Safe or out: Does the location of attention affect judgments at first base in baseball?

Abstract

Titchener's law of prior entry states that attended stimuli are perceived before unattended stimuli. Prior entry effects measured with visual stimuli have been generated with both endogenous and exogenous attentional deployment (e.g., by Shore, Spence, & Klein, 2001). In theory, the endogenous form of prior entry may have implications for baseball umpire judgments. Conventionally, umpires are instructed to first attend to the ball when it is hit into play; however, where they attend at the imperative instant of the play at first base can vary between individuals and across scenarios. If the law of prior entry holds in the baseball context, umpires may be biased to make judgments in favour of the imperative event nearest the locus of attention. We tested this hypothesis by having non-umpires make "Safe" or "Out" judgments in response to first base baseball plays wherein the relative arrival times of the runner and baseball were varied. A novel colour wheel method was implemented in an orthogonal task to bias attention endogenously and to measure the effectiveness of this manipulation. Attention was confirmed to be successfully biased to the glove or base by way of improved identification at the likely probe location. However, there was no evidence that prior entry was affecting Safe or Out judgments. (PsycINFO Database Record

Further evidence in favor of prior entry from endogenous attention to a location in space

“…A key distinction, though, is that unlike Shore, Spence, and Klein, Schneider and Bavelier did not affirm that endogenous orienting had occurred in their task. A more recent investigation by Redden, d'Entremont, and Klein (2017) provides some support for Schneider and Bavelier's conclusions that endogenous visuospatial orienting might not elicit prior entry-albeit in a more real-world TOJ scenario, in which observers were required to make Bsafe^or Boutĵ udgments at close first-base baseball plays. Redden et al found no evidence that prior entry affected the proportions of Bsafe^versus Bout^judgments in this real-world context.…”

“…In the present experiment, we explored whether endogenous orienting of attention does elicit prior entry, while using the enriched attentional diagnostic from Redden, d'Entremont, and Klein (2017). Again, Shore, Spence, and Klein (2001) showed an effect of prior entry in their endogenous-orienting task.…”

“…In the real-world context investigated by Redden, d'Entremont, and Klein (2017), observers had their attention endogenously biased to either the glove or the base between blocks by way of an orthogonal color probe task. Within a block, a color probe would appear on a subset of trials more often at either the base or the glove within the scene of a video of a close play at first base.…”

“…The goal of this investigation was to evaluate this nuanced distinction between the two experiments. We used the same TOJ task that was used in Shore, Spence, and Klein (2001), while employing the same spatial contingency/diagnostic as in Redden, d'Entremont, and Klein (2017). As had Shore et al, we required observers to make TOJs about the relative onsets of a vertical and a horizontal line in opposite placeholder boxes; however, we engendered an endogenous shift of attention by way of the same orthogonal color probe task used by Redden et al, albeit with minor modifications.…”

“…Contingent upon this outcome, should we see an effect on TOJs as a function of endogenous orienting, this would support the findings of Shore et al (2001), but also affirm that prior entry can be manifest in contexts in which a spatial contingency is generated orthogonally to the TOJ task. Contrarily, should no effect of endogenous orienting be apparent on TOJs (Redden et al, 2017;Schneider & Bavelier, 2003), two further explanations for the outcome would be possible: (1) Endogenous attention does not elicit prior entry, or (2) endogenous attention elicits prior entry only when the spatial contingency is within the TOJ task.…”