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The Attentional Blink (AB) is a phenomenon that reflects difficulty in detecting or identifying the second of two successive targets (T1 and T2) that are presented in rapid succession, between 200-500ms apart. The AB involves indicators of attentional and temporal integration mechanisms related to the early stages of visual processing. The aim of this study was to identify the effects of 24-h of sleep deprivation (total sleep deprivation, TSD) on the attentional and temporal integration mechanisms of the AB. Twenty-two undergraduate students were recorded during five successive days, in these three conditions: baseline (two days), TSD (one day), and recovery (two days). Each day, at around 12:00 h, participants responded to a Rapid Serial Visual Presentation task (RSVP) that presented two targets separated by random intervals from 100 to 1000ms. The attentional mechanisms were assessed by the AB presence, the AB magnitude, and the AB interval, while the temporal integration mechanisms were evaluated by lag-1 sparing and order reversal responses. TSD negatively affected the attentional mechanisms, which is expressed by an overall reduction in performance, an extended AB interval, and a reduced AB magnitude. TSD also negatively affected the temporal integration mechanisms, manifested by an absence of lag-1 sparing and an increase in order reversals. These results suggest that people are still able to respond to two successive stimuli after 24 h without sleep. However, it becomes more difficult to respond to both stimuli because the attentional and temporal integration mechanisms of the AB are impaired. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attentional blink research has typically investigated attentional limitations in multiple target processing. The current study investigated the temporal integration of target features in the attentional blink. Across two experiments, we demonstrated that the orientation estimations of individual target items in the attentional blink paradigm were systematically biased. Specifically, there was evidence for both within- and across-trial biases, revealing a general bias towards previously presented stimuli. Moreover, both biases were found to be more salient for targets suffering from the attentional blink. The current study is the first to demonstrate an across-trial bias in responses in the attentional blink paradigm. This set of findings is in line with the literature, suggesting that the human visual system can implicitly summarize information presented over time, which may lead to biases. By investigating temporal integration in the attentional blink, we have been able to address the modulatory role of attention on biases imposed by the implicit temporal effects in estimation tasks. Our findings may inform future research on attentional blink, serial dependence, and ensemble perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals with substance use disorder (SUD) tend to have attention bias to drug and negative emotions, which leads to drug craving and relapse. This study examines attentional bias from the time dimension, and adopts the rapid sequence visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm to study the attentional blink effect of individuals with SUD towards different types of negative words. A total of 55 males with SUD were recruited from a compulsory drug rehabilitation center in Jiangxi Province. The results indicated that the following: (1) The accuracy of T2 recognition when T1 was correctly recognized (T2|T1) increased with the increase of the time interval, indicating that the attentional blink was successfully induced. (2) When T1 was addictive vocabulary, compared with the neutral vocabulary, the attentional blink effect of males with SUD was enhanced. When T2 was negative addiction vocabulary or negative vocabulary, compared with the neutral vocabulary, the attentional blink of males with SUD was weakened. The current research results not only find that males with SUD have an attention bias towards addiction clues from the time characteristics of the attention process, but also it is of great significance to guide the rehabilitation centers to improve the craving and relapse of males with SUD by reducing the appearance of negative addictive information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Touch is unique among the sensory modalities in that our tactile receptors are spread across the body surface and continuously receive different inputs at the same time. These inputs vary in type, properties, relevance according to current goals, and, of course, location on the body. Sometimes, they must be integrated, and other times set apart and distinguished. Here, we investigate how simultaneous stimulation to different body sites affects tactile cognition. Specifically, we characterized the impact of irrelevant tactile sensations on tactile change detection. To this end, we embedded detection targets amidst ongoing performance, akin to the conditions encountered in everyday life, where we are constantly confronted with new events within ongoing stimuli. In the set of experiments presented here, participants detected a brief intensity change (.04 s) within an ongoing vibrotactile stimulus (1.6 s) that was always presented in a constantly attended location. The intensity change (i.e., the detection target) varied parametrically, from hardly detectable to easily detectable. In half of the trials, irrelevant ongoing stimulation was simultaneously presented to a site across the body midline, but participants were instructed to ignore it. In line with previous bimanual studies employing brief onset targets, we document robust interference on performance due to the irrelevant stimulation at each of the measured body sites (homologous and nonhomologous fingers, and the contralateral ankle). After describing this basic phenomenon, we further examine the conditions under which such interference occurs in three additional tasks. In each task, we honed in on a different aspect of the stimulation protocol (e.g., hand distance, the strength of the irrelevant stimulation, the detection target itself) in order to better understand the principles governing the observed interference effects. Our findings suggest a minimal role for exogenous attentional capture in producing the observed interference effects (Exp. 2), and a principled distribution of attentional resources or sensory integration between body sides (Exps. 3, 4). In our last study (Exp. 4), we presented bilateral tactile targets of varying intensities to both the relevant and irrelevant stimulation sites. We then characterized the degree to which the irrelevant stimulation is also processed. Our results—that participants' perception of target intensity is always proportional to the combined bilateral signal—suggest that both body sites are equally weighed and processed despite clear instructions to attend only the target site. In light of this observation and participants' inability to use selection processes to guide their perception, we propose that bilateral tactile inputs are automatically combined, quite possibly early in the hierarchy of somatosensory processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The attentional blink can be substantially reduced by delivering a task-irrelevant sound synchronously with the second target (T2) embedded in a rapid serial visual presentation stream, which is further modulated by the semantic congruency between the sound and T2. The present study extended the cross-modal boost during attentional blink and the modulation of audiovisual semantic congruency in the spatial domain by showing that a spatially uninformative, semantically congruent (but not incongruent) sound could even improve the discrimination of spatially unpredictable T2 during attentional blink. T2-locked event-related potential (ERP) data yielded that the early cross-modal P195 difference component (184–234 ms) over the occipital scalp contralateral to the T2 location was larger preceding accurate than inaccurate discriminations of semantically congruent, but not incongruent, audiovisual T2s. Interestingly, the N2pc component (194–244 ms) associated with visual-spatial attentional allocation was enlarged for incongruent audiovisual T2s relative to congruent audiovisual and unisensory visual T2s only when they were accurately discriminated. These ERP findings suggest that the spatially extended cross-modal boost during attentional blink involves an early cross-modal interaction strengthening the perceptual processing of T2, without any sound-induced enhancement of visual-spatial attentional allocation toward T2. In contrast, the absence of an accuracy decrease in response to semantically incongruent audiovisual T2s may originate from the semantic mismatch capturing extra visual-spatial attentional resources toward T2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study examined how viewing nature vs. urban scenes impacts the duration of the attentional blink. Nature scenes produce a broader allocation of attention, allowing attention to spread and reduce the ability to disengage attention. Urban scenes produce a narrowed allocation of attention, allowing efficient encoding of relevant information, inhibition of irrelevant information and a speedier