Functional fixedness: The functional significance of delayed disengagement based on attention set

During search, the disengagement of attention is automatically delayed when a fixated but task-irrelevant object shares features of the search target. We examined whether delayed disengagement based on top-down attention set is potentially functional, resulting in additional processing of the fixated item. To accomplish this, we adapted the oculomotor disengagement paradigm. Participants saccaded to a peripheral object of a particular color and responded to the identity of the letter within it. To initiate search participants made a saccade away from an always irrelevant object at the center of the screen that matched or mismatched the target's color and contained a letter that was congruent or incongruent with the target letter. We found that delayed disengagement based on attention set was associated with deeper processing of the center item: a congruency effect between the center letter and peripheral target letter was only observed when the center object's color matched participants' attention set. Results are consistent with the proposal that delayed disengagement based on attention set is functionally significant, automatically encouraging deeper levels of processing of target-like objects that fall within the focus of attention.