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The emotional attentional blink (EAB), also referred to as emotion-induced blindness, refers to a transient impairment in the ability to discriminate a single target when it is presented closely in time to an emotional distractor. Although the EAB has typically been characterized as representing a complete loss of target information due to attentional capture by the emotional distractors, it is unclear whether the impact of the emotional distractor is in fact discrete or graded. Here, we tested whether the emotional distractor of the EAB interfered with target processing in a continuous or all-or-none manner by measuring changes in both reaction time (RT) and target-vividness ratings in addition to target-discrimination accuracy. Rapid sequences of landscape images were presented centrally, and participants reported the orientation of a ± 90° rotated target as quickly and accurately as possible. Replicating the classic EAB phenomenon, we found a strong impairment in target discrimination when an emotional distractor shortly preceded the target, and we also found a moderate impairment when the target preceded an emotional distractor. This decrement in accuracy at short lags was accompanied by increases in RT to the target as well as lower ratings of subjective target vividness even when the target was detected, indicating that emotional distractors impacted target processing in a lag-dependent, graded manner. We argue that these results are consistent with an interactive race model of the competition between stimulus representations in the conflict between top-down and bottom-up attentional mechanisms. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

In a series of experiments, the nature of perceptual awareness during the attentional blink was investigated. Previous work has considered the attentional blink as a discrete, all-or-none phenomenon, indicative of general access to conscious awareness. Using continuous report measures in combination with mixture modeling, the outcomes showed that perceptual awareness during the attentional blink can be a gradual phenomenon. Awareness was not exclusively discrete, but also exhibited a gradual characteristic whenever the spatial extent of attention induced by the first target spanned more than a single location. Under these circumstances, mental representations of blinked targets were impoverished, but did approach the actual identities of the targets. Conversely, when the focus of attention covered only a single location, there was no evidence for any partial knowledge of blinked targets. These two different faces of awareness during the attentional blink challenge current theories of both awareness and temporal attention, which cannot explain the existence of gradual awareness of targets during the attentional blink. To account for the current outcomes, an adaptive gating model is proposed that casts awareness on a continuum between gradual and discrete, rather than as being of either single kind. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

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.

One of the ongoing debates about visual consciousness is whether it can be considered as an all-or-none or a graded phenomenon. While there is increasing evidence for the existence of graded states of conscious awareness based on paradigms such as visual masking, only little and mixed evidence is available for the attentional blink paradigm, specifically in regard to electrophysiological measures. Thereby, the all-or-none pattern reported in some attentional blink studies might have originated from specifics of the experimental design, suggesting the need to examine the generalizability of results. In the present event-related potential (ERP) study (N = 32), visual awareness of T2 face targets was assessed via subjective visibility ratings on a perceptual awareness scale in combination with ERPs time-locked to T2 onset (components P1, N1, N2, and P3). Furthermore, a classification task preceding visibility ratings allowed to track task performance. The behavioral results indicate a graded rather than an all-or-none pattern of visual awareness. Corresponding graded differences in the N1, N2, and P3 components were observed for the comparison of visibility levels. These findings suggest that conscious perception during the attentional blink can occur in a graded fashion.

A number of studies indicate that meditation training affects performance on the attentional blink (AB). This is taken as evidence that meditation has an influence on attentional processes. One such experiment found the AB to be reduced after adult, non-meditators completed a brief, single session of open monitoring meditation (OM). This was compared to two control conditions: focused attention meditation (FA) and a relaxation condition in which participants read magazines. The objective of the present study was to assess whether this effect could be replicated with a larger sample. This experiment consisted of forty participants in each of three groups: FA, OM and relaxation. After the inductions, performance was measured on a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task consisting of two targets (T1 and T2). The AB and overall target accuracy were compared between groups using Bayesian and frequentist statistics. There was no evidence of attentional blink differences between the FA, OM and control conditions. However, overall task accuracy was higher in the meditation groups than in the relaxation group for both conditional T2 accuracy and T1 accuracy. The results indicate that in non-meditators, any reduction in attentional blink after brief OM, relative to brief FA, is likely to be small (d = 0.27 [− 0.17, 0.72]). In non-meditators, there was no evidence that brief OM affects attention allocation differently to FA, such that it reduces the attentional blink. However, brief meditation may affect the allocation of attentional resources in ways which improve accuracy on the attentional blink task. This interpretation is supported by evidence that, over the course of the RSVP task, arousal increased to a greater extent in the meditation groups than in the the relaxation group.

