping under conditions of inattention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human perception and Performance, 23,(2), 339-352.
Bacon, W.F., & Egeth, H.E. (In press). Goal-directed guidance of attention: Evidence from conjunctive visual search. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance.