Abstract: Four experiments were conducted with colored geometrical figures in a “same”-“different” comparison task on physical matching criterion. Participants were 77 undergraduates from Beijing Agricultural Engineering University. “Different” stimulus pairs mismatched in one dimension only, i.e., either in color or in shape. The relation between successive “different” responses was studied. The results of three experiments revealed that “different” responses were slower when mismatched dimension shifted from one dimension to another. The authors claimed that dimensional transfer effect was due to on-line selective allocation of attention according to task requirement and stimuli presented

Key words: “same”-“different” judgment, mutidimensional stimulus, selective attention, dimensional transfer