Intertarget Distractors and Input Filter Compatibility in the Attentional Blink.
The Attentional Blink refers to the impairment in report accuracy of a second target when
presented shortly after a first target in a stream of distractors. The main goal of the present study
was to understand the nature of intertarget distractor interference in the AB by manipulating the
compatibility of the distractor immediately trailing the first target and the attentional filter set to
select targets preferentially for conscious report.
Investigating distractor/filter compatibility is particularly important to evaluate the Temporary Loss of Control theory. is a distractor-based theory that assumes that distractors presented between targets are the root cause of the AB.
Furthermore, the last results supports an important assumption underlying our design, mainly that
participants would adopt a “red” color-filter in the black letter distractor stream and a “letter” category-filter in the red digit distractor stream condition, rather than a more precise “red letter”
filter in both distractor stream conditions.
T1 performance was also lowest in the compatible red digit distractor condition, which could be an indication that the T1+1 distractor in this condition increased T1 difficulty in correctly reported trials, which in turn produced a larger blink.
However, misselection of T1 was also greater in this condition. If we considered T1 misselection trials as correct T1 trials, no main effect of T1+1 distractor or interaction with this factor was
observed.
This suggests that T1 processing was not more difficult in the compatible red digit stream condition when T1 was correctly selected and reported. It has recently been suggested that features from consecutive items may merge in conditions leading to Lag-1 sparing. It is therefore possible that the identity of the T1+1 distractor letter may have combined with the red color of T1 in some
of the compatible red digit stream trials.
Psychol Cogn Sci Open J. 2016; 2(1): 29-38. doi: 10.17140/PCSOJ-2-112
