An attentional blink for non-patterned visual information

Abstract

This series of experiments demonstrates the occurrence of an attentional blink (AB) for two types of non-patterned information: chromatic information and location information. In Experiments 1-4, subjects identified an H or S (T1) in an RSVP stream containing coloured letters, and then detected the presence of a specific colour (T2) in the remainder of the stream. When T2 followed within approximately 500 ms after T1, a dramatic deficit in T2 detection resulted. In Experiment 5, T2 was presented in either green or red, and the remainder of the stream alternated between the two colours. Task 2 was to report whether green or red appeared first in the display. This produced an even larger AB than in the previous experiment. In Experiment 6, subjects attended three disks and reported, the location of a missing disk (T1), and the first colour to appear in the display (the middle disk was presented in green or red (T2), and then that disk alternated between green and red throughout the remainder of the display). In Experiment 7, the order of presentation of T1 and T2 was reversed so that Task 1 required subjects to identify the first colour, and Task 2 required subjects to identify the location of the first missing disk. In both cases, a dramatic deficit in Task 2 resulted when T2 followed within less than 500 ms after T1. Experiments 1-5 demonstrate that the AB can occur for chromatic information. Experiments 6 and 7 demonstrate that the AB can occur for location information. The implications of these results for various theories of the AB are discussed in the General Discussion.