The attentional blink (AB) paradigm has been used to address an enduring debate about the nature of conscious perception: Does the temporary impairment in conscious perception of the second (T2) of two serially presented targets result from a probabilistic all-or-none loss of information, or does T2 transition into consciousness along a continuum of perceptual fidelity? To investigate this question, we presented noisy orientation patterns as targets embedded in a rapid serial sequence of nonoriented noise distractors, and evaluated perception of T2 orientation using a continuous report paradigm. Using discrete mixture models and variable resource models, we evaluated the effects of manipulating both perceptual and central demands on the precision of T2 responses and the estimated frequency of random guessing. When perceptual competition between targets was emphasized by their sharing of a common visual feature (i.e., orientation), the attentional blink was associated with degraded precision of T2 perception. By contrast, when the task required switching between different attended features across two visually distinct targets, T2 awareness was impaired in an all-or-none manner as evidenced by significant increases in guessing responses. Both statistical and model comparison analyses indicated that loss of target information can be graded or discrete, depending on whether perceptual or higher central stages are taxed by processing demands. Our findings provide new insights into the mechanisms underlying the attentional blink and help reconcile conflicting views regarding how information can be lost from awareness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

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.

Background: Recent evidence suggests that pain dampens attentional processes. However, much of this work has been based on higher-order attentional tasks that involve only spatial attention. Other aspects of the process through which pain engages and holds attention are relatively understudied, in particular, temporal attention. The present set of studies explored how naturally occurring pain (i.e. acute headache) and pain-valenced stimuli affect the ability to recall the second of two targets presented in rapid succession. Methods: Across both experiments participants were required to indicate the presence of a predefined probe (T2) and, in the dual task, identify a target (T1). The probe (T2) was placed in three different temporal proximities (ranging from 70 to 1000ms) following presentation of the target (T1). In Experiment 1, 36 participants completed a task that comprised a rapid stream of letters. Experiment 2 manipulated the threat value, and the complexity, of the stimuli by replacing letters with words. In the dual task condition, T1 was a word from one of four valence categories (neutral, positive, negative, pain). Results: Being in acute pain reduced the accuracy of identification. This reduction in performance occurred regardless of the temporal positioning of the probe, consistent with previous work that suggests pain has an overall dampening effect. Furthermore, when the valence category of the word was pain-related, T2 accuracy performance was negatively affected. Conclusion: These findings add to the previous evidence that pain has a general dampening effect on attention and that pain-related stimuli are difficult to disengage from. Significance: Pain captures attention to allow cognate resources to be directed appropriately in response. However, the temporal effects of this attentional capture are poorly understood. Findings indicate that acute headache pain has a negative impact on participants’ performance when identifying the second of two targets presented in close temporal proximity, and that pain-valenced stimuli exacerbate this effect. These findings demonstrate how pain affects early attention and highlights the potential role of disengagement, rather than orientation, of attention in the pain experience.

Dieses Projekt bezweckt die Replikation einer Studie von Colzato et al. (2008). Im Zentrum steht die Annahme, dass der Dopamin-Level den sogenannten Attentional blink beeinflusst.

