Abstract
In the spatial blink paradigm, participants search for a target of a designated color in a rapidly presented stream of letters at fixation. Target identification is typically impaired if a peripheral distractor appears shortly before the target, inducing a spatial blink, but impairment is observed only when the distractor also shares the sought-for color. Such results reveal an important top-down influence on the capture of attention. In the present experiments, we examined the influence of the bottom-up transients associated with the appearance and disappearance of distractors in the spatial blink paradigm. Onsets and offsets alone are incapable of inducing a spatial blink, but we found that the presence of such transients did enhance the effects of target-color-matched distractors. The results reveal important synergistic interactions between top-down and bottom-up factors involved in attentional capture.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abrams, R. A., & Christ, S. E. (2003). Motion onset captures attention. Psychological Science, 14, 427–432.
Abrams, R. A., & Christ, S. E. (2005). The onset of receding motion captures attention: Comment on Franconeri and Simons (2003). Perception & Psychophysics, 67, 219–223.
Bacon, W. F., & Egeth, H. E. (1994). Overriding stimulus-driven attentional capture. Perception & Psychophysics, 55, 485–496.
Brockmole, J. R., & Henderson, J. M. (2005). Prioritization of new objects in real-world scenes: Evidence from eye movements. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 31, 857–868.
Christ, S. E., & Abrams, R. A. (2006a). Abrupt onsets cannot be ignored. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 13, 875–880.
Christ, S. E., & Abrams, R. A. (2006b). Just like new: Newly segregated old objects capture attention. Perception & Psychophysics, 68, 301–309.
Cole, G. G., Kentridge, R. W., Gellatly, A. R. H., & Heywood, C. A. (2003). Detectability of onsets versus offsets in the change detection paradigm. Journal of Vision, 3, 22–31.
Cole, G. G., Kentridge, R. W., & Heywood, C. A. (2004). Visual salience in the change detection paradigm: The special role of object onset. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 30, 464–477.
Davoli, C. C., Suszko, J. W., & Abrams, R. A. (2007). New objects can capture attention without a unique luminance transient. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14, 338–343.
Enns, J. T., Austen, E. L., Di Lollo, V., Rauschenberger, R., & Yantis, S. (2001) New objects dominate luminance transients in setting attentional priority. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 27, 1287–1302.
Folk, C. L., Leber, A. B., & Egeth, H. E. (2002). Made you blink! Contingent attentional capture produces a spatial blink. Perception & Psychophysics, 64, 741–753.
Folk, C. L., Remington, R. W., & Johnston, J. C. (1992). Involuntary covert orienting is contingent on attentional control settings. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 18, 1030–1044.
Folk, C. L., Remington, R. W., & Wright, J. H. (1994). The structure of attentional control: Contingent attentional capture by apparent motion, abrupt onset, and color. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 20, 317–329.
Franconeri, S. L., Hollingworth, A., & Simons, D. J. (2005). Do new objects capture attention? Psychological Science, 16, 275–281.
Gibson, B. S., & Kelsey, E. M. (1998). Stimulus-driven attentional capture is contingent on attentional set for displaywide visual features. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 24, 699–706.
Hillstrom, A. P., & Yantis, S. (1994). Visual motion and attentional capture. Perception & Psychophysics, 55, 399–411.
Jonides, J., & Yantis, S. (1988). Uniqueness of abrupt visual onset in capturing attention. Perception & Psychophysics, 43, 346–354.
Kahneman, D. (1967). An onset—onset law for one case of apparent motion and metacontrast. Perception & Psychophysics, 2, 577–584.
Kim, M.-S., & Cave, K. R. (1999). Top-down and bottom-up attentional control: On the nature of interference from a salient distractor. Perception & Psychophysics, 61, 1009–1023.
Lamy, D., & Egeth, H. E. (2003). Attentional capture in singleton-detection and feature-search modes. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 29, 1003–1020.
