title: Reconsidering Temporal Selection in the Attentional Blink.
abstract: Two episodes of attentional selection cannot occur very close in time. This is the traditional account of the attentional blink, whereby observers fail to report the second of two temporally proximal targets. Recent analyses have challenged this simple account, suggesting that attentional selection during the attentional blink is not only (a) suppressed, but also (b) temporally advanced then delayed, and (c) temporally diffused. Here, we reanalyzed six data sets using mixture modeling of report errors, and revealed much simpler dynamics. Exposing a problem inherent in previous analyses, we found evidence of a second attentional episode only when the second target (T2) follows the first (T1) by more than 100 to 250 ms. When a second episode occurs, suppression and delay reduce steadily as lag increases and temporal precision is stable. At shorter lags, both targets are reported from a single episode, which explains why T2 can escape the attentional blink when it immediately follows T1 (Lag-1 sparing).
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, The University of Sydney School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne patgoodbourn@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Patrick T
authors.initials: PT
authors.lastname: Goodbourn
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Harvard University.
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Martini
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The University of Western Ontario Department of Kinesiology, The University of Waterloo.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Barnett-Cowan
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, The University of Sydney.
authors.forename: Irina M
authors.initials: IM
authors.lastname: Harris
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, The University of Sydney.
authors.forename: Evan J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Livesey
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, The University of Sydney.
authors.forename: Alex O
authors.initials: AO
authors.lastname: Holcombe
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D054518:Attentional Blink / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: attention; open data; open materials; statistical analysis; visual perception