Posner Cueing Task
The Posner Cueing Task is a cognitive psychology experiment that measures spatial attention and response time. In this task, you will respond to visual targets that appear after spatial cues, which can be either valid (correctly indicating where the target will appear) or invalid (indicating the wrong location).
Posner Cueing Task
Welcome to the Posner Cueing Task. This experiment measures how your attention is directed by visual cues.
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About the Posner Cueing Task
The Posner Cueing Task, developed by Michael Posner in 1980, is a fundamental paradigm in cognitive psychology used to study spatial attention. The task demonstrates how visual cues can direct attention to specific locations, affecting reaction times to subsequent targets.
In a typical trial, participants fixate on a central point, then a cue appears briefly on one side. Shortly after, a target appears either at the cued location (valid trial) or at the opposite location (invalid trial). Participants typically respond faster to targets at validly cued locations, demonstrating the "cueing effect."
The difference in reaction time between invalid and valid trials (the "cueing effect") is a measure of attentional orienting. This effect has been used to study various aspects of attention, including automatic vs. controlled attention, and has applications in understanding attention-related disorders.