Attentional capture triggers an attentional blink

Maki, William S.; Mebane, Michael W. · 2006 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.3758/bf03193823

archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified

Get this paper ↗ (DOI — opens at the source; we link to it, we don't host it)

Summary

This study investigates whether attentional capture by a salient distractor within a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream can induce an attentional blink (AB). The attentional blink is a well-documented phenomenon where the identification of a second target (T2) is impaired if it appears shortly after a first target (T1). Previous research suggested that making targets distinct from distractors attenuates the AB, and that colored stimuli attract attention more rapidly. The authors hypothesized that if a distractor is highlighted by color, it might capture attention; if that distractor also shares task-relevant features with the target, the resulting difficulty in disengaging attention would produce an AB. To test this, the researchers conducted two experiments using RSVP streams of black false-font characters. Participants were instructed to ignore all distractors and identify a single black target word. A critical distractor (D1) preceded the target at variable lags (200–600 msec). In Experiment 1, D1 was either a red word, a red consonant string, a red false-font string, or a black false-font string. Results showed that recall of the target was significantly suppressed at short lags (indicating an AB) only when D1 was a red word or a red consonant string. No AB occurred when D1 was a red false-font string or a black false-font string. This suggested that color alone was insufficient to trigger the blink; the distractor needed to resemble the target. Experiment 2 addressed whether the lack of an AB with false-font distractors was due to their low familiarity or meaningfulness rather than feature mismatch. The authors replaced the red word distractors with red digit strings, which are highly familiar and meaningful but do not share the "letter" feature required for the task. The results confirmed that red digit strings did not produce an AB, whereas red consonant strings did. Statistical analyses revealed significant interactions between distractor type and lag for letter-containing distractors, but not for digits or false fonts. Error analysis further indicated that participants often attempted to process red consonant strings as words, leading to intrusions in their responses. The findings demonstrate that attentional capture can trigger an attentional blink, but only when the capturing distractor shares task-relevant features with the target. While color highlighting successfully captured attention, attention was rapidly disengaged from distractors that did not resemble the target (digits or false fonts). In contrast, attention remained engaged longer on distractors containing letters, causing the processing deficit characteristic of the AB. This supports the contingent attentional capture theory, implying that involuntary attention shifts are governed by the observer’s current task set and the similarity between stimuli and targets.

Provenance

The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed.

Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-25; verification: verified.

Topics

Ranked by relevance to this paper. Hover a topic for its definition.

• inattentional change blindness
• attention selective divided