Over decades of research has examined the relationship between affective state and attention. The general consensus is that positive affect leads to the broadening of attentional breadth, whereas negative affect results in the narrowing of attention focus (Easterbrook, 1959; Fredrickson, 2001). Given that positive affect is produced in secure and comfortable contexts, it allows attentional breadth to be broader for individuals to receive more information. In contrast, given that negative affect is usually emerged in dangerous and unfavorable situations, it forces attentional focus to be narrower for people to avoid survival threat. Affective state has also been shown to affect attentional blink, which is believed to be dependent on attentional breadth. Attentional blink (AB) indicates a temporal limitation of attention. It is characterized by the inability to identify the second visual target (T2) in the rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream when it appears closely after the first target (T1) (Raymond, Shapiro & Arnell, 1992). According to the overinvestment theory, attentional breadth is an important mediator of attentional blink (Olivers & Nieuwenhuis, 2006). Specifically, boarder attentional breadth can prevent excessive allocation of attention and leads to attenuation of attentional blink, whereas narrower attentional breadth promotes over-allocation of attention and results in stronger attentional blink. As a mediator, attentional breadth was suggested to explain the relationship between affective states and the blink. Because positive affect is expected to broaden attentional breadth under the well-accepted traditional view, positive affect would also be expected to attenuate attentional blink. Previous studies have tested this hypothesis, and found that both induced and self-report positive affect reduce attentional blink (Olivers et al., 2006; Vermeulen, 2010). However, the well-accepted relationship between affective state and attention was later criticized to be incomplete. Gable and Harmons-Jones (2008, 2010) argued that earlier studies about the two emphasized only the valence dimension (i.e. positive or negative) of affective state but often neglected the motivation dimension (i.e. high or low), which they considered as a crucial component to determine the consequences on attention. Based on their argument, they examined how affective states varying in valence and approach motivation influence attention. The results showed that, regardless of the valence, low approach-motivated affects broaden attentional breadth while high approach-motivated affects narrow attention focus. These findings provided clear evidence that the size of attention depends on the motivation component of affective state. In other words, positive affect does not necessarily expand attentional breadth and negative affect does not certainly narrow attention focus. It further suggested a potential issue with previous studies among affective state, attention breadth and attentional blink. These previous studies may have unintentionally included only the low approach-motivated positive affect and high approach-motivated negative affect, so the unique contribution of valence and motivation were confounded. That could explain why their findings appeared to show a strong relationship among affective states, attention focus and attentional blink in such direction. Therefore, the aim of this study is to distinguish the effects of valenced and motivated affective states on attentional blink. This study will independently manipulate both valence and motivation of affective state to test for their contributions. Based on the studies of Gable et al. (2008, 2010) and overinvestment theory, attentional blink would be expected to depend on motivation, with low approach-motivated affect decreases attentional blink while high approach-motivated affect increases attentional blink. In addition to measure attentional blink, we will also attempt to replicate the results of Gable et al. using the local-global visual processing task, which is believed to be a direct measure of attentional breadth. If the conventional explanation for attentional breadth is correct, the affective states should have similar effects on our and their measures.

This study examines the effect of affective state on two attentional measures: attentional blink and attentional breadth. It is a follow-up to our previous study that failed to replicate some observed effects. The preregistration to our first experiment is available at: https://osf.io/64n8r

The survival processing effect is a memory advantage for material processed in terms of their survival-relevance over material processed using alternative deep-encoding techniques (Nairne, Pandeirada, & Thompson, 2007). In the survival processing paradigm, -commonly- participants view a short scenario describing either a survival or a moving situation, or the pleasantness instructions. Next, participants are presented with a list of items (words or images) one by one, and asked to rate each item in terms of its relevance to either of the scenarios/instructions within a period of 5 seconds. Though the survival processing advantage seems to be robust, the proximate mechanisms underlying the memory advantage is under debate. As a part of a master's thesis (see attached), we conducted two experiments where we combined the attentional blink paradigm with the survival processing in aiming to test an attention-based explanation of the survival memory advantage. In detail, we were expecting that judging the survival-relevance of items to enhance attention allocation to those items, which in turn, would be reflected in the attentional blink performance. In two experiments, after the presentation of a scenario (either moving or survival), we presented images (Experiment 1) or words (Experiment 2) depicting objects as the first target (T1) in a rapid sequence of visual processing (RSVP) stream. T1 was followed by a second target (T2 - a letter) at variable stimulus-onset asynchronies (SOAs of 300 or 800 ms). Participants had to rate the relevance of T1 to the given scenario on a 5-point scale, and to type in the letter T2 after each trial. Following the AB task, participants completed an unexpected recognition test. The findings of these studies have shown that judging the survival-relevance or moving-relevance of a first target in the AB task does not differ in terms of the allocation of attention as reflected in the T2 identification accuracy. However, as explained above, participants indicated their judgments on relevance of objects at the end of each trial. We suspect that the postponement of relevance judgments until after trials might resulted in the lack of survival processing effect on attention. More, we could not replicate the survival processing memory advantage. Though, exploratory analyses indicated that the survival processing advantage was strongest for the objects that received consistently high ratings, reflecting a congruity effect. This particular finding led us to reconsider the role of the material in the survival processing effect. In the current study we aim to extend the findings of our previous studies testing an attention-based explanation of the survival processing effect. Differently than the previous ones, participants will be required to respond as fast as possible while judging the relevance of items in terms of survival or moving. Hereby, we aim to eliminate the possible influences of postponing relevance-judgments that might have caused the lack of effect on attention in the earlier studies. As a consequence, we expect using a speeded response task would increase the possibility of finding a significant result in terms of attention. We will again use a combination of the attentional blink and the survival processing paradigms. First, participants will be presented with the survival or the moving scenario. Then, the material to-be-rated (images) will be presented as T1 in a rapid sequence of visual processing (RSVP) task, which will be followed by a letter T2 at SOAs of either 300 or 800 ms. We will use a hybrid AB-PRP paradigm similar to that was employed by Jolicoeur & Dell'Acqua (1999) as follows: Participants will rate the relevance of the first target by using the arrow keys (yes or no) on each trial of the RSVP task as quickly as possible instead of within 5 seconds. The material sets are formed of images that were categorized into two categories with respect to the scenario condition; Irrelevant or Relevant. While participants are required to rate the relevance of the first target, the second target will also be displayed. Participants will be asked to type in the second target at the end of each trial. In the last phase of the study, participants' memory for the previously rated items will be assessed using an unexpected yes-no recognition task. We expect differences in T2 identification accuracy between the survival and moving condition. We are also interested in the survival processing memory advantage. We aim to investigate whether the advantage occur in our dual-task paradigm. Finally, relevance judgments and reaction times are expected to differ depending on Item Relevance.