disengagement of attention. Participants viewed a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) of either nature or urban scenes. For both scene categories, an attentional blink was evident by reduced accuracy for reporting a second target that occurred two or three scenes after an accurately reported first target. However, the duration of the attentional blink was reduced for urban scenes compared with nature scenes. A peripheral target detection task confirmed a difference in the allocation of attention between scene categories. The peripheral targets were better detected for nature scenes, suggesting that participants have a broader spread of attention for nature scenes, even in an RSVP task. The shorter duration of the attentional blink for urban scenes was consistent across four experiments with small and large sets of urban and nature scenes. Therefore, urban scenes reliably reduce the attentional blink duration compared with nature scenes, and this could be attributed to a narrowed attention allocation that allows speedier disengagement of attention in an RSVP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychological research has extensively shown that individuals are limited in their ability to process environmental information temporally. In a rapid serial visual presentation, the ability to identify the second of two targets presented in close succession among distractors is usually impaired, a phenomenon known as attentional blink (AB). Paradoxically, when the second target immediately succeeds the first one (lag 1), such an ability is relatively spared, but individuals are more prone to misreport their correct temporal succession. Competitive mechanisms based on prior entry and perceptual integration processes have been suggested to account for the apparent loss of temporal information. We report findings from four experiments, showing that, once identified, categorical dimensions of the stimuli used as targets (here, the ordinality of numbers) may guide the perception and the resulting report of their temporal order. Specifically, at lag 1 individuals more frequently encode the two digits in ascending order. Such a biased regularization may represent another possible outcome of the failure in temporal segregation observed at lag 1, indicating that a mechanism based on prior entry is not generalizable in explaining order reversals. The kind of stimuli chosen as targets in AB paradigms can activate high-level categorical dimensions capable of influencing the performance on this task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The attentional blink (AB) reveals temporal limits of goal-driven attention: the second of two proximate targets presented in a rapid stream of non-targets is often missed. In the emotional AB (EAB, also termed emotion-induced blindness), an emotionally valenced distractor replacing the first target yields a similar blink. However, the AB and EAB have not been adequately compared, and thus the extent of their mechanistic similarity remains unclear. The current study interleaved AB and EAB trials using identical stimuli in the same participants and observed that the AB is consistently larger than the EAB. Moreover, the four main experiments varied in both target-defining features (semantic vs. perceptual) and EAB distractor salience (emotion alone vs. emotion plus physical distinctiveness); an EAB was observed only when distractors were physically distinct. Even when a large EAB was observed, the AB was still larger using a task with identical targets and fillers in the same individuals. These results suggest that: (1) goal-driven attentional control (measured by the AB) has a greater influence than stimulus-driven attentional control (measured by the EAB: emotion valence and physical distinctiveness) on selection from a dynamic series of stimuli, and (2) emotional valence is insufficient on its own to trigger an EAB. However, these results are consistent with the account that when attention has already been captured by a physically salient distractor, emotional content can interfere with disengagement from the already-attended stimulus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined the effect of combined top-down and bottom-up attentional control sources in easy and difficult visual search tasks. Applying a new analysis on previously acquired data, we focused on the sustained posterior contralateral negativity (SPCN) and the response-locked posterior contralateral negativity (RLpcN), to better understand processes following target selection. We used the signed-area approach to measure the negative area, where the signal was either locked to the target or the response onsets. We further split the RLpcN into an early and a late segment to capture the dynamics of selection and post-selection processes. In Experiment 1, participants reported the orientation of a uniquely tilted target. In Experiment 2, participants reported the position of a small gap within the uniquely tilted target. In both experiments, endogenous cues manipulated top-down attention (valid vs. neutral), and salient color singletons (either the target or a distractor) manipulated bottom-up attention. We hypothesized that the SPCN and the later segment of the RLpcN would be modulated by task difficulty and target salience, as they are associated with post-selection processes, such as response selection and working memory. The early segment of the RLpcN was hypothesized to be modulated by the cueing manipulation and presence of a salient distractor, as they affect target selection. An effect of distractor presence was observed on the early segment of the RLpcN, and our results further supported the hypotheses regarding the SPCN and the later segment of the RLpcN, providing novel insights into post-selection processes in visual search. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temporal regularities are ubiquitous in our environment. The theory of entrainment posits that the brain can utilize these regularities by synchronizing neural activity with external events, thereby, aligning moments of high neural excitability with expected upcoming stimuli and facilitating perception. Despite numerous accounts reporting entrainment of behavioural and electrophysiological measures, evidence regarding this phenomenon remains mixed, with several recent studies having failed to provide confirmatory evidence. Notably, it is currently unclear whether and for how long the effects of entrainment can persist beyond their initiating stimulus, and whether they remain restricted to the stimulated sensory modality or can cross over to other modalities. Here, we set out to answer these questions by presenting participants with either visual or auditory rhythmic sensory stimulation, followed by a visual or auditory target at six possible time points, either in-phase or out-of-phase relative to the initial stimulus train. Unexpectedly, but in line with several recent studies, we observed no evidence for cyclic fluctuations in performance, despite our design being highly similar to those used in previous demonstrations of sensory entrainment. However, our data revealed a temporally less specific attentional effect, via cross-modally facilitated performance following auditory compared with visual rhythmic stimulation. In addition to a potentially higher salience of auditory rhythms, this could indicate an effect on oscillatory 3-Hz amplitude, resulting in facilitated cognitive control and attention. In summary, our study further challenges the generality of periodic behavioural modulation associated with sensory entrainment, while demonstrating a modality-independent attention effect following auditory rhythmic stimulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lag-1 sparing is a common exception to the attentional blink, where a target presented directly after T1 can be identified and reported accurately. Prior work has proposed potential mechanisms for lag 1 sparing, including the boost and bounce model and the attentional gating model. Here, we apply a rapid serial visual presentation task to investigate the temporal limitations of lag 1 sparing by testing three distinct hypotheses. We found that endogenous engagement of attention to T2 requires between 50 and 100 ms. Critically, faster presentation rates yielded lower T2 performance, whereas decreased image duration did not impair T2 detection and report. These observations were reinforced by subsequent experiments controlling for short-term learning and capacity-dependent visual processing effects. Thus, lag-1 sparing was limited by the intrinsic dynamics of attentional boost engagement rather than by earlier perceptual bottlenecks such as insufficient exposure to images in the stimulus stream or visual processing capacity limitations. Taken together, these findings support the boost and bounce theory over earlier models that focus only on attentional gating or visual short-term memory storage, informing our understanding of how the human visual system deploys attention under challenging temporal constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human beings must often perform multiple tasks concurrently or in rapid succession. Laboratory research has revealed striking limitations in the ability to dual task by asking participants to identify two target objects that are