Temporal expectations modulate attentional capture

Lamy, Dominique · 2005 · Crossref

DOI: 10.3758/bf03206452

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Summary

This paper investigates the mechanisms by which observers override attentional capture by salient, irrelevant distractors during visual search. While previous research attributed this ability to attentional sets for specific stimulus discontinuities or fast disengagement of attention, Dominique Lamy proposes that temporal expectations also modulate capture. The study tests the hypothesis that knowing the interval between a distractor and a target facilitates resistance to capture, whereas unpredictable intervals lead to capture, except at the expected average interval. The research comprised three experiments using color singleton search tasks where participants identified a target defined by color while ignoring an irrelevant onset distractor. Experiment 1 manipulated the distractor-to-target stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) across three levels (50, 175, and 300 msec) in either fixed blocks (predictable SOA) or mixed blocks (unpredictable SOA). Experiment 2 replicated this design with longer SOAs (175, 300, and 425 msec) to determine if resistance to capture was specific to a ~150 msec interval or dependent on the average expected interval. Experiment 3 examined the role of distractor salience, using high- and low-salience onsets with randomly mixed SOAs ranging from 50 to 300 msec. The results demonstrated that temporal predictability significantly influenced attentional capture. In Experiments 1 and 2, no capture occurred when the SOA was fixed and predictable. However, when SOAs were mixed and unpredictable, capture occurred at all intervals except the average expected SOA (175 msec in Experiment 1; 300 msec in Experiment 2). This pattern confirmed that subjects prepare for the average expected interval, overriding capture at that specific time point. Experiment 3 revealed that this modulation by temporal expectation applies only to moderately salient distractors. High-salience distractors produced capture across all SOAs, regardless of temporal predictability, whereas low-salience distractors showed the same pattern of capture override at the average expected interval seen in previous experiments. These findings suggest that attentional control settings include temporal expectations, which allow observers to withhold attentional shifts toward irrelevant objects during a predicted time window. The study implies that stimulus-driven and goal-oriented factors interact, as temporal expectations cannot override capture by highly salient stimuli. Methodologically, the results caution against using SOA manipulations to study the temporal deployment of attention, as such manipulations inherently introduce powerful temporal expectations that confound the measurement of attentional dynamics.

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• attention selective divided
• inattentional change blindness