An attentional blink for nontargets?
In a typical attentional blink experiment, viewers try to detect two target items among distractors in a Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP): processing of the first target impairs participants' ability to recall a subsequent target at short stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs). However, little is known about whether target detection interferes with memory for nontarget items. To answer this question, in two experiments, we employed a novel dual-task procedure: participants searched for a word target (e.g., "a four-footed animal") and then were tested for recognition of nontarget words. Detection of the target word, which was present on half the trials, produced a standard attentional blink effect on memory for nontarget words, with lag 1 sparing followed by an attentional blink at longer lags. This result shows that target processing has a generalized effect on processing of later events, not only other targets.
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, 6207 Moore Hall, Hanover, NH 03755, USA. ming.meng@dartmouth.edu
Ming
M
Meng
Mary C
MC
Potter
D054518:Attentional Blink; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D006801:Humans; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011930:Reaction Time; D012153:Retention, Psychology; D012660:Semantics; D012691:Serial Learning