• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2022

Lavie's perceptual load theory (Lavie, 1995) proposes that the influence of distractors would be blocked as the load gets higher. Studies of perceptual load have usually adopted the flanker task, developed by Eriksen and Eriksen (1974), which measures reaction time on the target flanked by distractors. In the post-cueing forced task, participants should report the identity of the target cued later, and negative repetition effect (NRE) has often been observed. NRE means the effect that the accuracy of identification is worse when the target is flanked by the same nontargets than when flanked by different nontargets. This study has tried to check whether perceptual load has an effect on identification rate and NRE. Experiment 1 manipulated the similarity between targets and a distractor, and observed a tendency of NRE, but not the effect of perceptual load. Experiment 2 used 4, 2 (in two kinds of diagonal arrangement), or none distractors of the same identity to burden more perceptual load. NRE was significant and perceptual load showed significance but not a linear trend. Experiment 3 checked again whether NRE would be varied according to two levels of perceptual load strengthened by positional variability of load stimuli, but did not find the effect of perceptual load. It is concluded that perceptual load might have a limited effect on the early stage of perceptual processing due to divided attentional processing of the targets briefly exposed. Implications of this study were discussed.