Input control processes in rapid serial visual presentations: Target selection and distractor inhibition.

The attentional blink refers to the finding that the 2nd of 2 targets embedded in a stream of rapidly presented distractors is often missed. Whereas most theories of the attentional blink focus on limited-capacity processes that occur after target selection, the present work investigates the selection process itself. Identifying a target letter caused an attentional blink for the enumeration of subsequent dot patterns, but this blink was reduced when the dots shared their color with the target letter. In contrast, performance worsened when the color of the dots matched that of the remaining distractors in the stream. Similarity between the targets also affected competition between different sets of dots presented simultaneously within a single display. The authors conclude that the selection of targets from a rapid serial visual presentation stream is mediated by both excitatory and inhibitory attentional control mechanisms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children induce an enhanced attentional blink in child molesters.

The attentional blink (AB) is a robust phenomenon that has been consistently reported in the cognitive literature. The AB is found when two target images (T1, T2) are presented within 500 ms of each other and errors are induced on the perceptual report of T2. The AB may increase when T1 has some salience to the viewer. This study examined the effects of using pictures of children as T1 on the AB in a sample of child molesters. A larger AB emerged in this sample when T1was a picture of a child compared with when T1 was a picture of an animal. It is argued that this task may be potentially useful to assess child molesters' level of interest in children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nature of codes extracted during the attentional blink.

This set of 6 experiments used a 2-target rapid serial visual presentation paradigm to address 2 main questions: (a) What is the nature of the code retrieved from nontarget (i.e., unselected) items? and (b) How do the processing demands of the target affect the nature of the codes extracted from its proximate distractors? There were 3 main results: First, unless a nontarget receives attentional processing, its codes remain dormant. The type of activated codes depends on the perceptual load imposed by the other items that also underwent processing. Second, the item trailing the target invariably gets processed, but those farther downstream are excluded. If target selection is exacting, the codes of the item leading the target may also be enhanced. Third, the magnitude of the attentional blink increases with target selection difficulty; it is, however, unaffected by the perceptual load imposed by the target. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When visual marking meets the attentional blink: More evidence for top-down, limited-capacity inhibition.

An attentional blink (AB) paradigm was used to investigate the attentional resources necessary for visual marking. The results showed that distractors presented inside the AB cannot easily be ignored despite participants anticipating a future target display. This supports the hypothesis that attentional resources are required for visual marking. In addition, probe dots were better detected on blinked distractors than on successfully ignored distractors, but only when the task required new items to be prioritized. In a final experiment, a stronger negative carry-over effect on search occurred for targets identical to distractors presented outside rather than inside the AB. This suggests that at least part of the inhibitory processes involved in visual marking are nonspatial. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parameterizing the attentional blink effect.

The attentional blink effect (AB) is used to examine the limits of attention in dual-task paradigms. However, since the effect is nonlinear, it is sometimes difficult to characterize the results. Furthermore, it is difficult to assess the significance of the effect between groups because the results are highly variable both within and across subjects. In this paper, we propose a method to quantify four characteristics of the AB curve: the minimum performance, the amplitude between the minimum and the asymptotic performance, the amount of Lag-1 sparing, and the width of the effect. The method, based on curve fitting, allows easier comparisons of the results across experiments, can test only one characteristic at a time, and yields more powerful statistical tests. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reevaluating encoding-capacity limitations as a cause of the attentional blink.

A number of researchers have emphasized the role of distractors intervening between successive targets as the primary determinant of the attentional blink (AB) phenomenon. They argued that the AB is abolished when 3 or more targets are displayed as temporally contiguous items in rapidly presented serial sequences. In 3 experiments, the authors embedded 1-, 2-, or 3-digit targets among letter distractors in rapidly presented visual sequences. Across the experiments, both the number of targets and the lag between them were manipulated, producing different proportion of trials in which 3 temporally contiguous targets were presented in the test session. Evidence of an AB affecting the targets that followed the first target in these sequences was found in each experiment when the probability of a given target report was conditionalized on a correct response to the preceding targets, thus reinforcing the notion that some form of capacity limitation in the encoding of targets plays a central role in the elicitation and modulation of the AB effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The influence of temporal selection on spatial selection and distractor interference: An attentional blink study.