Lamy, D., Leber, A., & Egeth, H. E. (2004). Effects of task relevance and stimulus-driven salience in feature-search mode. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 30, 1019–1031.
Leblanc, É., & Jolicoeur, P. (2005). The time course of the contingent spatial blink. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 59, 124–131.
Ludwig, C. J. H., & Gilchrist, I. D. (2002). Stimulus-driven and goal-driven control over visual selection. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 28, 902–912.
Ludwig, C. J. H., & Gilchrist, I. (2003). Goal-driven modulation of oculomotor capture. Perception & Psychophysics, 65, 1243–1251.
Posner, M. I. (1980). Orienting of attention. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 32, 3–25.
Pratt, J., & McAuliffe, J. (2001). The effects of onsets and offsets on visual attention. Psychological Research, 65, 185–191.
Richard, C. M., Wright, R. D., & Ward, L. M. (2003). Goal-driven modulation of stimulus-driven attentional capture in multiple-cue displays. Perception & Psychophysics, 65, 939–955.
Serences, J. T., Shomstein, S., Leber, A. B., Golay, X., Egeth, H. E., & Yantis, S. (2005). Coordination of voluntary and stimulus-driven attentional control in human cortex. Psychological Science, 16, 114–122.
Serences, J. T., & Yantis, S. (2006). Selective visual attention and perceptual coherence. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10, 38–45.
Theeuwes, J. (1991). Exogenous and endogenous control of attention: The effect of visual onsets and offsets. Perception & Psychophysics, 49, 83–90.
Theeuwes, J. (1994). Stimulus-driven capture and attentional set: Selective search for color and visual abrupt onsets. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 20, 799–806.
Theeuwes, J. (1995). Temporal and spatial characteristics of preattentive and attentive processing. Visual Cognition, 2, 221–233.
Theeuwes, J. (2004). Top-down search strategies cannot override attentional capture. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 11, 65–70.
Theeuwes, J., Kramer, A. F., Hahn, S., & Irwin, D. E. (1998). Our eyes do not always go where we want them to go: Capture of the eyes by new objects. Psychological Science, 9, 379–385.
Theeuwes, J., Kramer, A. F., Hahn, S., Irwin, D. E., & Zelinsky, G. J. (1999). Influence of attentional capture on oculomotor control. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 25, 1595–1608.
Todd, S., & Kramer, A. F. (1994). Attentional misguidance in visual search. Perception & Psychophysics, 56, 198–210.
Watson, D. G., & Humphreys, G. W. (1995). Attention capture by contour onsets and offsets: No special role for onsets. Perception & Psychophysics, 57, 583–597.
Yantis, S. (1993). Stimulus-driven attentional capture. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2, 156–161.
Yantis, S., & Hillstrom, A. P. (1994). Stimulus-driven attentional capture: Evidence from equiluminant visual objects. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 20, 95–107.
Yantis, S., & Jonides, J. (1984). Abrupt visual onsets and selective attention: Evidence from visual search. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 10, 601–621.
Yantis, S., & Jonides, J. (1990). Abrupt visual onsets and selective attention: Voluntary versus automatic allocation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 16, 121–134.
Yantis, S., & Jonides, J. (1996). Attentional capture by abrupt onsets: New perceptual objects or visual masking? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 22, 1505–1513.
Zelinsky, G. J., Rao, R. P. N., Hayhoe, M. M., & Ballard, D. H. (1997). Eye movements reveal the spatiotemporal dynamics of visual search. Psychological Science, 8, 448–453.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Note—Accepted by the editorial board of Editor-Elect Jeremy M. Wolfe.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Du, F., Abrams, R.A. Synergy of stimulus-driven salience and goal-directed prioritization: Evidence from the spatial blink. Perception & Psychophysics 70, 1489–1503 (2008). https://doi.org/10.3758/PP.70.8.1489
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/PP.70.8.1489