Effects of novelty and of oddity on selective attention was investigated through tachistoscopic recognition. When a pre-exposure field consisted of dots of one colour, letters of a different colour were more likely to be identified than letters of the same colour. In displays of 10 letters, two letters differing in colour from the remainder were more likely to be identified. Tachistoscopic exposure precluded determination of responses by eye movements, and there were controls for chromatic adaptation and other factors that might have biased the results.