A Mixture Distribution of Spatial Attention

Although it may seem paradoxical, the unified-focus and multiple-foci theories of spatial selective attention are both well supported by experimental evidence. However, the apparent contradiction is illusory and the two competing views may be reconciled by a closer examination of the spatial mechanisms involved. We propose that the deployment of attention may be modeled as a mixture of individual distributions of attention and we tested this hypothesis in two experiments. Participants had to identify targets among distractors, with the targets presented at various distances from the cued locations. Experiment 1 confirmed that the distribution of attention may be described by a mixture of individual distributions, each centered at a cued location. Experiment 2 showed that cue separation is an important determinant of whether spatial attention is divided or not.