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. 2010 Sep 15;50(19):2015-27.
doi: 10.1016/j.visres.2010.07.015. Epub 2010 Jul 24.

Attentional capture by masked colour singletons

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Free article

Attentional capture by masked colour singletons

Ulrich Ansorge et al. Vision Res. .
Free article

Abstract

We tested under which conditions a colour singleton of which an observer is unaware captures attention. To prevent visual awareness of the colour singleton, we used backward masking. We find that a masked colour singleton cue captures attention if it matches the observer's goal to search for target colours but not if it is task-irrelevant. This is also reflected in event-related potentials to the visible target: the masked goal-matching cue elicits an attentional potential (N2pc) in a target search task. By contrast, a non-matching but equally strong masked colour singleton cue failed to elicit a capture effect and an N2pc. Results are discussed with regard to currently pertaining conceptions of attentional capture by colour singletons.

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