The progress revisited: How the dispute between stimulus-driven and contingent-capture advocates is hampered by a blindness for change

Abstract

ABSTRACT Luck, Gaspelin, Folk, Remington, and Theeuwes [2021. Progress toward resolving the attentional capture debate. Visual Cognition, 29(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/13506285.2020.1848949] argue that the debate regarding attentional capture has changed in such a way that there is now some consensus. However, even though a certain degree of agreement has been reached on the question whether locations can be preattentively inhibited or facilitated, the different views underlying the debate did not change fundamentally. The major question as to whether or not attentional control is contingent upon the non-spatial control settings of an observer is still not settled. In the present commentary I argue that the main reason for this is that current notions do not incorporate the possibility that the underlying processes are dynamic. To really move the debate forward, it is necessary to recognize that not only behaviour but also the underlying processes change over time.