Both exogenous and endogenous target salience manipulations support resource depletion accounts of the attentional blink: A reply to Olivers et al

Abstract

Input-control theories of the attentional blink (AB) suggest that this deficit results from impaired attentional selection caused by the post-Target 1 (T1) distractor (Di Lollo et al., 2005; Olivers et al., 2007). Accordingly, there should be no AB when there are no intervening distractors between the targets. Contrary to these hypotheses, Dux et al. (2008) observed an AB (T3 deficit) when three targets, from the same attentional set, were presented successively in a rapid stream of distractors if subjects increased the resources devoted to T1 processing, a result consistent with resource depletion accounts of the AB. However, Olivers et al. (this issue) argue that Dux et al.'s results can be better explained by the relationship between T1 and T2 rather than between T1 and T3, and by target discriminability effects. Here, we find that manipulating the resources subjects devote to T1, either exogenously (target perceptual salience) or endogenously (target task-relevance), affects T3 performance even when controlling for T2 and target discriminability differences. These results support Dux et al.'s conclusion that T1 resource depletion underlies the AB.

Figure 1

A) Example RSVP streams for Experiments 1. B) Example RSVP streams for Experiments 2a, 2b and 2c. Black stimuli appeared in red in all the experiments.

Figure 2

Mean T1, T2, and T3 accuracy in Experiment 1 as a function of Trial Type (Uniform vs. Varied), plotted separately for the T1-Relevant Group and the T3-Relevant Group.

Figure 3

Mean T1, T2, and T3 accuracy as a function of T1–T3 Lag (Short Lag vs. Long Lag) plotted separately for Experiments 2a, 2b and 2c.