Expectancy-based modulations of lag-1 sparing and extended sparing during the attentional blink.

Abstract

Over 20 years of research has shown that impairments in the identification of sequential targets—known as the attentional blink—are often eliminated when 2 or more targets are presented in direct succession. Such instances of lag-1 sparing and, more recently, extended sparing are widely attributed to the fact that directly successive visual inputs that possess common characteristics can be processed during an extended attentional window. Critically, this explanation implies that direct temporal succession and shared characteristics are sufficient to result in sparing. Here, I test this proposition directly by varying the probability of successive targets appearing during an experimental session. Across 5 experiments, I show that probability manipulations significantly affect the magnitude of sparing, with less sparing when the probability of a target appearing is relatively low. This outcome cannot be explained by resource shifts between targets, errors in perception of target order, or practice effects. Instead, the results suggest that sparing is determined not only by temporal contiguity and shared target characteristics but also by endogenous control processes that directly affect the duration of the attentional window.

Neural dynamics of the attentional blink revealed by encoding orientation selectivity during rapid visual presentation

“…The one exception was the item at Lag 1, where the reported orientation of T1 was as strongly influenced by the orientation of T2 as by the orientation of T1. This observation is in line with numerous studies which have suggested that temporal order information can be lost for consecutive targets 29,33 . This phenomenon, also known as Lag 1 switching, where the perceived order of the targets is reversed, explains why the accuracy of orientation judgements on both T1 and T2 was reduced at Lag 1 (see also Supplementary Fig.…”

“…Experiment 1-biased perception of targets by preceding distractors. Previous work suggests that distractor processing can significantly interfere with target processing [39][40][41] , particularly for the immediate post-target item which can be integrated into the target representation 28,29,33 . To determine whether this was the case in our data, we repeated the previous analysis but used the difference in orientation between the target and each of the other items in the RSVP stream ( Fig.…”

Neural dynamics of the attentional blink revealed by encoding orientation selectivity during rapid visual presentation

“…The one exception was the item at Lag 1, where the reported orientation of T1 was as strongly influenced by the orientation of T2 as by the orientation of T1. This observation is in line with numerous studies which have suggested that temporal order information can be lost for consecutive targets 25, 26, 30 . This phenomenon, also known as Lag 1 switching, where the perceived order of the targets is reversed, explains why the accuracy of orientation judgements on both T1 and T2 was reduced at Lag 1 (see also Supplementary Figure 4).…”

“…This finding is not explicitly predicted by any existing account of the AB. The largest bias was for Lag 1 trials, in which the two targets appear sequentially, a result that is consistent with Lag 1 switching 25, 26, 30 . The orientation of the immediate post-target distractor also significantly biased the perceived target orientation, whereas the distractors that appeared between the targets did not bias perceptual judgements.…”

“…Previous work suggests that distractor processing can significantly interfere with target processing 37–39 , particularly for the immediate post-target item which can be integrated into the target representation 25, 26, 30 . To determine whether this was the case in our data, we repeated the previous analysis but used the difference in orientation between the target and each of the other items in the RSVP stream (Figure 3C).…”