Irrelevant singletons capture attention: evidence from inhibition of return.
Previous research has shown that a salient feature singleton may capture attention in a stimulus-driven, bottom-up fashion (e.g., Theeuwes, 1992,1994b). This conclusion has been challenged by others claiming that the observed attentional capture by irrelevant singletons may not be stimulus driven but due to top-down attentional control settings and/or nonspatial filtering costs. In the present study, we show that inhibition of return (IOR) occurs at the location of an irrelevant singleton. Participants were slower to detect a target presented at the location of the irrelevant singleton, relative to other locations. Since IOR can be observed only as a result of an exogenous, stimulus-driven shift of spatial attention, it isun-likely that top-down control settings and/or nonspatial filtering costs played a role. In line with earlier claims, the present findings provide strong evidence that salient singletons capture spatial attention in a purely bottom-up way.
Dept of Cognitive Psychology, Vrije University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. j.theeuwes@psy.vu.nl
Jan
J
Theeuwes
Richard
R
Godljn
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D011930:Reaction Time; D014794:Visual Fields / Q000502:physiology