title: The attentional blink demonstrates automatic deviance processing in vision.
abstract: Rare deviations in serial visual stimulation are accompanied by an occipital N2 in the event-related potential [the visual mismatch negativity (vMMN)]. Recent research suggests that the vMMN reflects automatic processing of information on the sensory level as a basis for change detection. To directly test the hypothesis that the vMMN is independent from attention, a rapid-serial-visual-presentation paradigm was applied: Either 300 ms or 700 ms after the presentation of a target (T1) a rare position change was embedded in the stimulation which elicited a vMMN. In another condition participants had to detect a second target (T2) after T1: Importantly, within 300 ms after T1, T2 detection was nearly chance level ('attentional blink'). This result demonstrates that the vMMN is elicited without attentional allocation.
authors.affiliation: Department for Psychology, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany. berti@uni-mainz.de
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Berti
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D054518:Attentional Blink / Q000502:physiology*; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D014785:Vision, Ocular / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*