Questioning the goal-switching account of the AB: comment on Ferlazzo et al. (2007)

Abstract

ABSTRACTIdentification of the second of two targets (T2) is impaired when presented less than about 500 ms after the first (T1; Attentional Blink: AB). Although the AB is known to be remarkably robust across many manipulations, [Ferlazzo, F., Lucido, S., Di Nocera, F., Fagioli, S., & Sdoia, S. (2007). Switching between goals mediates the attentional blink effect. Experimental Psychology, 54, 89–98; Ferlazzo, F., Faglioli, S., Sdoia, S., & Di Nocera, F. (2008). Goal-completion processes affect the attentional blink. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 20, 697–710] found it to be substantially attenuated when the observers were set to accomplish a single goal (e.g. reporting the sum of the T1 and T2 digits) instead of a dual goal (reporting T1 and T2 separately). The larger AB obtained with the dual-goal set was ascribed to the attentional switch necessitated by the goal-switch between T1 and T2. This conclusion is questionable on three grounds: non-equivalent scoring procedures across conditions, range of inter-target lags, and unreliability of the baseline level. These issues were addressed in the present study. Contrary to Ferlazzo et al.’s conclusions, we found no AB attenuation in the single-goal, relative to the dual-goal condition.