Introduction

Perception researchers use the rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm to investigate the temporal dynamics of visual attention. In this paradigm, observers see a series of letters, digits, photos, or other visual stimuli presented one on top of the other in rapid succession. One of the amazing things researchers have discovered using the RSVP paradigm is how well people can actually process these sorts of displays.

In this activity, you will have a chance to discover how quickly and accurately you can perceive real world scenes in an RSVP sequence. After you start a movie, you will see an RSVP sequence of color photographs.* Each photograph will be shown for only 100 ms. Embedded within the sequence will be a target item, which you should try to find.

Click on the link for “Movie 1” at left to begin the activity.

*Special thanks to Karla Evans for providing the movies for this activity.

Movie 1

In this first movie, try to find a vehicle. Click the movie at left (or click here) to start the movie.

If you don’t see the vehicle the first time, try again.

Movie 2

In this second movie, try to find a street scene. Click the movie at left (or click here) to start the movie.

If you don’t see the street scene the first time, try again.

Movie 3

In this third movie, try to find a beach scene. Click the movie at left (or click here) to start the movie.

If you don’t see the beach scene the first time, try again.

Movie 4

In this fourth movie, try to find an animal. Click the movie at left (or click here) to start the movie.

If you don’t see the animal the first time, try again.

RSVP Paradigm Conclusion

On the left you see the four targets from the RSVP movies of real-world scenes. How well were you able to find them? If you are like most people, you should have had little trouble seeing the vehicle, street, beach, and animal in the movies.

If you stop and think about it for a moment, you should be quite amazed that you were able to do this task at all! You did not know exactly what kind of vehicle, street, beach, or animal you were looking for. The possible target images are seemingly infinite. Yet in each case your visual system somehow managed to pick out the appropriate frame from the RSVP stream, even though it was only visible for one-tenth of a second!

100 ms is barely enough time to recognize a single object in a scene, let alone enough objects to determine that you are looking at a street or a beach. So how were you able to find the target images so well? It turns out that we can recognize scenes by their overall spatial structure and not just by the objects that are in them. In fact, as demonstrated in the activity on Change Blindness, you may not have very good memory for the particular objects in a scene at all.

The RSVP paradigm is very useful for examining the temporal limits of selective attention. In this case your ability to find targets in an RSVP sequence seems quite good. The reason for this is that you were only looking for a single target (even though it was only vaguely specified). In the activity The Attentional Blink and Repetition Blindness, you will see what happens when observers are asked to find two targets within an RSVP sequence. To preview, your performance on the second target is not always as good as it is on the first one.