Professor of Psychology,
Johns Hopkins University
Ph.D., 1966 -
University of Michigan
Office phone 410.516.5324
Lab phone 410.516.5236
Fax 410.516.4478
e-mail: egeth@jhu.edu
Perception and cognition, attention and attentional selectivity.
200.159 Freshman Seminar: Evolutionary Psychology
200.207 Laboratory in the Analysis of Psychological Data
200.670 Advanced Seminar: Vision
200.811 Research Seminar: Human Performance
200.652 Advanced Seminar: Vision
200.811 Research Seminar: Human Performance
The study of visual attention addresses
the fact that the amount of information presented to the eyes can
greatly exceed the processing capacity of the brain. One way of dealing
with this overload is to exercise selectivity; we attend to some
aspects of the environment while ignoring others.
Dr. Egeth has been concerned with the following sorts of issues:
1. Just what is the capacity of attention? We have investigated the
general question of how much can be “seen” in a
single glance.
2. What factors affect the ability to avoid distraction by salient but
irrelevant stimuli?
3. What are the spatial and temporal characteristics of attention. Is
attention 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?
4. 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?
Egeth, H.E., & Dagenbach, D. (1991). Parallel versus serialprocessing in visual search. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,17,550-559.
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.
Bacon, W.F., & Egeth, H., (1994). Overriding stimulus-driven
attentional capture. Perception & Psychophysics,
55, 485-496.
Egeth, H.E., & Yantis, S. (1997). Visual attention: Control,
representation, and time course. Annual Review of Psychology,
48, 269-297. pdf
Moore, C.M., & Egeth, H. (1997). Perception without attention:
Evidence of grouping under condition of inattention. Journal
of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance,
23, 339-352. pdf
Bacon, W.F., & Egeth, H.E. (1997). Goal-directed guidance of
attention: Evidence from conjunctive visual search.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception &
Performance, 23, 948-961.
Grandison, T.D., Ghirardelli, T.G., & Egeth, H. (1997). Beyond
similarity: Masking of the target is sufficient to cause the
attentional blink.Perception & Psychophysics, 59,
266-274.
Moore, C.M., & Egeth, H. (1998). How does feature-based
attention affect visual processing? Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, Vol 24, No. 4,
1296-1310. pdf
Ghirardelli, T.G., & Egeth, H. (1998). Goal-directed
and
stimulus-driven attention in cross-dimensional texture
segregation. Perception &
Psychophysics, 60 (5), 826-838.
Yantis, S., & Egeth, H. (1999). On the distinction between
visual salience and stimulus-driven attentional capture. Journal
of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance,
25 (3), 661-676.
Egeth, H. (1999). The cognitive impenetrability of visual perception:
Old wine in a new bottle. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22
(3), 377.
Becker, L., & Egeth, H. (2000). Mixed reference
frames for dynamic inhibition of return. Journal of
Experimental Psychology: Human Perception
and Performance, 26, 1147-1177.
Egeth, H. (2000). Attention. In Encyclopedia of Psychology,
American Psychological Association. Washington, D.C.
Egeth, H.E., Folk, C.L., Leber, A.B., Nakama, T., & Hendel, S.
(2001). Attentional capture in the temporal and spatial
domains. In C.L. Folk & B.S. Gibson (Eds.) Advances
in Psychology XXX - Attraction, distraction, and Action:
Multiple Perspectives on Attentional Capture. Amsterdam:
Elsevier Science B.V.
Houts, P.S., Witmer, J.T., Egeth H.E., Loscalzo, M.J., &
Zabora,
J.T. (2001). Using pictographs to enhance recall of spoken medical
instructions. Patient Education and Counseling,
43, 231-242. pdf
Lamy, D. & Egeth, H. (2002) Object-based selection : The role
of attentional shifts. Perception & Psychophysics,
64, 52-66. pdf
Folk, C.L., Leber, A.B., & Egeth H.E. (2002). Made you blink!
Contingent attentional capture produces a spatial blink. Perception
& Psychophysics, 64, 741-753. pdf
Connor, C.E., Egeth, H.E., & Yantis, S. (2004). Visual
attention: Bottom-up versus top-down. Current Biology,
14 (19), R850-R852. pdf
Lamy, D., Leber, A., & Egeth, H. E. (2004). Effects of
stimulus-driven salience within feature search mode. Journal
of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance,
30 (6), 1019-1031. pdf
Serences, J., Shomstein, S., Leber, A. B., Golay, X., Egeth, H. E,
& Yantis, S. (2005). Coordination of voluntary and
stimulus-driven
attentional control in human cortex. Psychological Science,
16 (2), 114-122. pdf
Lamy, D., Bar-Anan, Y., Egeth, H. E. (2006). Effects of top-down
guidance and singleton priming on visual search. Psychonomic
Bulletin & Review,
13 (2), 287-293. pdf
Lamy, D., Carmel, T., Egeth, H. E., Leber, A. B. (2006). Effects of
search mode and intertrial priming on singleton search. Perception
& Psychophysics,
68 (6), 919-932. pdf
Leber, A. B., & Egeth, H. E. (2006). Attention on autopilot:
Past experience and attentional set. Visual Cognition,
14, 565-583. pdf
Leber, A.B. & Egeth, H.E. (2006). It’s under
control:
Top-down search strategies can override attentional capture. Psychonomic
Bulletin & Review, 13 (1), 132-138. pdf
Proulx, M.J. & Egeth, H.E. (in press). Biased competition and
visual search: the role of luminance and size contrast. Psychological
Research. pdf
Proulx, M.J. & Egeth, H.E. (2006). Target-nontarget
similarity modulates stimulus-driven control in visual search. Psychological
Bulletin & Review, 13 (3), 524-529. pdf
Leonard, C.J., & Egeth, H.E. (in press). Attentional guidance
in singleton search: An examination of top-down, bottom-up, and
intertrial
factors. Visual Cognition. pdf
Egeth, H., Leonard, C. J., & Palomares, M. (in press). The role of attention in enumeration and detection: Is the magical number 1?. Visual Cognition. pdf
Leonard, C. J., & Egeth, H. E. (2004).
The contribution of feature-based attentional guidance to singleton
search.
Poster presented at the annual Object Perception, Attention, and Memory
meeting in Minneapolis, MN.
Leonard, C. J., Pierson, R., Palomares, M., & Egeth, H. (2006).
Selection and enumeration of moving objects. Poster presented at the
annual meeting of the Vision Science Society (VSS) in Sarasota, FL.