An inability to set independent attentional control settings by hemifield

Recent evidence suggests that people can simultaneously activate attentional control setting for two distinct colors. However, it is unclear whether both attentional control settings must operate globally across the visual field or whether each can be constrained to a particular spatial location. Using two different paradigms, we investigated participants' ability to apply independent color attentional control settings to distinct regions of space. In both experiments, participants were told to identify red letters in one hemifield and green letters in the opposite hemifield. Additionally, some trials used a "relevant distractor"-a letter that matched the opposite side's target color. In Experiment 1, eight letters appeared (four per hemifield) simultaneously for a brief amount of time and then were masked. Relevant distractors increased the error rate and resulted in a greater number of distractor intrusions than irrelevant distractors. Similar results were observed in Experiment 2 in which red and green targets were presented in two rapid serial visual presentation streams. Relevant distractors were found to produce an attentional blink similar in magnitude to an actual target. The results of both experiments suggest that letters matching either attentional control setting were selected by attention and were processed as if they were targets, providing strong evidence that both attentional control settings were applied globally, rather than being constrained to a particular location.