Both spatial and temporal selection require focused attention. The authors examine how temporal attention affects spatial selection. In a dual-task rapid serial visual presentation paradigm, temporal selection of a target (T1) impairs processing of a second target (T2) that follows T1 within 500 ms. This process is the attentional blink (AB). To test the effects of withdrawing temporal attention, the authors measured concurrent distractor interference on T2 when the distractors were presented during and outside of the AB. Perceptual interference was manipulated by the similarity in color between T2 and concurrent distractors, and response interference was manipulated by the flanker congruency task. Results showed that perceptual interference was larger during the AB. Response interference also increased during the AB, but only when perceptual interference was high. The authors conclude that temporal selection and spatial selection rely on a common attentional process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Top-down controlled, delayed selection in the attentional blink.

In a previous study, it was shown that the attentional blink (AB)--the failure to recall the 2nd of 2 visual targets (T1 and T2) presented within 500 ms in rapid serial visual presentation--is reduced when T2 is preceded by a distractor that shares a feature with T2 (e.g., color; Nieuwenstein, Chun, van der Lubbe & Hooge, 2005). Here, this cuing effect is shown to be contingent on attentional set. For example, a red distractor letter preceding a green digit T2 is an effective cue when the task is to look for red and green digits, but the same red cue is relatively ineffective when the task is to look for only green digits or when the color of T2 is not specified. It is also shown that cuing is not interrupted by a distractor intervening between the cue and T2. These findings provide evidence for a contingent, delayed selection account of the AB. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

"The attentional blink reflects retrieval competition among multiple rapid serial visual presentation items: Tests of an interference model": Erratum.

Reports an error in "The attentional blink reflects retrieval competition among multiple rapid serial visual presentation items: Tests of an interference model" by Matthew I. Isaak, Kimron L. Shapiro and Jesse Martin (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 1999[Dec], Vol 25[6], 1774-1792). On p. 1778, the correct Figure 1 was inadvertently replaced in the production process with an erroneous figure. The erratum contains the corrected figure. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2000-15288-019.) When people respond to a target (T1) in a rapid serial visual presentation stream, their perception of a subsequent target (T2) is impaired if the intertarget stimulus onset asynchrony is between about 100 and 500 ms. Three experiments supported the interference model's (K. L. Shapiro, J. E. Raymond, & K. M. Arnell, 1994) claim that this attentional blink reflects competition for retrieval among multiple items in visual short-term memory. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that items appearing during the blink are named as T2 on an above-chance proportion of trials when T2 must be identified. Experiment 3 demonstrated that both the size of the blink and sensitivity to T2 reflected the number of items competing for retrieval as T2; such competition, moreover, occurred at a conceptual or categorical level rather than at a purely visual one. The relationship between the interference and alternative models of the attentional blink is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Unmasking the attentional blink.

When asked to identify 2 visual targets (T1 and T2 for the 1st and 2nd targets, respectively) embedded in a sequence of distractors, observers will often fail to identify T2 when it appears within 200-500 ms of T1--an effect called the attentional blink. Recent work shows that attention does not blink when the task is to encode a sequence of consecutive targets, suggesting that distractor interference plays a causal role in the attentional blink. Here, however, the authors show that an attentional blink occurs even in the absence of distractors, with 2 letter targets separated by a blank interval. In addition, the authors found that the impairment for identification of the 2nd of 2 targets separated by a blank interval is substantially attenuated either when the intertarget interval is filled with additional target items or when the 2nd target is precued by an additional target. These findings show that the root cause of the blink lies in the difficulty of engaging attention twice within a short period of time for 2 temporally discrete target events. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Identification Facilitation for Emotionally Arousing Verbs During the Attentional Blink.

