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

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Footnotes

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

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