Previous attentional set can induce an attentional blink
with task-irrelevant initial targets

Thompson, C; Underwood, G; Crundall, D

Abstract

Identification of a second target is often impaired by the requirement to process a prior target in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP). This is termed the attentional blink. Even when the first target is task-irrelevant an attentional blink may occur providing this first target shares similar features with the second target (contingent capture). An RSVP experiment was undertaken to assess whether this first target can still cause an attentional blink when it did not require a response and did not share any features with the following target. The results revealed that such task-irrelevant targets can induce an attentional blink providing that they were task-relevant on a previous block of trials. This suggests that irrelevant focal stimuli can distract attention on the basis of a previous attentional set.

Citation

with task-irrelevant initial targets. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 60(12), 1603-1609. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470210701536468

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2007
• Deposit Date: Sep 20, 2010
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 5, 2016
• Journal: Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
• Print ISSN: 1747-0218
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 60
• Issue: 12
• Pages: 1603-1609
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17470210701536468
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17470210701536468