Rate of perceptual processing

Summary The primary goal of Schulze and Schuster's (1977) experiment was to test Massaro's (1972) hypothesis that the rate of processing of the auditory image after the tone is turned off is equal to the rate of processing the stimulus code while the stimulus is present. The experiment was unsuccessful, however, since the authors did not take into account corresponding changes in the asymptote parameter of the model with changes in stimulus duration. This review discusses the problem in detail along with a general discussion of model testing and appropriate experimental procedure.This research was supported by Public Health Service Grant MH-19399. Wendy L. Idson provided valuable comments. Requests for offprints should be sent to Dominic W. Massaro, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin, Johnson at Charter Streets, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA