Response time and accuracy revisited: converging support for the interactive race model.

The interactive race model embodies 2 central claims: that divided attention is best described as a race between separately processed codes and that the 2 types of design contingency to which the model is sensitive affect different processing stages. Previous support for the model has come from a series of redundant-target tasks examining reaction time (RT) (J.T. Mordkoff & S. Yantis, 1991). We tested both central claims using near-threshold, accuracy tasks. This approach capitalizes on a known difference between RT and accuracy measures: that (in simple tasks) accuracy is sensitive only to perceptual manipulations, whereas RT is affected by both perceptual and postperceptual factors (J.L. Santee & H.E. Egeth, 1982). The results from 3 experiments provide converging support for the proposed loci of the 2 contingency-sensitive mechanisms within the interactive race model, as well as additional evidence concerning the differential sensitivities of RT and accuracy measures.