Time of day as an instrument for the analysis of attention

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Abstract
The long-established effect of Eriksen and Eriksen (1974) is that distracting stimuli impair performance on a choice reaction if they arrive less than about 1 degree away from the reaction signal; but not if they are more widely separated from it. On the other hand, it is also known that people respond more quickly to a signal whose location they do not know, if the signal remains in the same position on successive trials (Tipper & Cranston, 1985). These phenomena look as if there is a spatial bias of attention, whatever the task being performed, and they can be explained by late or by early selection theories of attention. Following a failure to replicate the Eriksen effect, a series of further experiments was performed with minor variations. From the six studies totalling 128 subjects, it became clear that the classic effect is reduced or abolished in the afternoon, and further that this reduction of the effect is greater in individuals with high cognitive failure scores. On the other hand, the place repetition effect in the other task is if anything increased in the afternoon; without any interaction with cognitive failure. The two phenomena appear, therefore, to involve separate explanations, and the results are interpreted in terms of an “early selection” theory of attention.