inserted into a rapid stream of irrelevant items. Under a variety of conditions, identification of the second target (T2) is impaired for a short period of time following presentation of the first target (T1). Several theories have been developed to account for this "attentional blink" (AB), but none makes a specific prediction about how processing of T1 might impact an observer's ability to ignore a salient distractor that accompanies T2. Using event-related potentials (ERPs) to track target and distractor processing, we show that healthy young adults are capable of suppressing a salient visual-search distractor (D2) while dual tasking (as measured by the PD component, which has been associated with suppression) but struggle to do so shortly after the appearance of T1. In fact, the impairment was more severe for distractor processing than it was for target processing (as measured by the N2pc component). Whereas, the T2-elicited N2pc was merely delayed during the AB, the distractor PD was reduced in magnitude and was found to be statistically absent. We conclude that the inhibitory control processes that are typically engaged to prevent distraction are unavailable while an observer is busy processing a target that appeared earlier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing literature posits attention as a core component of working memory (Baddeley, European Psychologist, 7(2), 85-97, 2002), yet research exploring this relationship is scarce in the temporal attention domain. The present research provided further evidence that the magnitude of the attentional blink (AB) can be influenced by working memory load (WML; Akyürek et al., Memory & Cognition 35, 621–627, 2007). Additionally, we behaviorally tested Akyürek and colleagues' (Psychophysiology, 47(6), 1134-1141, 2010) conclusion that working memory influences attention at an early stage by systematically manipulating the timing of the first target in relation to the stimuli preceding and following it. In two experiments, we demonstrated that the AB effect increases as the temporal interval between the first target and the stimulus following it decreases. Importantly, this effect was observed only when WML was low, indicating that WM influences attending to a second target at an early stage of attentional processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autistic individuals and individuals with high levels of autistic-like traits often show better visual search performance than their neurotypical peers. The present work investigates whether this advantage stems from increased ability to filter out distractors. Participants with high or low levels of autistic-like traits completed an attentional blink task in which trials varied in target-distractor similarity. The results showed no evidence that high levels of autistic-like traits were associated with superior distractor filtering (indexed by the difference in the size of the attentional blink across the high- and low-similarity distractors). This suggests that search advantages seen in previous studies are likely linked to other mechanisms such as enhanced pre-attentive scene processing, better decision making, or more efficient response selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientists have long been interested in understanding the influence of emotionally salient stimuli on attention and perception. One experimental paradigm that has shown great promise in demonstrating the effect of such stimuli is emotion-induced blindness. That is, when emotionally salient stimuli are presented in a rapid stream of stimuli, they produce impairments in the perception of task-relevant stimuli, even though they themselves are task irrelevant. This is known as emotion-induced blindness, and it is a profound and robust form of attentional bias. Here, we review the literature on emotion-induced blindness, such as identifying the types of stimuli that elicit it, and its temporal dynamics. We discuss the role of dimensional versus categorical approaches to emotion in relation to emotion-induced blindness. We also synthesize the work examining whether certain individuals, such as those high in anxiety versus psychopathy, succumb to emotion-induced blindness to different extents, and we discuss whether the deficit can be reduced or even abolished. We review the theoretical models that have been proposed to explain the phenomenon. Finally, we identify exciting questions for future research, and elucidate useful frameworks to guide future investigations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate whether cuing a first target with color imagery could influence second target identification using the two-target attentional blink procedure of MacLellan, Shore, and Milliken (2015, Psychological Research, 79, 556–569.). This method asks participants to identify a first target word interleaved with a distractor word and a second target word that follows the first target after a variable stimulus onset asynchrony. Prior to each trial of the two-target procedure, participants were cued to generate color imagery that was congruent with the color of the first target word, the color of the distractor word, the color of neither the first target or distractor words (Experiment 2), or to withhold generating color imagery (Experiment 3). The results revealed that identification of the second target was impaired when the cue was congruent with the distractor word, and equivalent when the cue was congruent with the first target word, relative to when color imagery was withheld. These results suggest that the attentional resources needed to identify the first target were not reduced by a match between the color of imagery and the first target, but a match between the color of imagery and the distractor increased the attentional resources needed to identify the first target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The attentional blink (AB) reflects a temporal restriction of selective attention and is generally regarded as a very robust phenomenon. However, previous studies have found large individual differences in AB performance, and under some training conditions the AB can be reduced significantly. One factor that may account for individual differences in AB magnitude is the ability to accurately time attention. In the current study, we focus on the sensitivity for temporal information on the ability to control attention. Following a visual AB task, a time estimation task was presented in either the visual or auditory modality, followed by another visual AB task. It was found that the time estimation training in both the auditory and visual modality reduced AB magnitude. Although a reduction in AB magnitude was also observed when individuals were trained on a control task (either an auditory frequency or visual line length estimation task), the effect was significantly larger following the time estimation tasks. In addition, it was found that individuals who showed most improvement on the visual time estimation task, also showed the largest reduction in AB magnitude, which was not the case for individuals who were trained on the control tasks. Finally, a negative correlation was observed between depression scores (tested by Beck Depression Inventory-Short Form (BDI-SF) scores and the improvement in the AB and time estimation tasks. Our findings demonstrate clear links between timing ability and mechanisms to control attention and emotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visuospatial attention is a cognitive skill essential to the performance of air traffic control activities. We evaluated the effect of an anodic session of transcranial low-intensity direct current stimulation (tDCS) right parietal associated with cognitive training of visuospatial attention of 21 air traffic controllers. Within-subject designs were used, with all volunteers undergoing two tDCS sessions; an experimental (2 mA anodic) and control (sham) performed concomitantly with the cognitive training (2-Back). Visuospatial performance was measured using the Attention Network Test for Interactions and Vigilance pre- and post-intervention. The results indicate that after an active parietal tDCS session, the ATCOs showed faster responses, but not more accurate, for visuospatial attention in its aspects of orientation and reorientation. This result was significant when comparing baseline and post-tests in the active tDCS group. Comparing the post-tests between the tDCS active and sham groups, it is possible to infer a trend of improvement in the results based on faster and more accurate responses, which suggests a possible refinement of the ATCO's attentional orientation. However, this population may eventually have reached a plateau in the performance of this skill. From the analysis of the results we arrive at the following hypotheses: (I) the increase in cortical excitability mediated by anodic tDCS frequently recorded may not be accompanied by improvements in behavioural measures; (II) the interaction between anodic tDCS with another event of increased excitability—execution of a cognitive task, may have hindered the occurrence of neuroplasticity; (III) the air traffic control activity may be associated with a high level of attention, which may have contributed to a ceiling effect for the development of this skill; (IV) online assessments may be