title: An Individual Differences Approach to Temporal Integration and Order Reversals in the Attentional Blink Task.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The reduced ability to identify a second target when it is presented in close temporal succession of a first target is called the attentional blink (AB). Studies have shown large individual differences in AB task performance, where lower task performance has been associated with more reversed order reports of both targets if these were presented in direct succession. In order to study the suggestion that reversed order reports reflect loss of temporal information, in the current study, we investigated whether individuals with a larger AB have a higher tendency to temporally integrate both targets into one visual event by using an AB paradigm containing symbol target stimuli.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Indeed, we found a positive relation between the tendency to temporally integrate information and individual AB magnitude. In contrast to earlier work, we found no relation between order reversals and individual AB magnitude. The occurrence of temporal integration was negatively related to the number of order reversals, indicating that individuals either integrated or separated and reversed information.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We conclude that individuals with better AB task performance use a shorter time window to integrate information, and therefore have higher preservation of temporal information. Furthermore, order reversals observed in paradigms with alphanumeric targets indeed seem to at least partially reflect temporal integration of both targets. Given the negative relation between temporal integration and 'true' order reversals observed with the current symbolic target set, these two behavioral outcomes seem to be two sides of the same coin.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.|Neuroimaging Center, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Charlotte
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Willems
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Experimental Psychology, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Jefta D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Saija
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Experimental Psychology, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Elkan G
authors.initials: EG
authors.lastname: Akyürek
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.|Neuroimaging Center, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Sander
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Martens
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011340:Problem Solving / Q000502:physiology*