title: Blinded by the load: attention, awareness and the role of perceptual load.
abstract: What is the relationship between attention and conscious awareness? Awareness sometimes appears to be restricted to the contents of focused attention, yet at other times irrelevant distractors will dominate awareness. This contradictory relationship has also been reflected in an abundance of discrepant research findings leading to an enduring controversy in cognitive psychology. Lavie's load theory of attention suggests that the puzzle can be solved by considering the role of perceptual load. Although distractors will intrude upon awareness in conditions of low load, awareness will be restricted to the content of focused attention when the attended information involves high perceptual load. Here, we review recent evidence for this proposal with an emphasis on the various subjective blindness phenomena, and their neural correlates, induced by conditions of high perceptual load. We also present novel findings that clarify the role of attention in the response to stimulus contrast. Overall, this article demonstrates a critical role for perceptual load across the spectrum of perceptual processes leading to awareness, from the very early sensory responses related to contrast detection to explicit recognition of semantic content.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, , London, UK.
authors.forename: Nilli
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Lavie
authors.forename: Diane M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Beck
authors.forename: Nikos
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Konstantinou
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D001364:Awareness / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010465:Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014473:Unconscious, Psychology
keywords: attention; change blindness; conscious visual awareness; contrast response function; inattentional blindness; perceptual load