more relevant to identify acute effects; (V) repeated sessions may be more efficient to find cumulative effects; (VI) the analysis of interactions between attentional networks can contribute to the study of visuospatial attention; (VII) tDCS protocols aimed at ATCO need to consider the specifics of this audience, such as circadian rhythm and sleep and fatigue conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In two experiments using a Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) we investigated how emotional and neutral faces (T1) modulate temporal attention for a following neutral face (T2). Typically, performance for T2 is spared when T2 immediately follows T1 (lag 1 sparing) but it is impaired when T2 is presented within 500 ms from T1 (Attentional Blink). Experiment 1 shows a shorter attentional blink following happy faces, relative to neutral and sad faces, which did not differ. Experiment 2 shows a lag 1 sparing only after happy T1s, but not after angry or neutral T1s, and a greater attentional blink following happy and angry T1-faces, compared to neutral T1-faces. Results indicate that happy faces exert different effects on temporal attention than negative (angry or sad) faces. Findings are discussed in terms of an interplay of resource depletion, due to emotional salience, and emotion-specific inhibitory mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "Attentional Blink" refers to difficulty in detecting the second of two target stimuli presented in rapid temporal succession. Studies have shown that salient target stimuli, such as one's own name, reduce the magnitude of this effect. Given indications that self-related processing is altered in autism, it is an open question whether this attentional self-bias is reduced in autism. To investigate this, in the current study we utilised an Attentional Blink paradigm involving one's own and others' names, in a group of 24 autistic adults, and 22 neurotypical adults, while measuring EEG. In line with previous studies, the Attentional Blink was reduced when the participant's own name was the second target, with no differences between autistic and neurotypical participants. ERP results show that the effect on the Attentional Blink of one's own name was reflected in increased N2 and P3 amplitudes, for both autistic and nonautistic individuals. This is the first event-related potential study of own-name processing in the context of the Attentional Blink. The results provide evidence of an intact attentional self-bias in autism, both at the behavioural and neural level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reporting the second of two targets is impaired when these appear in close succession, a phenomenon known as the attentional blink (AB). Despite decades of research, what factors limit our ability to process multiple sequentially presented events remains unclear. Specifically, two central issues remain open: does failure to report the second target (T2) reflect a structural limitation in working memory (WM) encoding or a disruption to attentional processes? And is perceptual processing of the stimulus that we fail to report impaired, or only processes that occur after this stimulus is identified? We address these questions by reviewing event-related potential (ERP) studies of the AB, after providing a brief overview of the theoretical landscape relevant to these debates and clarifying key concepts essential for interpreting ERP studies. We show that failure to report the second target is most often associated with disrupted attentional engagement (associated with a smaller and delayed N2pc component). This disruption occurs after early processing of T2 (associated with an intact P1 component), weakens its semantic processing (typically associated with a smaller N400 component), and prevents its encoding into WM (associated with absent P3b). However, failure to encode T2 in WM can occur despite intact attentional engagement and semantic processing. We conclude that the AB phenomenon, which reflects our limited ability to process sequential events, emerges from the disruption of both attentional engagement and WM encoding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of attention can be either unitary or divided and can transition from unitary to divided while performing a task. In Experiment 1, we investigated whether alerting hastens the transition from unitary to divided attention. To this end, we employed a dual-RSVP-stream Attentional Blink task (AB; impaired perception of the second of two rapidly sequential targets) with two pairs of letter targets (T1-pair and T2-pair). One component of the AB known as Lag-1 sparing (unimpaired perception of the T2-pair when it is presented directly after the T1-pair) occurs only when the T2-pair falls in an attended location. When the T2-pair falls in an unattended location, the converse pattern occurs (Lag-1 deficit). Accordingly, we used the incidence of Lag-1 sparing/deficit to index whether a location was attended or unattended. We found that presenting a brief brightening flash of the screen (alerting) just before the T1-pair hastened the transition from the initial unitary focus to a divided focus. In Experiment 2, we pitted the hastening account against an alternative hypothesis that the flash triggers phasic activation of the Locus Coeruleus—norepinephrine neuromodulatory system, thus resetting the underlying neural networks that mediate the distribution of attention, triggering a switch from unitary to divided attention. The results of Experiment 2 were incompatible with the hastening account, but consistent with the network-reset account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rumination about negative experiences is widely viewed as a transdiagnostic process underlying various forms of psychopathology that involve emotion dysregulation. Cognitive models highlight the role of attentional control and emotional biases in the development and maintenance of rumination. We suggest that the temporality of the attentional blink paradigm may make it especially relevant for studying rumination-related biases and designing bias modification interventions for rumination. In this paper, we examine the association between brooding, a maladaptive form of rumination, and emotional biases in the attentional blink paradigm. We show that brooding is associated with biased disengagement from positive stimuli. Our findings support the Attentional Scope Model of rumination (Whitmer and Gotlib, Psychol Bull 139:1036, 2013) in suggesting that rumination is associated with a narrow temporal attentional scope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is object orientation an inherent aspect of the shape of the object or is it represented separately and bound to the object shape in a similar way to other features, such as colour? This review brings together findings from neuropsychological studies of patients with agnosia for object orientation and experimental studies of object perception in healthy individuals that provide converging evidence of separate processing of object identity and orientation. Individuals with agnosia for object orientation, which typically results from damage to the right parietal lobe, can recognize objects presented in a range of orientations yet are unable to interpret or discriminate the objects’ orientation. Healthy individuals tested with briefly presented objects demonstrate a similar dissociation: object identity is extracted rapidly in an orientation-invariant way, whereas processing the object’s orientation is slower, requires attention and is influenced by the degree of departure from the canonical orientation. This asymmetry in processing can sometimes lead to incorrect bindings between the identity and orientation of objects presented in close temporal proximity. Overall, the available evidence indicates that object recognition is achieved in a largely orientation-invariant manner and that interpreting the object’s orientation requires an additional step of mapping this orientation-invariant representation to a spatial reference frame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The attentional blink (AB) is often considered a top-down phenomenon because it is triggered by matching an initial target (T1) in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream to a search template. However, the AB is modulated when targets are emotional, and is evoked when a task-irrelevant, emotional critical distractor (CDI) replaces T1. Neither manipulation fully captures the interplay between bottom-up and top-down attention in the AB: Valenced targets intrinsically conflate top-down and bottom-up attention. The CDI approach cannot manipulate second target (T2) valence, which is critical because valenced T2s can "break through" the AB (in the target-manipulation approach). The present research resolves this methodological challenge by indirectly measuring whether a purely bottom-up CDI can modulate report of a subsequent T2. This novel approach adds a valenced CDI to the "classic," two-target AB. Participants viewed RSVP streams containing a T1–CDI pair preceding a variable lag to T2. If the CDI's valence is sufficient to survive the AB, it should modulate T2 performance, indirectly signaling bottom-up capture by an emotional stimulus. Contrary to this prediction, CDI valence only