Previous meditation-related studies included considerably more women than men, potentially concealing gender differences in attention training effects. Here, we present a study exploring potential gender differences in short-term meditation training (MT) effects on performance in an attentional blink (AB) task with a balanced sampling of men and women. A total of 165 college students were randomized into three groups: MT, video game training (VGT), and control (CON). Participants completed a series of pre-intervention assessments, including the Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (S-TAI), and self-reported mood, arousal level, and daily time spent playing video games. Participants then completed MT, completed VGT, or had no intervention (CON group). The MT and VGT sessions consisted of 4 days of 20 min of training per day. After training, participants re-rated their arousal state and emotional state, and then performed the AB task. Relative to the CON group, the MT or VGT groups showed a significantly reduced AB. Interestingly, regarding effects on AB performance, MT was more effective in women, whereas VGT was more effective in men. MT, but not VGT, decreased anxiety scores from before to after the intervention. The current results indicate that gender plays an important role in the benefits of attention training, and thus that clinicians should take gender into consideration when implementing meditation-based therapies.

Selection mechanisms that dynamically gate only relevant perceptual information for further processing and sustained representation in working memory are critical for goal-directed behavior. We examined whether this gating process can be modulated by transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (lDLPFC)—a region known to play a key role in working memory and conscious access. Specifically, we examined the effects of tDCS on the magnitude of the “attentional blink” (AB), a deficit in identifying the second of two targets presented in rapid succession. Thirty-four participants performed an AB task before (baseline), during and after 20 min of 1-mA anodal and cathodal tDCS in two separate sessions. On the basis of previous reports linking individual differences in AB magnitude to individual differences in DLPFC activity and on the basis of suggestions that effects of tDCS depend on baseline brain activity levels, we hypothesized that anodal tDCS over lDLPFC would modulate the magnitude of the AB as a function of individual baseline AB magnitude. Behavioral results did not provide support for this hypothesis. At the group level, we also did not observe any significant effects of tDCS, and a Bayesian analysis revealed strong evidence that tDCS to lDLPFC did not affect AB performance. Together, these findings do not support the idea that there is an optimal level of prefrontal cortical excitability for cognitive function. More generally, they add to a growing body of work that challenges the idea that the effects of tDCS can be predicted from baseline levels of behavior.

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.

Spatial distractor processing is impacted by the availability of spatial attention. What is less clear is the extent to which temporal selection alters such spatial selection, when considering resp...

Practitioners with years of mindfulness training (MT) have a reduced attentional blink (AB), relative to novices and non-practitioners. There is still a lack of evidence regarding the impact of relatively short-term intensive traditional MT on AB. Moreover, it is unknown which component(s) of mindfulness underlie mindfulness-associated reductions in AB. Eighty-nine Chinese subjects were randomized into a MT group (N = 44) and a control (CON) group (N = 45). The participants in the CON group were waitlisted for the opportunity to participate in the training program during the 8 weeks that the MT group underwent training. Before (pretest) and after (posttest) the MT program, the subjects completed the Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), Peace-of-mind questionnaire (POM), and an AB task. Ultimately, 73 participants (MT group/CON group: 35/38) completed the study. From the pretest to the posttest, the MT group exhibited increases in FFMQ scores (total scores, observing subscores, and non-reactivity subscores) and POM scores, as well as improved accuracy in the AB task and a reduction in the lag-1 sparing effect. Increases in T2 accuracy in the AB correlated with improved non-reactivity. These findings broaden our understanding of the association between mindfulness and AB, and support the supposition that the skill of mindful non-reactivity plays an important role in reducing AB.

