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Individual Differences in the Attentional Blink: The Temporal Profile of Blinkers and Non-Blinkers
BACKGROUND: When two targets are presented in close temporal succession, the majority of people frequently fail to report the second target. This phenomenon, known as the ‘attentional blink’ (AB), has been a major topic in attention research for the past twenty years because it is informative about...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2013
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3670894/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23755299 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0066185 |
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author | Willems, Charlotte Wierda, Stefan M. van Viegen, Eva Martens, Sander |
author_facet | Willems, Charlotte Wierda, Stefan M. van Viegen, Eva Martens, Sander |
author_sort | Willems, Charlotte |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: When two targets are presented in close temporal succession, the majority of people frequently fail to report the second target. This phenomenon, known as the ‘attentional blink’ (AB), has been a major topic in attention research for the past twenty years because it is informative about the rate at which stimuli can be encoded into consciously accessible representations. An aspect of the AB that has long been ignored, however, is individual differences. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here we compare a group of blinkers (who show an AB) and non-blinkers (who show little or no AB), and investigate the boundary conditions of the non-blinkers' remarkable ability. Second, we directly test the properties of temporal selection by analysing response errors, allowing us to uncover individual differences in suppression, delay, and diffusion of selective attention across time. Thirdly, we test the hypothesis that information concerning temporal order is compromised when an AB is somehow avoided. Surprisingly, compared to earlier studies, only a modest amount of suppression was found for blinkers. Non-blinkers showed no suppression, were more precise in selecting the second target, and made less order reversals than blinkers did. In contrast, non-blinkers made relatively more intrusions and showed a selection delay when the second target immediately followed the first target (at lag 1). CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: The findings shed new light on the mechanisms that may underlie individual differences in selective attention. The notable ability of non-blinkers to accurately perceive targets presented in close temporal succession might be due to a relatively faster and more precise target selection process compared to large blinkers. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3670894 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2013 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-36708942013-06-10 Individual Differences in the Attentional Blink: The Temporal Profile of Blinkers and Non-Blinkers Willems, Charlotte Wierda, Stefan M. van Viegen, Eva Martens, Sander PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: When two targets are presented in close temporal succession, the majority of people frequently fail to report the second target. This phenomenon, known as the ‘attentional blink’ (AB), has been a major topic in attention research for the past twenty years because it is informative about the rate at which stimuli can be encoded into consciously accessible representations. An aspect of the AB that has long been ignored, however, is individual differences. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here we compare a group of blinkers (who show an AB) and non-blinkers (who show little or no AB), and investigate the boundary conditions of the non-blinkers' remarkable ability. Second, we directly test the properties of temporal selection by analysing response errors, allowing us to uncover individual differences in suppression, delay, and diffusion of selective attention across time. Thirdly, we test the hypothesis that information concerning temporal order is compromised when an AB is somehow avoided. Surprisingly, compared to earlier studies, only a modest amount of suppression was found for blinkers. Non-blinkers showed no suppression, were more precise in selecting the second target, and made less order reversals than blinkers did. In contrast, non-blinkers made relatively more intrusions and showed a selection delay when the second target immediately followed the first target (at lag 1). CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: The findings shed new light on the mechanisms that may underlie individual differences in selective attention. The notable ability of non-blinkers to accurately perceive targets presented in close temporal succession might be due to a relatively faster and more precise target selection process compared to large blinkers. Public Library of Science 2013-06-03 /pmc/articles/PMC3670894/ /pubmed/23755299 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0066185 Text en © 2013 Willems et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Willems, Charlotte Wierda, Stefan M. van Viegen, Eva Martens, Sander Individual Differences in the Attentional Blink: The Temporal Profile of Blinkers and Non-Blinkers |
title | Individual Differences in the Attentional Blink: The Temporal Profile of Blinkers and Non-Blinkers |
title_full | Individual Differences in the Attentional Blink: The Temporal Profile of Blinkers and Non-Blinkers |
title_fullStr | Individual Differences in the Attentional Blink: The Temporal Profile of Blinkers and Non-Blinkers |
title_full_unstemmed | Individual Differences in the Attentional Blink: The Temporal Profile of Blinkers and Non-Blinkers |
title_short | Individual Differences in the Attentional Blink: The Temporal Profile of Blinkers and Non-Blinkers |
title_sort | individual differences in the attentional blink: the temporal profile of blinkers and non-blinkers |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3670894/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23755299 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0066185 |
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