The present study aimed to examine affective modulation of the "attentional blink" effect during rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP). Pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant written verbs were used as a 2nd target (T2) in an 8.6-Hz RSVP paradigm. Pronounced effects of 1st target (T1)-T2 stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) were found, showing reduced report accuracy for 232- and 464-ms SOAs. Affectively arousing (pleasant and unpleasant) T2s were associated with enhanced accuracy compared with neutral T2s specifically during short (232 ms) SOAs. In contrast, pleasant and unpleasant T2s rated low in terms of emotional arousal did not show this enhancement. These results suggest that affectively arousing information is selected preferentially from a temporal stream, facilitating processes such as working memory consolidation and action. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Visual masking during the attentional blink: Tests of the object substitution hypothesis.

When 2 masked targets are presented in a rapid sequence, correct identification of the 1st hinders identification of the 2nd. Visual masking of the 2nd target plays a critical role during this 2nd-target deficit, or "attentional blink" (AB). The object substitution hypothesis (B. Giesbrecht and V. Di Lollo, 1998) predicts that late-stage visual processes involved in object substitution mediate masking of the 2nd target during AB, whereby stronger masking should produce a more severe deficit. Six experiments are presented, together testing this hypothesis. Although masking by object substitution was observed, it did not interact with the AB. An alternative hypothesis is proposed stating that mostly early-stage visual processes mediate the masking effects that are critical to the AB. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Do happy faces capture attention? The happiness superiority effect in attentional blink.

This study investigated the influence of positive affect on attentional blink (AB) with schematic faces. Results of Experiment 1 showed that the AB effect was smaller for both upright and inverted positive face icons than other face icons (neutral and angry faces) of corresponding orientations, confirming and extending the results of the earlier study by Mack, Pappas, Silverman, and Gay (2002). Results of Experiment 2 demonstrated that this attenuation of AB was unlikely to be attributable to attentional capture by the happy face. Perceptual saliency is suggested as a likely cause of the effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The sparing is far from spurious: Reevaluating within-trial contingency effects in the attentional blink.

The attentional blink is the marked deficit in awareness of a 2nd target (T2) when it is presented shortly after the 1st target (T1) in a stream of distractors. When the distractors between T1 and T2 are replaced by even more targets, the attentional blink is reduced or absent, indicating that the attentional blink results from online selection mechanisms that act in response to distracting input rather than being the result of T1-induced cognitive resource depletion. However, Dell'Acqua, Jolicoeur, Luria, and Pluchino (2009) recently contended that an attentional blink is found in the multiple-target case as long as the appropriate trial context and analyses are used, thus reinstating resource-based explanations of the attentional blink and challenging the selection account. Specifically, an attentional blink reemerges when target performance is analyzed contingent on previous target accuracy. We argue on theoretical and empirical grounds that neither the trial context nor the type of analysis poses a serious problem for selection accounts. We show that the attentional blink and previous target contingency effects can be dissociated, with the latter depending more on low-level, short-range competition. We conclude that selection mechanisms involved in filtering for targets still provide a strong and coherent explanation of the attentional blink. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of phonological length on the attentional blink for words.

The authors tested whether the attentional blink (AB), a deficit in the ability to report a second target appearing within half a second of a first target, may reflect limitations for consolidating visual stimuli into working memory and awareness. Previous research has shown that people are severely limited in the rate that they can identify and report visual events presented in rapid succession. Word length was examined, a variable known to affect verbal working memory. Experiment 1 showed that the AB was modulated by the phonological length of the fast target. Phonologically longer pseudowords triggered larger blink deficits. Experiment 2 also demonstrated the word-length effect on the AB using real-world stimuli, anagrams, that controlled for low-level visual differences between conditions. These data support proposals that the AB reflects a difficulty in consolidating information into working memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attentional requirements in visual detection and identification: Evidence from the attentional blink.

Perception of the 2nd of 2 targets (T1 and T2) is impaired if the lag between them is short (0–500 ms). The authors used this attentional blink (AB) to index attentional requirements in detection and identification tasks, with or without backward masking of T2, in 2 stimulus domains (line orientation, coherent motion). With masking, the AB occurred because T2 was masked during the attentional dwell time created by T1 processing (Experiments 1, 2, and 3). Without masking, an AB occurred only in identification because during the attentional dwell time. T2 decayed to a level that could support simple detection but not complex identification. However, an AB occurred also in detection if T2 was sufficiently degraded (Experiment 4). The authors drew 2 major conclusions: (a) Attention is required in both identification and detection, and (b) 2 factors contribute to the AB, masking of T2 while attention is focused on T1 and decay of the T2 trace while unattended. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Blinded by emotion: Target misses follow attention capture by arousing distractors in RSVP.

