Testing the attention shift hypothesis as an account for the flanker sequence-based congruency modulation in spatial flanker tasks

Abstract

Smaller Simon effects when stimulus locations are repeated on successive trials rather than alternated have been explained by the attention shift hypothesis, suggesting that shifts of attention result in interfering response codes. We investigated whether the attention shift hypothesis can also explain smaller flanker effects for repeated flankers than for alternated flankers, which occur only with directional information. In 3 peripheral letter identification tasks, target locations were cued by partial or complete flanker stimuli. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that directional flankers elicit shifts of attention. However, Experiment 3 revealed that directional flankers induced inverted cuing effects when reacting to the central target arrow was additionally required. These results are difficult to reconcile with the attention shift hypothesis as an explanation for the congruency reduction with repetitions of directional flankers.