Attentional capture by the onset and offset of motion signals outside the spatial focus of attention

Abstract

The present study examined whether participants were able to ignore a task-irrelevant commencement or cessation of optic flow while they were engaging in a letter-identification task, as claimed by adherents of the view that attentional set determines deployment of attention, or whether irrelevant events would capture attention regardless of observers' attentional set, as claimed by adherents of a broad range of views emphasizing the behavioral urgency of stimulus motion. Observers identified a green letter in a central rapid stream of heterogeneously colored nontargets. A completely task-irrelevant optic flow occurred in the periphery. If attentional deployment were governed by a top-down attentional set, the letter identification would be unaffected by the temporal change in the optic flow. The results reflected attentional capture by commencement or cessation of optic flow, which is inconsistent with the top-down view. When the peripheral dots expanded at various speeds before onset of the target, identification was impaired relative to when no motion occurred. Mere commencement or cessation of motion was sufficient to produce the capture effect. Qualitative (commencement or cessation) rather than quantitative changes (acceleration or deceleration) of the motion display were critical for the occurrence of attentional capture. We conclude that salient discontinuities in optic flow induce attentional capture when observers search for a feature in a different stimulus domain, an idea implying a unique role for of expanding global motion in the deployment of visual attention.