affected the AB when CDIs were also extremely visually conspicuous. Thus, emotional valence alone is insufficient to modulate the AB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When two tasks, Task 1 and Task 2, are conducted in close temporal proximity and a separate speeded response is required for each target (T1 and T2), T2 report performance decreases as a function of its temporal proximity to T1. This so-called psychological refractory period (PRP) effect on T2 processing is largely assumed to reflect interference from T1 response selection on T2 response selection. However, interference on early perceptual processing of T2 has been observed in a modified paradigm, which required changes in visual-spatial attention, sensory modality, task modality, and response modality across targets. The goal of the present study was to investigate the possibility of early perceptual interference by systematically and iteratively removing each of these possible non perceptual confounds, in a series of four experiments. To assess T2 visual memory consolidation success, T2 was presented for a varying duration and immediately masked. T2 report accuracy, which was taken as a measure of perceptual—encoding or consolidation—success, decreased across all experimental control conditions as T1–T2 onset proximity increased. We argue that our results, in light of previous studies, show that central processing of a first target, responsible for the classical PRP effect, also interferes with early perceptual processing of a second target. We end with a discussion of broader implications for psychological refractory period and attentional blink effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to improve the trustworthiness of our science, several new research practices have been suggested, including preregistration, large statistical power, availability of research data and materials, new statistical standards, and the replication of experiments. We conducted a replication project on an original phenomenon that was discovered more than 25 years ago, namely the attentional blink (Raymond, Shapiro, & Arnell, Human Perception and Performance, 18(3), 849–860, 1992), which has been conceptually replicated hundreds of times with major variations. Here, we ran two identical experiments, adopting the new practices and closely reproducing the original experiment. The two experiments were run by different research groups in different countries and laboratories with different participants. Experiment 1 shared remarkable similarities (in magnitude and duration of the effect) with the original study, but also some differences (the overall accuracy of participants, the timing of the effect, and lag-1 sparing). Experts interviewed to evaluate our results stressed the similarities rather than the differences. Experiment 2 replicated nearly identically the results observed in Experiment 1. These findings show that the adoption of new research practices improves the replicability of experimental research and opens the door for a quantitative and direct comparison of the results collected across different laboratories and countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study is the first to examine the time-dependent mechanism of acute stress on emotional attentional blink (EAB) with event-related potential (ERP) measures. We explored the stage characteristics of stress affecting EAB, whether it affects the early selective attention process (marked by early posterior negativity) or the late working memory consolidation (marked by late positive potential). Sixty-one healthy participants were exposed to either a Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) or a control condition, and salivary cortisol was measured to reflect the stress effect. ERPs were recorded during an attentional blink (AB) paradigm in which target one (T1) were negative or neutral images. Results showed stress generally reduced AB effects. Specifically, stress promoted the early selective attention process of target two (T2) following a neutral T1 but did not affect T2 consolidation into working memory. Correlational analyses further confirmed the positive effect of cortisol and negative emotional state on AB performance. Moreover, the ERP results of acute stress on AB conformed to the trade-off effect between T1 and T2; that is, stress reduced T1 late working memory consolidation and improved T2 early selective attention process. These findings further demonstrated that stress did not change the central resource limitation of AB. In general, stress generates a dissociable effect on AB early- and late-stage processing; namely, acute stress reduce the AB effect mainly from the improvement of participants' overall ability to select the targets in the early stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual attention allows selecting relevant information from cluttered visual scenes and is largely determined by our ability to tune or bias visual attention to goal-relevant objects. Originally, it was believed that this top-down bias operates on the specific feature values of objects (e.g., tuning attention to orange). However, subsequent studies showed that attention is tuned to in a context-dependent manner to the relative feature of a sought-after object (e.g., the reddest or yellowest item), which drives covert attention and eye movements in visual search. However, the evidence for the corresponding relational account is still limited to the orienting of spatial attention. The present study tested whether the relational account can be extended to explain attentional engagement and specifically, the attentional blink (AB) in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task. In two blocked conditions, observers had to identify an orange target letter that could be either redder or yellower than the other letters in the stream. In line with previous work, a target-matching (orange) distractor presented prior to the target produced a robust AB. Extending on prior work, we found an equally large AB in response to relatively matching distractors that matched only the relative color of the target (i.e., red or yellow; depending on whether the target was redder or yellower). Unrelated distractors mostly failed to produce a significant AB. These results closely match previous findings assessing spatial attention and show that the relational account can be extended to attentional engagement and selection of continuously attended objects in time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Detection failures in perceptual tasks can result from different causes: sometimes we may fail to see something because perceptual information is noisy or degraded, and sometimes we may fail to see something due to the limited capacity of attention. Previous work indicates that metacognitive capacities for detection failures may differ depending on the specific stimulus visibility manipulation employed. In this investigation, we measured metacognition while matching performance in two visibility manipulations: phase-scrambling and the attentional blink. As in previous work, metacognitive asymmetries emerged: despite matched type 1 performance, metacognitive ability (measured by area under the ROC curve) for reporting stimulus absence was higher in the attentional blink condition, which was mainly driven by metacognitive ability in correct rejection trials. We performed Signal Detection Theoretic (SDT) modeling of the results, showing that differences in metacognition under equal type I performance can be explained when the variance of the signal and noise distributions are unequal. Specifically, the present study suggests that phase scrambling signal trials have a wider distribution (more variability) than attentional blink signal trials, leading to a larger area under the ROC curve for attentional blink trials where subjects reported stimulus absence. These results provide a theoretical basis for the origin of metacognitive differences on trials where subjects report stimulus absence, and may also explain previous findings where the absence of evidence during detection tasks results in lower metacognitive performance when compared to categorization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Picking-up and exploiting spatial and temporal regularities in the occurrence of sensory events is important for goal-directed behaviour. According to the "Predictive Coding Hypothesis" (Friston Philosophical Trans R Soc B 360(1456):815–836, 2005), these regularities are used to generate top-down predictions that are constantly compared with actual sensory events. In a previous study with the Attentional Blink (AB) paradigm, we showed that the temporal and probabilistic uncertainty of T2s that are presented outside the Attentional Blink period, i.e. at least 400 ms after T1, improves the conscious report of T2 that are presented inside the AB. The study of ERP correlated showed that this improvement was associated with a prolonged storage of pre-conscious T2 traces in extra-striate areas (Lasaponara et al. Cortex 71:15–33, 2015). Here, we tested whether variations in the probabilistic cueing of the position of a primary T1 visual target in a 4 × 4 letter array, modulate the retention of memory traces evoked by secondary letter targets (T2) that were presented in other positions of the array. Most