Adolescent obesity is an increasingly prevalent problem in several societies. Researchers have begun to focus on neurocognitive processes that may help explain how unhealthy food habits form and are maintained. The present study compared attentional bias to food stimuli in a sample of obese (n = 22) and Normal-weight (n = 18) adolescents utilizing an Attention Blink (AB) paradigm while electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. We found lower accuracy and Event-Related Potential (ERP) P3 amplitudes during the presentation of food stimuli in AB trials for obese adolescents. These findings suggest an impaired ability of their brains to flexibly relocate attentional resources in the face of food stimuli. The results were corroborated by lower P3s also being associated with higher body mass index (BMI) values and poorer self-reported self-efficacy in controlling food intake. The study is among the few examining neural correlates of attentional control in obese adolescents and suggests automatic attentional bias to food is an important aspect to consider in tackling the obesity crisis.

The present study recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) in a visual object-recognition task under the attentional blink paradigm to explore the temporal dynamics of the cross-modal boost on attentional blink and whether this auditory benefit would be modulated by semantic congruency between T2 and the simultaneous sound. Behaviorally, the present study showed that not only a semantically congruent but also a semantically incongruent sound improved T2 discrimination during the attentional blink interval, whereas the enhancement was larger for the congruent sound. The ERP results revealed that the behavioral improvements induced by both the semantically congruent and incongruent sounds were closely associated with an early cross-modal interaction on the occipital N195 (192–228 ms). In contrast, the lower T2 accuracy for the incongruent than congruent condition was accompanied by a larger late occurring cento-parietal N440 (424–448 ms). These findings suggest that the cross-modal boost on attentional blink is hierarchical: the task-irrelevant but simultaneous sound, irrespective of its semantic relevance, firstly enables T2 to escape the attentional blink via cross-modally strengthening the early stage of visual object-recognition processing, whereas the semantic conflict of the sound begins to interfere with visual awareness only at a later stage when the representation of visual object is extracted.

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.

The attentional blink (AB) has been central in characterizing the limit of temporal attention and consciousness. The neural mechanism of the AB is still in hot debate. With a large sample size, we combined multiple behavioral tests, multimodal MRI measures, and transcranial magnetic stimulation to investigate the neural basis underlying the individual differences in the AB. We found that AB magnitude correlated with the executive control functioning of working memory (WM) in behavior, which was fully mediated by T1 performance. Structural variations in the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) and its intrinsic functional connectivity with the left inferior frontal junction (lIFJ) accounted for the individual differences in the AB, which was moderated by the executive control of working memory. Disrupting the function of the lIFJ attenuated the AB deficit. Our findings clarified the neural correlates of the individual differences in the AB and elucidated its relationship with the consolidation-driven inhibitory control process.

The brain’s capacity to process unexpected events is key to cognitive flexibility. The most well-known effect of unexpected events is the interruption of attentional engagement (distraction). We tested whether unexpected events interrupt attentional representations by activating a neural mechanism for inhibitory control. This mechanism is most well characterized within the motor system. However, recent work showed that it is automatically activated by unexpected events and can explain some of their nonmotor effects (e.g., on working memory representations). Here, human participants attended to lateralized flickering visual stimuli, producing steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs) in the scalp electroencephalogram. After unexpected sounds, the SSVEP was rapidly suppressed. Using a functional localizer (stop-signal) task and independent component analysis, we then identified a fronto-central EEG source whose activity indexes inhibitory motor control. Unexpected sounds in the SSVEP task also activated this source. Using single-trial analyses, we found that subcomponents of this source differentially relate to sound-induced SSVEP changes: While its N2 component predicted the subsequent suppression of the attended-stimulus SSVEP, the P3 component predicted the suppression of the SSVEP to the unattended stimulus. These results shed new light on the processes underlying fronto-central control signals and have implications for phenomena such as distraction and the attentional blink.

