Abstract
Participants identified target letters at cued locations in the presence of occasional abrupt onsets of new distractor letters. The onsets distracted the participants and impaired their letter identification performance despite confirmation that they were using the information provided by the cue. This result contrasts with earlier results found by other researchers that revealed an ability of participants to ignore abrupt onsets in some cases. Our results, however, were obtained under conditions that prevented anticipatory eye movements to the target. In a subsequent experiment when participants were permitted to look at the target in advance, the distracting effect of the onsets was eliminated, suggesting that participants may have looked at the target in the earlier studies. We conclude that abrupt onsets cannot be ignored unless the target element receives a substantial advantage via fixation.
Article PDF
References
Abrams, R. A., &Christ, S. E. (2003). Motion onset captures attention.Psychological Science,14, 427–432.
Christ, S. E., & Abrams, R. A. (2005).Automatic capture of attention by motion onset. Manuscript submitted for publication.
Christ, S. E., McCrae, C. S., &Abrams, R. A. (2002). Inhibition of return in static and dynamic displays.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,9, 80–85.
Davoli, C. C., Suszko, J. W., & Abrams, R. A. (in press). New objects can capture attention without a unique luminance transient.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.
Derryberry, D., &Reed, M. A. (1994). Temperament and attention: Orienting toward and away from positive and negative signals.Journal of Personality & Social Psychology,66, 1128–1139.
Enns, J. T., Austen, E. L., Di Lollo, V., Rauschenberger, R., &Yantis, S. (2001). New objects dominate luminance transients in setting attentional priority.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,27, 1287–1302.
Franconeri, S. L., Hollingworth, A., &Simons, D. J. (2005). Do new objects capture attention?Psychological Science,16, 275–281.
Franconeri, S. L., &Simons, D. J. (2003). Moving and looming stimuli capture attention.Perception & Psychophysics,65, 999–1010.
Irwin, D. E., Colcombe, A. M., Kramer, A. F., &Hahn, S. (2000). Attentional and oculomotor capture by onset, luminance and color singletons.Vision Research,40, 1443–1458.
Jonides, J., Naveh-Benjamin, M., &Palmer, J. (1985). Assessing automaticity.Acta Psychologica,60, 157–171.
Jordan, T. R., Patching, G. R., &Milner, A. D. (1998). Central fixations are inadequately controlled by instructions alone: Implications for studying cerebral asymmetry.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,51A, 371–391.
Neo, G., & Chua, F. K. (in press). Capturing focused attention.Perception & Psychophysics.
Palmer, J., &Jonides, J. (1988). Automatic memory search and the effects of information load and irrelevant information.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,14, 136–144.
Theeuwes, J. (1991). Exogenous and endogenous control of attention: The effect of visual onsets and offsets.Perception & Psychophysics,49, 83–90.
Yantis, S., &Hillstrom, A. P. (1994). Stimulus-driven attentional capture: Evidence from equiluminant visual objects.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,20, 95–107.
Yantis, S., &Jonides, J. (1984). Abrupt visual onsets and selective attention: Evidence from visual search.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,10, 601–621.
Yantis, S., &Jonides, J. (1990). Abrupt visual onsets and selective attention: Voluntary versus automatic allocation.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,16, 121–134.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Christ, S.E., Abrams, R.A. Abrupt onsets cannot be ignored. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 13, 875–880 (2006). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03194012
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03194012