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Involuntary attentional capture by abrupt onsets
R W Remington1, J C Johnston, S Yantis
1NASA-Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035.
Perception & Psychophysics
|March 1, 1992
Summary
Brief visual stimuli can involuntarily capture spatial attention, even when participants try to ignore them. This study shows attention is drawn to abrupt visual events, impacting response times.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Visual Perception
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Spatial attention is crucial for processing visual information.
- Abrupt-onset stimuli often capture attention, but their involuntary nature under distraction is debated.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if brief, abrupt-onset visual stimuli involuntarily capture spatial attention.
- To determine the conditions under which attention capture occurs despite attempts to ignore distractors.
Main Methods:
- Five experiments used a speeded two-choice task with a target letter in one of four boxes.
- Abrupt-onset visual flashes preceded the target, appearing in the same box (SAME), different box (DIFF), fixation (CENTER), or all boxes (ALL).
- Participants were informed about the flash-target relationship before each block.
Main Results:
- Response times were significantly slower in the DIFF, CENTER, and ALL conditions compared to a baseline.
- The interference effect was largest in the DIFF condition.
- This interference effect persisted even with longer stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between the flash and target.
Conclusions:
- Abrupt-onset visual stimuli can involuntarily capture spatial attention.
- Attention capture occurs even when participants intend to ignore the stimuli.
- These findings highlight the automatic nature of attention allocation to salient visual events.