Goal-driven attentional capture by invisible colors: evidence from event-related potentials.
We combined event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and behavioral measures to test whether subliminal visual stimuli can capture attention in a goal-dependent manner. Participants searched for visual targets defined by a specific color. Search displays served as metacontrast masks for preceding cue displays that contained one cue in the target color. Although this target-color cue was spatially uninformative, it produced behavioral spatial cuing effects and triggered an ERP correlate of attentional selection (i.e., the N2pc component). These results demonstrate that target-color cues captured attention, in spite of the fact that cue localization performance assessed in separate blocks was at chance level. We conclude that task-set contingent attentional capture is not restricted to supraliminal stimuli, but is also elicited by visual events that are not consciously perceived.
Ansorge
Ulrich
U
University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria. ulrich.ansorge@univie.ac.at
Kiss
Monika
M
Eimer
Martin
M
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D003118:Color Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010470:Perceptual Masking / Q000502:physiology; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013360:Subliminal Stimulation