After identifying one target, people are briefly unable to detect a second one arriving a few hundred milliseconds later, even with the eyes open and fixed.
In rapid serial presentation, a second target appearing roughly 200 to 500 milliseconds after the first is missed at high rates, and then detection recovers. The gap is not in the eye but in the processing: consolidating the first item occupies a stage the second needs. It is a measurable ceiling on how quickly attention can be redeployed.
In practice
- A monitor who has just logged one alarm misses the next one arriving half a second later.
- A driver who has registered the cyclist does not register the second cyclist immediately behind.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Psychology & Behavior
- Essay
- A century and a half of measuring the mind