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. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.3758/s13428-020-01457-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Dual-task performance depends on both modalities (e.g., vision, audition, haptics) and task types (spatial or object-based), and the order by which different task types are organized. Previous studies on haptic and especially auditory–haptic attentional blink (AB) are scarce, and the effect of task types and their order have not been fully explored. In this study, 96 participants, divided into four groups of task type combinations, identified auditory or haptic Target 1 (T1) and haptic Target 2 (T2) in rapid series of sounds and forces. We observed a haptic AB (i.e., the accuracy of identifying T2 increased with increasing stimulus onset asynchrony between T1 and T2) in spatial, object-based, and object–spatial tasks, but not in spatial–object task. Changing the modality of an object-based T1 from haptics to audition eliminated the AB, but similar haptic-to-auditory change of the modality of a spatial T1 had no effect on the AB (if it exists). Our findings fill a gap in the literature regarding the auditory–haptic AB, and substantiate the importance of modalities, task types and their order, and the interaction between them. These findings were explained by how the cerebral cortex is organized for processing spatial and object-based information in different modalities.

To efficiently handle the continuous flow of information to which the attentional system is exposed, humans are equipped with filters like the attentional blink (i.e., a failure to detect a second target when it is presented between 200 and 500 ms after the first one). The aim of this study was to examine whether the practice of two standardized meditation programs (i.e., mindfulness and compassion) could modify the allocation of attentional resources towards emotional information. A sample of 90 participants (43 in the mindfulness group and 47 in the compassion group) performed a variant of the emotional attentional blink task using negative, positive, and neutral faces, before and after the 8-week meditation programs. Both programs significantly decreased the standard AB effect (F(1.65, 145.58) = 39.79, p

Contribution of emotional valence and arousal to attentional processing over time is not fully understood. We employed a rapid serial visual paradigm (RSVP) in three experiments to investigate the role of valence and arousal. In three experiments, participants had to identify the expression of the two targets (experiment 1 - happy and angry; experiment 2 - angry and surprise; experiment 3 - happy and surprise) presented among neutral upright face distracters. In the first and third experiments, the two targets differed both in valence and arousal ratings. In experiment 2, the surprise and angry expressions differed in terms of valence but were matched for arousal. There was a happy expression advantage (lesser attentional blink) when the first target was anger (experiment 1) or surprise (experiment 3) and a surprise expression advantage when the first target was anger (experiment 2). There was a backward blink with reduced detection of the first target primarily by the relatively more positive valence second target. These results indicate that the benefit for happy and surprise expressions in comparison to angry expression identification is probably due to valence (more positive) and not arousal. Our results demonstrate a novel dynamic interplay of emotional information on temporal attention.

It is unknown whether high-trait anxiety (HTA) individuals show facilitated attention or impaired attentional disengagement. In the present study, we have manipulated emotion and task relevance to ...

The attentional blink (AB) phenomenon reveals a bottleneck of human information processing: the second of two targets is often missed when they are presented in rapid succession among distractors. In our previous work, we showed that the size of the AB can be changed by applying transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (lDLPFC) (London & Slagter, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 33, 756–68, 2021). Although AB size at the group level remained unchanged, the effects of anodal and cathodal tDCS were negatively correlated: if a given individual’s AB size decreased from baseline during anodal tDCS, their AB size would increase during cathodal tDCS, and vice versa. Here, we attempted to replicate this finding. We found no group effects of tDCS, as in the original study, but we no longer found a significant negative correlation. We present a series of statistical measures of replication success, all of which confirm that both studies are not in agreement. First, the correlation here is significantly smaller than a conservative estimate of the original correlation. Second, the difference between the correlations is greater than expected due to sampling error, and our data are more consistent with a zero-effect than with the original estimate. Finally, the overall effect when combining both studies is small and not significant. Our findings thus indicate that the effects of lDPLFC-tDCS on the AB are less substantial than observed in our initial study. Although this should be quite a common scenario, null findings can be difficult to interpret and are still under-represented in the brain stimulation and cognitive neuroscience literatures. An important auxiliary goal of this paper is therefore to provide a tutorial for other researchers, to maximize the evidential value from null findings.

Although autistic and anxious traits are positively correlated, high levels of autistic traits are associated with poorer emotional guidance of attention (EGA) whilst high levels of anxious traits are associated with greater EGA. In order to better understand how these two trait dimensions influence EGA, we simultaneously examined the effects of anxiety and autistic traits in neurotypical adults on target identification in an attentional blink task. Analyses indicated that implicit EGA is attenuated in individuals with higher levels of autistic traits, but largely unaffected by variation in anxious traits. Our results suggest that anxiety plays a comparatively limited role in modulating implicit EGA and reinforces the importance of disentangling correlated individual differences when exploring the effects of personality, including emotional predisposition, on attention.

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.