title: Attentional capture by object appearance and disappearance.
abstract: In two experiments we examined whether the appearance of a new object has attentional priority over disappearance. Previous failures to show differences are possibly due to onsets and offsets always being presented as a sole visual transient. Rather than presenting each alone, we presented onset and offset singletons simultaneously with a display-wide luminance transient in order to force each to compete with other visual events. Results from Experiment 1 showed that targets associated with onsets accrued a reaction time benefit whilst targets associated with offsets did not. Experiment 2 showed that onsets attracted attention even when observers were attentionally set to look for offset. By contrast, offsets needed a relevant attentional set in order to attract attention. We argue that the appearance of an object has attentional priority over disappearance.
authors.affiliation: University of Durham, Durham, UK. G.G.Cole@Durham.ac.uk
authors.forename: Geoff G
authors.initials: GG
authors.lastname: Cole
authors.forename: Gustav
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kuhn
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D015350:Contrast Sensitivity / Q000502:physiology; D005403:Fixation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology; D005556:Form Perception; D006801:Humans; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010470:Perceptual Masking / Q000502:physiology; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011601:Psychophysics; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013997:Time Factors