No abstract

Observers monitored the repetitive presentation of a simulated submarine detection display for occasional targets. Observers were required to integrate information contained in one, two, or three indicators either in a simultaneous (comparative judgment) or successive (absolute judgment) format. Consistent with earlier findings on feature-integration, performance efficiency varied inversely with the number of features which needed to be integrated in signal detection. Unlike previous studies involving unitary discriminations, observers in the simultaneous conditions performed more poorly than those in the successive conditions as the information processing demands of the monitoring task increased. The results indicate that while systematic differences were found between simultaneous and successive task-types, different factors may play a role when observers must contend with multiple as compared to unitary sources of information.