Is the Diminished Attentional Blink for Salient T2 Stimuli Driven by a Response Bias?

Abstract

The attentional blink (AB) effect refers to the finding that the second of two quickly presented masked targets (T1 and T2) is less likely to be identified when the temporal lag between the targets is short than when it is long (Raymond, Shapiro, & Arnell, 1992). Interestingly, the AB effect is diminished for salient T2 stimuli. The common explanation is that salient stimuli are processed more efficiently than other stimuli. A contrasting hypothesis is that it is due to a bias to report such stimuli. Recently, Tibboel, Van Bockstaele, and De Houwer (2011) introduced a signal detection method that allowed them to reject the response bias explanation for the effect of arousing words on the AB. Presently, we used the same method to examine the diminished AB for participants’ own names (Experiment 1) and stimuli that form a coherent category (Experiment 2). Both experiments confirmed that the effect of these stimuli on the AB reflects more efficient processing rather than a response bias.