important, in each trial, the identity of T2 was specified to participants upon disappearance of the array. We show that high probabilistic cueing facilitates T1 detection and improves the corresponding sensitivity index (d′). In contrast, retention and conscious report of secondary targets (T2) improves when the probabilistic cueing of T1 position is poor. These results suggest that uncertainty in the upcoming position of primary targets boosts the strength of memory traces evoked by secondary targets and improves the possibility that traces of secondary targets gain full access to conscious processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rationale: Conscious perception is thought to depend on global amplification of sensory input. In recent years, striatal dopamine has been proposed to be involved in gating information and conscious access, due to its modulatory influence on thalamocortical connectivity. Objectives: Since much of the evidence that implicates striatal dopamine is correlational, we conducted a double-blind crossover pharmacological study in which we administered cabergoline—a dopamine D2 agonist—and placebo to 30 healthy participants. Under both conditions, we subjected participants to several well-established experimental conscious-perception paradigms, such as backward masking and the attentional blink task. Results: We found no evidence in support of an effect of cabergoline on conscious perception: key behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) findings associated with each of these tasks were unaffected by cabergoline. Conclusions: Our results cast doubt on a causal role for dopamine in visual perception. It remains an open possibility that dopamine has causal effects in other tasks, perhaps where perceptual uncertainty is more prominent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well known that human information processing comprises several distinct subprocesses—namely, the perceptual, central, and motor stage. In each stage, attention plays an important role. Specifically, a type of attention—perceptual attention—operates to detect and identify a sensory input. Following this, another class of attention—central attention—is involved in working memory encoding and response selection at the central stage. While perceptual attention and central attention are known to be separate, distinct processes, some researchers reported findings that loading central attention postponed the deployment of perceptual attention needed to perform a spatial configuration search. We tested whether a similar pattern of results would emerge when a different kind of search task is used. To do so, we had participants perform a visual-search task of searching for a feature conjunction target, taxing perceptual attention while they are engaged in central processes, such as working memory encoding and response selection. The results showed that perceptual processing of conjunction search stimuli could be carried out concurrently with central processes. These results suggest that the nature of the concurrent visual search process is a determinant responsible for the dynamic relationship between perceptual attention deployed for visual search and central attention needed for working memory encoding and response selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The attentional blink refers to the finding that when two visual targets appear within 200–500 ms, observers often miss the second target. In three experiments, we disentangle the roles of spatial attention to and conscious report of the first event in eliciting this cost. We show that allocating spatial attention to the first event is not necessary for a blink to occur: the full temporal pattern of the blink arises when the first event is consciously detected, despite the fact that it is not spatially attended, whereas no cost is observed when the first event is missed. We then show that spatial attention is also not sufficient for eliciting a blink, though it can deepen the blink when accompanied by conscious detection. These results demonstrate that there is no cost associated with the initiation of an attentional episode, whereas explicit conscious detection comes at a price. These findings demonstrate the temporal flexibility of attention and underscore the potential role of subjective awareness in understanding processing limitations, although this role may be contingent on the encoding in working memory necessary for conscious report. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore an intensely debated problem in neuroscience, psychology and philosophy: the degree to which the "phenomenological consciousness" of the experience of a stimulus is separable from the "access consciousness" of its reportability. Specifically, it has been proposed that these two measures are dissociated from one another in one, or both directions. However, even if it was agreed that reportability and experience were doubly dissociated, the limits of dissociation logic mean we would not be able to conclusively separate the cognitive processes underlying the two. We take advantage of computational modelling and recent advances in state-trace analysis to assess this dissociation in an attentional/experiential blink paradigm. These advances in state-trace analysis make use of Bayesian statistics to quantify the evidence for and against a dissociation. Further evidence is obtained by linking our finding to a prominent model of the attentional blink – the Simultaneous Type/Serial Token model. Our results show evidence for a dissociation between experience and reportability, whereby participants appear able to encode stimuli into working memory with little, if any, conscious experience of them. This raises the possibility of a phenomenon that might be called sight-blind recall, which we discuss in the context of the current experience/reportability debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated whether binaural beat stimulation could accelerate the training outcome in an attentional blink (AB) task. The AB refers to the lapse in detecting a target T2 in rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) after the identification of a preceding target T1. Binaural beats (BB) are assumed to entrain neural oscillations and support cognitive function. Participants were assigned into two groups and presented with BB sounds while performing the AB task on three subsequent days in a cross-over design. Group A was presented with 40-Hz BB during the first day and 16 Hz during the second day, while the order of beat frequencies was reversed in Group B. No sound was presented on the third day. MEG recordings confirmed a strong entrainment of gamma oscillations during 40-Hz BB stimulation and smaller gamma entrainment with 16-Hz BB. The rhythm of the visual stimulation elicited 10-Hz oscillations in occipital MEG sensors which were of similar magnitude for both BB frequencies. The AB performance did not increase within a session. However, participants improved between sessions, with overall improvement equal in both groups. Group A improved more after the first day than the second day. In contrast, group B gained more from the 40 Hz stimulation on the second day than from 16-Hz stimulation on the first day. Taken together, 40-Hz BB stimulation during training accelerates the training outcome. The improvement becomes evident not immediately, but after consolidation during sleep. Therefore, auditory beats stimulation is a promising method of non-invasive brain stimulation for enhancing training and learning which is well-suited to rehabilitation training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has shown that emotions differentially influence attention across time, especially when the valence of the attended stimuli is congruent with the emotion of observer. Sadness produces a larger attentional blink while fear and happiness produce smaller attentional blinks. We report on four dual-task rapid serial visual presentation experiments in which participant emotion and the affective features of the first target (T1) were systematically varied to determine whether arousal and valence have unique and consistent influences on attention performance. All T1s connoted affect. Results showed that the emotional experience of negative affect with high arousal led to better second target (T2) detection than negative affect with low arousal. In conditions where positive affect was the experienced emotion, low arousal resulted in better T2 detection than high arousal. When participant arousal was held constant at a low level there were no differences in performance. When participant arousal was high, a cross-over effect was observed in which negative affect produced better performance than positive affect at early positions and negative affect produced better performance at late. The first targets in these experiments varied in arousal and valence to test for emotion congruent effects, but none were found. It was concluded that the experience of varied levels of arousal and types of valence do not have separable influences on attention across time. Rather, their influence is more consistent with emotion-specific mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adaptive behavioral control involves a balance between top-down persistence and flexible updating of goals under