Look here but ignore what you see: effects of distractors at fixation.
Distractor interference effects were compared between distractors in the periphery and those placed at fixation. In 6 experiments, the authors show that fixation distractors produce larger interference effects than peripheral distractors. However, the fixation distractor effects are modulated by perceptual load to the same extent as are peripheral distractor effects (Experiments 1 and 2). Experiment 3 showed that fixation distractors are harder to filter out than peripheral distractors. The larger distractor effects at fixation are not due to the cortical magnification of foveal stimuli (Experiments 4 and 5), nor can they be attributed to cuing by the fixation point (Experiment 2), the lower predictability or greater location certainty of fixation distractors (Experiment 5), or their being in a central position (Experiment 6). The authors suggest that preferential access to attention renders fixation distractors harder to ignore than peripheral distractors.
Department of Psychology, University College London, London, United Kingdom. dbeck@princeton.edu
Diane M
DM
Beck
Nilli
N
Lavie
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D005584:Fovea Centralis; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D011582:Psychological Theory; D011930:Reaction Time; D014796:Visual Perception