Made you blink! Contingent attentional capture produces a spatial blink

Folk, Charles L.; Leber, Andrew B.; Egeth, Howard E. · 2002 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.3758/bf03194741

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Summary

This study investigates whether spatial certainty alone is sufficient to eliminate attentional capture by irrelevant peripheral stimuli. Previous research indicated that knowing the exact location of a target prevents capture by salient distractors. However, this work explores scenarios where the target location is certain, but the specific identity of the target within that location is uncertain, requiring top-down attentional control settings for nonspatial features (e.g., color). The authors test the contingent involuntary orienting hypothesis, which posits that attentional capture occurs only when a distractor matches the observer’s current attentional set. The researchers conducted four experiments using a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm. Participants monitored a central stream of letters to identify a target defined by a specific color (e.g., red). On critical trials, irrelevant peripheral distractors appeared. In Experiments 1 and 2, the distractors were color singletons (e.g., a red hash mark among gray ones). Experiment 1 used a homogeneous central stream, while Experiment 2 used a heterogeneous stream to force subjects to adopt a specific color-based attentional set rather than a general singleton search mode. Experiments 3 and 4 introduced peripheral letters, one of which was a prime matching the central target, to determine if the observed performance decrements resulted from a spatial shift of attention or a temporal processing bottleneck. The results demonstrated that spatial certainty did not eliminate attentional capture. In Experiment 1, both same-color and different-color distractors impaired central target identification, suggesting a general singleton search mode. However, Experiment 2 showed that when subjects were forced to set attention for a specific color, only distractors matching that target color caused a significant decrement in performance. This confirms that capture is contingent on top-down attentional control settings. Furthermore, Experiments 3 and 4 provided evidence that this decrement reflects a spatial "blink." When the peripheral distractor matched the target color, attention was involuntarily drawn to the distractor’s location. If the distractor at that location was the prime letter, central target identification improved, indicating that attention had physically shifted to the peripheral location, thereby disrupting access to the central target. These findings imply that the efficient allocation of visual attention involves a complex interplay between stimulus properties and behavioral goals. Spatial focusing is not sufficient to override attentional capture if the observer maintains a top-down set for a specific feature dimension. The study introduces the concept of a "spatial blink," where attentional capture by a matching distractor causes a temporary loss of access to the attended location. This supports the contingent involuntary orienting hypothesis, demonstrating that irrelevant stimuli can disrupt performance even when their location is known to be irrelevant, provided they match the active attentional control settings.

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Topics

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• inattentional change blindness
• attention selective divided
• visual search
• visual
• peripheral attention