changing demands. According to the metacontrol state model (MSM), this balance emerges from the interaction between the frontal and the striatal dopaminergic system. The attentional blink (AB) task has been argued to tap into the interaction between persistence and flexibility, as it reflects overpersistence—the too-exclusive allocation of attentional resources to the processing of the first of two consecutive targets. Notably, previous studies are inconclusive about the association between the AB and noninvasive proxies of dopamine including the spontaneous eye blink rate (sEBR), which allegedly assesses striatal dopamine levels. We aimed to substantiate and extend previous attempts to predict individual sizes of the AB in two separate experiments with larger sample sizes (N = 71 & N = 65) by means of noninvasive behavioral and physiological proxies of dopamine (DA), such as sEBR and mood measures, which are likely to reflect striatal dopamine levels, and color discrimination, which has been argued to tap into the frontal dopamine levels. Our findings did not confirm the prediction that AB size covaries with sEBR, mood, or color discrimination. The implications of this inconsistency with previous observations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perception of the second of two targets (T1, T2) displayed in rapid sequence is impaired if it comes shortly after the first (attentional blink, AB). In an exception, known as Lag-1 sparing, T2 is virtually unimpaired if it is presented directly after T1. Three experiments examined the seemingly inconsistent findings that Lag-1 sparing occurs in accuracy but Lag-1 deficit occurs in RT. Experiment 1 pointed to masking of T2 as the critical factor. When T2 was not masked, the results replicated the conventional findings. The novel finding was that Lag-1 sparing occurred in RT, provided that T2 was masked. An account was provided by a psychological refractory period-based model in which processing was said to occur in two broadly sequential stages: stimulus selection and response planning. Experiments 2 and 3 tested predictions from the PRP-based model regarding Lag-1 sparing/Lag-1 deficit. In Experiment 2, we increased T2 salience, notionally reducing the duration of the T2 selection stage, with corresponding reduction in Lag-1 sparing. In Experiment 3, we manipulated the compatibility between the T1 stimulus and the response to notionally decrease/increase the duration of the T1 response-planning stage with corresponding increment/decrement in Lag-1 sparing. The results of both experiments confirmed predictions from the PRP-based model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many visual search tasks (e.g., cancer screening, airport baggage inspections), the most serious search targets occur infrequently. As an ironic side effect, when observers finally encounter important objects (e.g., a weapon in baggage), they often fail to notice them, a phenomenon known as the low-prevalence effect (LPE). Although many studies have investigated LPE search errors, we investigated the attentional consequences of successful rare target detection. Using an attentional blink paradigm, we manipulated how often observers encountered the first serial target (T1), then measured its effects on their ability to detect a following target (T2). Across two experiments, we show that the LPE is more than just an inflated miss rate: When observers successfully detected rare targets, they were less likely to spot subsequent targets. Using pupillometry to index locus-coeruleus (LC) mediated attentional engagement, Experiment 2 confirmed that an LC refractory period mediates the attentional blink ('Nieuwenhuis, Gilzenrat, Holmes, & Cohen, 2005, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 134[3], 291–307), and that these effects emerge relatively quickly following T1 onset. Moreover, in both behavioral and pupil analyses, we found that detecting low-prevalence targets exacerbates the LC refractory period. Consequences for theories of the LPE are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether focused visual attention can be divided has been the topic of much investigation, and there is a compelling body of evidence showing that, at least under certain conditions, attention can be divided and deployed as two independent foci. Three experiments were conducted to examine whether attention can be deployed in divided form from the outset, or whether it is first deployed as a unitary focus before being divided. To test this, we adapted the methodology of Jefferies, Enns, and Di Lollo (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 40: 465, 2014), who used a dual-stream Attentional Blink paradigm and two letter-pair targets. One aspect of the AB, Lag-1 sparing, has been shown to occur only if the second target pair appears within the focus of attention. By presenting the second target pair at various spatial locations and assessing the magnitude of Lag-1 sparing, we probed the spatial distribution of attention. By systematically manipulating the stimulus-onset-asynchrony between the targets, we also tracked changes to the spatial distribution of attention over time. The results showed that even under conditions which encourage the division of attention, the attentional focus is first deployed in unitary form before being divided. It is then maintained in divided form only briefly before settling on a single location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Selective visual attention involves prioritizing both the location (orienting) and distribution (focusing) of processing. To date, much more research has examined attentional orienting than focusing. One of the most well-established findings is that orienting can be exogenous, as when a unique change in luminance draws attention to a spatial location (e.g., Theeuwes in Atten Percept Psychophys 51:599–606, 1992; Yantis and Jonides in J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 10:601, 1984), and endogenous, as when a red distractor shape diverts attention when one is looking for a red target (e.g., Bacon and Egeth in Percept Psychophys 55:485–496, 1994; Folk et al. in J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 18:1030, 1992). Here we ask whether attentional focusing—the broadening and contracting of prioritized processing—is influenced by the same two factors. Our methodology involved a dual-stream attentional blink task; participants monitored two spatially separated streams of items for two targets that could appear unpredictably either in the same stream or in opposite streams. The spatial distribution of attention was assessed by examining second-target accuracy in relation to inter-target lag and target location (same or opposite streams). In Experiment 1, we found that attentional contracting was more rapid when the targets differed in luminance from the distractor items. In Experiments 2 and 3, we found that the rate of attentional contracting was slower when there were task-relevant distractors in the stream opposite the first target. These results indicate that the rate of attentional focusing, like orienting, can be modulated by both exogenous and endogenous mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emotional attentional blink (EAB) refers to a temporary impairment in the ability to identify a target when it is preceded by an emotional distractor. It is thought to occur because the emotional salience of the distractor exogenously captures attention for a brief duration, rendering the target unattended and preventing it from reaching awareness. Here we tested the extent to which the EAB can be attenuated by inducing a diffuse top-down attentional state, which has been shown to improve target identification in an analogous attentional phenomenon, the attentional blink. Rapid sequences of landscape images were presented centrally, and participants reported the orientation of a ± 90° rotation of a landscape target. To induce a diffuse state of attention, participants were given a secondary task of monitoring for the appearance of a colored dot in the periphery. We found that emotional distractors impaired target recognition performance to comparable extents, regardless of whether or not participants concurrently performed the peripheral-monitoring task. Moreover, we found that performance of the secondary task led to an impaired ability to ignore neutral distractors. Subjective ratings of target vividness mirrored the behavioral accuracy, with frequent reports of intermediate levels of vividness suggesting that the EAB might impair target visibility in a graded manner. Our results demonstrate that the EAB is robust to manipulations of top-down attention, suggesting that the temporary capture of attention by emotionally salient stimuli involves processes that are distinct from those that produce the attentional blink. