title: Does failure to mask T1 cause lag-1 sparing in the attentional blink?
abstract: The attentional blink (AB) effect demonstrates that when participants are instructed to report two targets presented in a rapid visual stimuli stream, the second target (T2) is often unable to be reported correctly if presented 200-500 msec after the onset of the first target (T1). However, if T2 is presented immediately after T1, in the conventional lag-1 position (100-msec stimulus onset asynchrony; SOA), little or no performance deficit occurs. The present experiments add to the growing literature relating the "lag-1 sparing" effect to T1 masking. Using a canonical AB paradigm, our results demonstrate that T2 performance at lag 1 is significantly reduced in the presence of T1 masking. The implications of this outcome are discussed in relation to theories of the AB.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Wales, Bangor, Wales. psp065@bangor.ac.uk
authors.forename: Elwyn W
authors.initials: EW
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.forename: Kimron L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Shapiro
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D054518:Attentional Blink; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D014796:Visual Perception