Disruption reduces accuracy and P3b amplitudes in the attentional blink

In everyday life, distracting stimuli often interfere with daily tasks, and disrupt successful task performance. The attentional blink paradigm (a deficit in reporting the second target (T2) in a rapid stream of visual stimuli) allows for an investigation of disruption by rapidly appearing stimuli. Specifically, the magnitude of the attentional blink deficit can be manipulated by positioning relevant stimuli at strategic locations within the visual stream. The current study therefore designed and tested a disruption paradigm that aimed to reduce T2 accuracy using a disruptor stimulus. Electroencephalography was used to reveal the neural correlates of the effect. To that end, targets were defined by task-set colours. The item immediately preceding T2 appeared in a task-set colour (disrupted trials) or a different colour (non-disrupted trials). The results revealed that T2 accuracy was reduced on disrupted trials, and disruption appeared to be worse when T2 appeared inside the attentional blink window. The behavioural data were paralleled by the neural results. On trials where T2 appeared within the AB window and was correctly reported, T2-P3b amplitude (a neural correlate of working memory consolidation) was significantly depressed on disrupted trials compared with non-disrupted trials. Single trial plots of P3b amplitude confirmed a weaker neural trace for T2 on disrupted trials. These data indicate that the magnitude and neural signature of the attentional blink deficit is malleable, and can be influenced by non-target, task-relevant stimuli.