Attentional capture triggers an attentional blink.
Two experiments examined the possibility that attention directed to a distractor during rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) can produce an attentional blink (AB). A to-be-ignored distractor (D1) preceded a target word (T2) by a variable lag in RSVP streams of black false-font distractors. D1 was highlighted by color and was a word, a string of consonants, a string of digits, or a string of false-font characters. Recall of T2 was significantly suppressed at short D1-T2 lags (the AB) but only when D1 contained letters; the AB was completely absent when D1 was composed of digits or false-font characters. Thus, the AB can be triggered by a highlighted distractor if the distractor shares features with a target.
Maki
William S
WS
Department of Psychology, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409-2051, USA. bill.maki@ttu.edu
Mebane
Michael W
MW
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D003118:Color Perception; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011930:Reaction Time; D012660:Semantics; D012691:Serial Learning