Participants are usually able to search rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) streams and report a single target, given that RSVP distractors do not typically deplete attention required for target identification. Here, participants performed single target search, but the target was preceded by a to-be-ignored distractor varying in valence and arousal. When the critical distractor was a sexual word, lower target accuracy was observed, particularly at short distractor-target stimulus onset asynchronies, even when participants were shown the critical distractors beforehand and told to ignore them. No reduction in target accuracy was evidenced when the critical distractor was negative, positive, threatening, or emotionally neutral. Target accuracy was predicted by participants' arousal ratings to the critical distractor words and by their memory for them, but not by their valence ratings. Memory for critical distractors mediated the relationship between arousal and target accuracy. The results provide evidence that arousing sexual words involuntarily capture attention and enter awareness at the expense of goal-driven targets, at least in the context of laboratory experiments performed by young university participants for whom sexual material might have high impact and relevance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Top-down attentional control for distractor locations: The benefit of precuing distractor locations on target localization and discrimination.

This study investigated the active inhibition of precued distractor locations. In this study, the distractor location was precued by an arrow. Experiment 1 indicated that a valid precue could facilitate target localization. Experiment 2 demonstrated that when conflict trials were included, the distractor precue benefit was eliminated. Experiment 3 further showed that active inhibition required time to operate. The distractor precue benefit was observed only when the stimulus onset asynchrony between the precue and the target and distractor display was long. Experiment 4 illustrated that the benefit was not contingent on precuing the distractor response. Experiment 5 indicated that the benefit of distractor precuing was not due to the activation of target locations, and Experiment 6 showed that this benefit was due to attentional inhibition. Finally, Experiment 7 demonstrated that active inhibition of spatial location required an attentional resource to operate. These results indicated how a top-down mechanism exerted control on distractor locations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The attentional blink provides episodic distinctiveness: Sparing at a cost.

The attentional blink (J. E. Raymond, K. L. Shapiro, & K. M. Arnell, 1992) refers to an apparent gap in perception observed when a second target follows a first within several hundred milliseconds. Theoretical and computational work have provided explanations for early sets of blink data, but more recent data have challenged these accounts by showing that the blink is attenuated when subjects encode strings of stimuli (J. Kawahara, T. Kumada, & V. Di Lollo, 2006; M. R. Nieuwenstein & M. C. Potter, 2006; C. N. Olivers, 2007) or are distracted (C. N. Olivers & S. Nieuwenhuis, 2005) while viewing the rapid serial visual presentation stream. The authors describe the episodic simultaneous type, serial token model, a computational account of encoding visual stimuli into working memory that suggests that the attentional blink is a cognitive strategy rather than a resource limitation. This model is composed of neurobiologically plausible elements and simulates the attentional blink with a competitive attentional mechanism that facilitates the formation of episodically distinct representations within working memory. In addition to addressing the blink, the model addresses the phenomena of repetition blindness and whole report superiority, producing predictions that are supported by experimental work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Capturing Attention When Attention "Blinks".

Four experiments addressed the question of whether attention may be captured when the visual system is in the midst of an attentional blink (AB). Participants identified 2 target letters embedded among distractor letters in a rapid serial visual presentation sequence. In some trials, a square frame was inserted between the targets; as the only geometric object in the sequence, it constituted a singleton. Capture effects obtained when the AB was most severe and when it was over were compared. There were 3 main results. First, capture occurred even when the AB was crippling, suggesting that a singleton exogenously engaged attention even when processing of a previous target was continuing apace. Second, when the singleton contained the key target feature, capture effects were clearly manifest. Third, even when the singleton did not possess the key target feature, it still succeeded in capturing attention, although the effects were both feeble and fleeting. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)