It's all about the transient: Intra-saccadic onset stimuli do not capture attention

Sebastiaan Mathôt,Jan Theeuwes

doi:10.16910/jemr.5.2.4

Abstract

An abrupt onset stimulus was presented while the participants' eyes were in motion. Because of saccadic suppression, participants did not perceive the visual transient that normally accompanies the sudden appearance of a stimulus. In contrast to the typical finding that the presentation of an abrupt onset captures attention and interferes with the participants' responses, we found that an intra-saccadic abrupt onset does not capture attention: It has no effect beyond that of increasing the set-size of the search array by one item. This finding favours the local transient account of attentional capture over the novel object hypothesis.

Highlights

Contrary to subjective experience, we are driven to a considerable extent by our environment
Even if we do manage to avoid directing our gaze towards a novel object, it invariably attracts our attention (Posner, 1980)
We investigate the effect of an abrupt onset that is presented during a saccadic eye movement

Summary

Introduction

We are driven to a considerable extent by our environment. When an object suddenly appears, we often cannot help but look at it (Theeuwes, Kramer, Hahn, & Irwin, 1998). Even if we do manage to avoid directing our gaze towards a novel object, it invariably attracts our attention (Posner, 1980). This involuntary shift of attention can be measured in an experimental setting: If a suddenly appearing stimulus (an 'abrupt onset') is not relevant to the task at hand, its appearance will disrupt performance (Theeuwes, 1994). If an abrupt onset happens to be task-relevant, even if just by chance, performance will improve (Yantis & Jonides, 1984)

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