Stimulus-driven attentional capture by subliminal onset cues

Schoeberl, Tobias; Fuchs, Isabella; Theeuwes, Jan; Ansorge, Ulrich · 2014 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.3758/s13414-014-0802-4

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Summary

This study investigates whether subliminal abrupt onset cues capture attention in a truly stimulus-driven manner, independent of top-down attentional control settings. The research addresses a debate in visual attention literature: while early studies suggested that peripheral onsets capture attention automatically, later findings indicated that such capture is contingent on the observer’s current search goal (top-down contingent capture). Previous experiments claiming subliminal capture were criticized for allowing participants to use singleton search strategies or luminance contrasts to locate targets, potentially confounding stimulus-driven effects with top-down processes. To resolve this, the authors designed two experiments to rule out these alternative explanations by ensuring targets were not singletons and by equating target and distractor luminance both objectively and subjectively. The experimental design involved 36 participants in Experiment 1 and additional participants in Experiment 2. In the primary task, participants searched for a color-defined target among two differently colored distractors, requiring them to identify the target’s orientation rather than its presence. This prevented singleton-based search strategies. Crucially, the subjective lightness of the target and distractors was equated to the background using flicker photometry, eliminating any luminance contrast cues. An abrupt onset cue was presented 16 ms before the target display, making it subliminal. The cue appeared either at the target’s location (valid), the opposite location (invalid), or not at all (neutral, in Experiment 2). Response times were measured at short (16 ms) and long (1,016 ms) stimulus-onset asynchronies (SOAs). Objective awareness of the cue was assessed via a separate localization task, and subjective awareness was queried post-experiment. The results demonstrated that subliminal onset cues significantly captured attention. In Experiment 1, participants responded faster to targets at validly cued locations compared to invalidly cued locations at the short SOA. At the long SOA, a trend toward inhibition of return (IOR) was observed, where responses were faster for invalidly cued locations, a pattern characteristic of stimulus-driven capture. Regression analyses confirmed that the cueing effect persisted even when objective cue visibility was statistically zero, indicating that the attentional shift occurred without conscious awareness. Experiment 2 replicated these findings and further showed that valid cues facilitated responses compared to neutral conditions, confirming facilitation rather than just impairment at uncued locations. Although participants performed above chance on the objective localization task, they reported complete subjective unawareness of the cues during the main task. The study concludes that subliminal abrupt onsets capture attention in a stimulus-driven way, even when top-down search settings for singletons and luminance contrasts are strictly controlled. The presence of a validity effect at short SOAs and a trend toward IOR at long SOAs supports the view that the visual system possesses an automatic, evolutionarily rooted mechanism for detecting peripheral onsets. This finding challenges the notion that all attentional capture is contingent on top-down goals, suggesting that subliminal stimuli can bypass conscious control settings to guide attention automatically.

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Topics

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• attention selective divided
• inattentional change blindness
• peripheral attention