The modulation of the flash-lag effect by voluntary attention

In the flash-lag effect (FLE), a flashing object appears to lag behind a moving object when both happen to be physically aligned to each other. According to an earlier account of the FLE (Baldo and Klein 1995 Nature 378 565-566), this perceptual phenomenon would result from differential delays in the perceptual processing of moving and flashing stimuli, presumably involving attentional mechanisms. Here, we have attempted to demonstrate in a more convincing way the participation of voluntary attention as a major component of the FLE. In experiment 1 the observer's attentional set was induced by the spatial probability structure of the visual stimulus. A flashing dot (relative to which the location of a moving dot should be judged) was presented, in separate blocks, at fixed, alternating, or randomly chosen locations. The two former conditions, providing a higher spatial predictability, yielded a smaller FLE than the latter condition, which provided a lower spatial predictability of the flashing dot. In experiment 2 we employed a standard cueing procedure, in which a participant was instructed to shift covertly his/her attentional focus according to a symbolic cue. The cue indicated, with a validity of 80%, the visual hemifield at which the flashing dot would be presented. As predicted by our conceptual model, the mean magnitude of the FLE in the valid trials was significantly smaller than that found in the invalid ones. Therefore, both experiments provided strong evidence supporting the participation of voluntary attention in the FLE. Attentional mechanisms should be seen not as the primary cause of the FLE, but rather as an important modulatory component of a broader process whose spatiotemporal dynamics engenders the FLE and possibly other related phenomena. Even though we elected an account based on the influence of attention on perceptual latencies, our empirical findings are compatible with other theoretical models embraced by the current flash-lag controversy and should be accommodated by every attempt to explain this perceptual phenomenon.