Paying attention to meaning.
Several paradigms show that responses to one event compromise responses to a second event for around 500 ms. Such effects are generally attributed to attentional capacity limitations associated with processing information in the first event. In a task in which targets could be distinguished only by their meaning, we varied the semantic relationship between distractors and targets following at different lags. Semantic relatedness alone produced a classic attentional blink. We conclude by discussing how attention theory might best accommodate these new effects.
Barnard
P J
PJ
MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, England. philip.barnard@mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk
Scott
S
S
Taylor
J
J
May
J
J
Knightley
W
W
D001288:Attention; D006801:Humans; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012660:Semantics; D014825:Vocabulary