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The overinvestment account of the attentional blink (AB) posits that the AB results from the allocation of more resources than necessary to encode a first target (T1), which in turn lowers the resources available to encode a second target (T2) shortly thereafter. Across two experiments, we examined whether resource allocation to T1, and thus overinvestment that results in an AB effect, might be limited by perceptual mechanisms that evaluate the need for encoding resources. The key result observed in both experiments was that a relatively easy to encode T1 can nonetheless result in an AB when it is perceptually similar to a more difficult to encode T1. The importance of experimental context as an influence on the allocation, or overinvestment, of attentional resources to T1 is highlighted by these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The attentional blink (AB) is a temporary deficit for a second target (T2) when that target appears after a first target (T1). Although sophisticated models have been developed to explain the substantial AB literature in isolation, the current study considers how the AB relates to perceptual dynamics more broadly. We show that the time-course of the AB is closely related to the time course of the transition from positive to negative repetition priming effects in perceptual identification. Many AB tasks involve a switch between a T1 defined in one manner and a T2 defined in a different manner. Other AB tasks are non-switching, with all targets belonging to the same well-known category (e.g., letter targets versus number distractors) or sharing the same perceptual feature. We propose that these non-switching AB tasks reflect perceptual habituation for the target-defining attribute; thus, a ‘perceptual wink’, with perception of one attribute (target identity) undisturbed while perception of another (target detection) is impaired. On this account, the immediate benefit following T1 (lag-1 sparing) reflects positive repetition priming and the subsequent deficit (the blink) reflects negative repetition priming for the realization that a target occurred. In developing the perceptual wink model, we extended the nROUSE model of perceptual priming to explain the results of two new experiments combining the AB and identity repetitions. This establishes important connections between non-switching AB tasks and perceptual dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study used rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) to determine whether, in an item-method directed forgetting task, study word processing ends earlier for forget words than for remember words. The critical manipulation required participants to monitor an RSVP stream of black nonsense strings in which a single blue word was embedded. The next item to follow the word was a string of red fs that instructed the participant to forget the word or green rs that instructed the participant to remember the word. After the memory instruction, a probe string of black xs or os appeared at postinstruction positions 1-8. Accuracy in reporting the identity of the probe string revealed an attenuated attentional blink following instructions to forget. A yes-no recognition task that followed the study trials confirmed a directed forgetting effect, with better recognition of remember words than forget words. Considered in the context of control conditions that required participants to commit either all or none of the study words to memory, the pattern of probe identification accuracy following the directed forgetting task argues that an intention to forget releases limited-capacity attentional resources sooner than an instruction to remember—despite participants needing to maintain an ongoing rehearsal set in both cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Illusory line motion (ILM) refers to perception of motion in a bar that onsets or offsets all at once. When the bar onsets or offsets between two boxes after one of the boxes flashes, the bar appears to shoot out of the flashed box (flashILM). If the bar offsets during the flash, it appears to contract into the flashed box (reverse ILM; rILM). Onset bars do not show rILM. Moreover, rILM and flashILM are not correlated, indicating they are two different illusions. To date, rILM has only been studied using a 50-ms flash where the bar offsets 16.7 ms after flash onset. It is not clear if rILM is due to the 16.7-ms flash-bar-removal stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) or due to the flash offsetting after the bar. The current studies explore these parameters to better understand the conditions that lead to rILM. The results suggest that flashILM is sensitive to the temporal interval between flash onset and bar offset, while rILM appears to arise when the flash offsets after the bar has been removed regardless of the temporal interval between flash onset and bar removal. These results are consistent with flashILM reflecting visual exogenous attention while rILM may reflect the low-level spreading of subthreshold activation radiating from the flashed box. The findings are incorporated into the recent work that suggests that the literature concerning ILM is possibly conflating a number of different illusions of line motion, including polarized gamma motion (PGM), transformational apparent motion (TAM), and exogenous attention induced motion (flashILM). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The performance impairment (attentional blink, AB) on a second target (T2) when it is presented within 200-500 ms after a first target (T1) during rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) is typically attributed to resource depletion. The AB does not occur when targets appear in immediate sequence (sparing). Recently, this account has been challenged by findings that the lag 1 sparing can spread to later lags when using a 3-target RSVP. Two experiments using the 3-targets RSVP investigated the relative contribution of resource depletion and attentional enhancement and/or inhibition on the AB and the sparing when T1 (Exp. 1) or T3 (Exp. 2) are emotionally salient. Findings showed a greater sparing for neutral T3s when preceded by negative compared with neutral T1s (Exp. 1) and for negative T3s (Exp. 2). In contrast, the AB on neutral T3s was greater after negative than after neutral T1s (Exp. 1), but it was reduced when T3 was negative (Exp. 2). The AB and the sparing also depended on how many targets before T3 were correctly reported. These findings indicate that although there is a cost for processing multiple targets, the emotional modulations of the AB and the sparing are better explained by an interplay between emotion-enhancement and capacity limitations on temporal selective attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People’s ability to perceive rapidly presented targets can be disrupted both by voluntary encoding of a preceding target and by spontaneous attention to salient distractors. Distinctions between these sources of interference can be found when people search for a target in multiple rapid streams instead of a single stream: voluntary encoding of a preceding target often elicits subsequent perceptual lapses across the visual field, whereas spontaneous attention to emotionally salient distractors appears to elicit a spatially localized lapse, giving rise to a theoretical account suggesting that emotional distractors and subsequent targets compete spatiotemporally during rapid serial visual processing. We used gaze-contingent eye-tracking to probe the roles of spatiotemporal competition and memory encoding on the spatial distribution of interference caused by emotional distractors, while also ruling out the role of eye-gaze in driving differences in spatial distribution. Spontaneous target perception impairments caused by emotional distractors were localized to the distractor location regardless of where participants fixated. But when emotional distractors were task-relevant, perceptual lapses occurred across both streams while remaining strongest at the distractor location. These results suggest that spatiotemporal competition and memory encoding reflect a dual-route impact of emotional stimuli on target perception during rapid visual processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The direction of gaze towards or away from an observer has immediate effects on attentional processing in the observer. Previous research indicates that faces with direct gaze are processed more efficiently than faces with averted gaze. We recently reported additional processing advantages for faces that suddenly adopt direct gaze (abruptly shift from averted to direct gaze) relative to static direct gaze (always in direct gaze), sudden averted gaze (abruptly shift from direct to averted gaze), and static averted gaze (always in averted gaze). Because changes in gaze orientation in previous study co-occurred with changes in head orientation, it was not clear if the effect is contingent on face or eye processing, or whether it requires both the eyes and the face to provide consistent information. The present study delineates the impact of head orientation, sudden onset motion cues, and gaze cues. Participants completed a target-detection task in which head position remained in a static averted or direct orientation while sudden onset motion and eye gaze cues were manipulated within each trial. The results indicate a sudden direct gaze advantage that resulted from the additive role of motion and gaze cues. Interestingly, the orientation of the face towards or away from the observer did not influence the sudden direct gaze effect, suggesting that eye gaze cues, not face orientation cues, are critical for the sudden direct gaze effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]