Abstract
Researchers have proposed that during visual search, a color singleton cannot capture attention in a bottom-up fashion (Jonides & Yantis, 1988). In the present study, we manipulated the size of the attentional window by asking participants to detect either a global (diffuse attention) or a local (focused attention) shape before starting the search for a nonsingleton target. We demonstrate that increasing the size of attentional window causes the observers to frequently orient to an irrelevant color singleton. We conclude that although the size of attentional window might be under a top-down control, within the attentional window, an irrelevant salient singleton can capture attention in a bottom-up fashion.
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This work was based on the master’s thesis of L.Z., who is now affiliated with the EMGO Institute, Department of Social Medicine, Vrije Universiteit Medical Center, Amsterdam.
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Belopolsky, A.V., Zwaan, L., Theeuwes, J. et al. The size of an attentional window modulates attentional capture by color singletons. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 14, 934–938 (2007). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03194124
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03194124