These failures have been documented in many different everyday settings (e.g., Chabris & Simons, 2009 Drew, Vo, & Wolfe, 2013 Varakin, Levin, & Fidler, 2004 Wolfe, Soce, & Schill, 2017 Young & Regan, 2007). Footnote 1 Indeed, failures of perceptual awareness are more common than we realize (Levin, Momen, & Drivdahl, 2000). Objects and events that are entirely visible, centered in the field of view, and seemingly salient are surprisingly vulnerable to the limitations of conscious perceptual awareness. This study examined how distributed attention affected temporal processes for detecting a target change in any one of several moving objects. When attention is distributed over multiple objects and events, recognition of any given object or event becomes slower and less accurate. Visual processes convert variations in optical energy into information, but potential information is often not consciously perceived. These findings suggest that the rate of visual perception has a limiting channel capacity. The results generalized the time-invariant divisive effects of set size on visual process rates found by Lappin, Morse, & Seiffert ( Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 78, 2469–2493, 2016). The lawful structure of these effects was measured by RT hazard functions but not by RTs as such. The set size, visual target signal, and response task exerted mutually invariant influence on detection rates at given times, indicating independent joint contributions of parallel component processes. The principal finding was that increasing the set size divided the detection rates-and these divisive effects were essentially constant over time and over the time-varying influence of the target signals and response tasks. Detection rates at successive points in time were measured by response time (RT) hazard functions.

A simple detection task required responses to any display change, and a selective task required responses to a subset of the changes. The set size of moving objects was a primary variable.

During continuous watch periods, observers responded to sudden changes in the color or direction of any one of a set of moving objects. This study investigated effects of divided attention on the temporal processes of perception.

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