Attentional blink

Attention Blink (English: attentional blink ) is a phenomenon in cognitive psychology Represents the attention Blink is a very short attention deficit, which occurs in RSVP tasks (Rapid Serial Visual Presentation ).

Even Alan T. Welford 1952 postulated a psychological refractory period ( PRP, psychological refractory period ) in which, after presentation of a stimulus no further stimuli could be processed. The refractory period is the longer, the shorter the SOA ( stimulus onset asynchrony ), ie the time interval between the two stimuli was presented. These considerations were incorporated into Donald Broadbent's (1958 ) filter theory of attention, which accepts a serial processing of stimuli with early selection (bottle -neck ) on the basis of physical stimulus characteristics.

RSVP tasks

RSVP translates a fast sequential visual presentation of stimuli that always appear at the same spatial location. Normally, the stimuli are presented on a screen. In one of the study, the stimuli were each letter (T for target, X is post- target, E, A, F, etc. as distractors ), which emerged at the same places on the screen at a distance of 90 ms.

Investigation

There have now been the consecutive letters presented on the screen. The subjects were instructed to identify the T, so to direct their attention to it. Immediately thereafter (at intervals of 90 ms) appeared more stimuli, one of them was the second target stimulus, the X. These should react if they saw him they. The second target stimulus X can therefore, at 1 ( corresponding to a delay of 90 ms after the target stimulus 1), at the point 2 ( delay of 180 ms), up to the point 8 ( delay of 720 ms) after the target stimulus 1 presented are. In this case, seven other letters ( distractors ) would appear between the target stimulus and the target stimulus X T.

Results

If the target stimulus presented 2 at the points 2 and 3 after the target stimulus 1, as was the rate of recognition by far the weakest ( about 10 %). Came the target stimulus 2 at the points 1, 4, 5, 6 and 7 before, so the re- identification rate was also relatively low ( on average 30%). If the target stimulus 2, however, presented at the point 8 after the target stimulus 1, the recognition rate was above 80%.

The authors concluded from the fact that a temporary suppression of attention is the cause of the poor recognition rates, which comes through the processing and storage of information on the target stimulus 1 about. The attentional blink therefore occurs depending on the experimental arrangement 180 ms after the target stimulus had to be identified and has a duration of at least 270 ms. In this period, it is hardly possible to identify a second target stimulus.

Model

In another experiment, the same study, two experimental setups were compared in order to test their effects on the attentional blink. In the first case was directly (90 ms) after the target stimulus 1 presented no further appeal. Only 180 ms ( at site 2 ) to target stimulus appeared on one of the next stimulus. It turned out that this omission of the first stimulus was sufficient after 1 target stimulus to trigger no attentional blink. In the second case, however, was enough for a single stimulus immediately after the target stimulus to trigger the attentional blink, even if followed then no other distractors. The target stimulus 2 had to follow in order to confirm the attentional blink naturally. The authors concluded from the fact that the processing of the target stimulus 1, a certain amount of time which is less than 180 ms. Follow this within 180 ms already another stimulus, care must be taken to, because he could be the target stimulus, so there is a kind of protective mechanism against cognitive overload by the attention, " the door to make ." The door remains closed until the cognitive confusion is eliminated again, and you can again absorb and process information. This process is referred to as flashing and attentional takes at least 270 ms.