Attentional blink

About: Attentional blink is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1346 publications have been published within this topic receiving 53064 citations. The topic is also known as: Attentional blinks.

Difficulty suppressing visual distraction while dual tasking

Abstract: Abstract Human beings must often perform multiple tasks concurrently or in rapid succession. Laboratory research has revealed striking limitations in the ability to dual task by asking participants to identify two target objects that are inserted into a rapid stream of irrelevant items. Under a variety of conditions, identification of the second target (T2) is impaired for a short period of time following presentation of the first target (T1). Several theories have been developed to account for this “attentional blink” (AB), but none makes a specific prediction about how processing of T1 might impact an observer’s ability to ignore a salient distractor that accompanies T2. Using event-related potentials (ERPs) to track target and distractor processing, we show that healthy young adults are capable of suppressing a salient visual-search distractor (D2) while dual tasking (as measured by the P D component, which has been associated with suppression) but struggle to do so shortly after the appearance of T1. In fact, the impairment was more severe for distractor processing than it was for target processing (as measured by the N2pc component). Whereas, the T2-elicited N2pc was merely delayed during the AB, the distractor P D was reduced in magnitude and was found to be statistically absent. We conclude that the inhibitory control processes that are typically engaged to prevent distraction are unavailable while an observer is busy processing a target that appeared earlier.

How Attentional Blink Facilitates Multitasking

Abstract: Multitasking is a required skill for complex and dynamic activities such as driving a car and piloting an airplane. Previous research in cognitive modeling has suggested that top-down control improves multitasking ability (Taatgen, 2005). An empirical study has been conducted to investigate how a basic neuro-cognitive effect (attentional blink) makes top-down control possible and improves multitasking performance.

Processing Speed and Attentional Resources

Abstract: The brain’s transmission rate and speed of information processing influence the quantity of information that can be evaluated and consequently constrain attentional capacity. Processing speed, as measured by reaction time, was studied intermittently as an indicator of individual differences in mental function in the late nineteenth century, but this line of investigation was essentially abandoned until the 1970s [1].

Testing the skill-based approach: Consolidation strategy impacts attentional blink performance

Abstract: Humans can learn simple new tasks very quickly. This ability suggests that people can reuse previously learned procedural knowledge when it applies to a new context. We have proposed a modeling approach based on this idea and used it to create a model of the attentional blink (AB). The main idea of the skill-based approach is that models are not created from scratch but, instead, built up from reusable pieces of procedural knowledge (skills). This approach not only provides an explanation for the fast learning of simple tasks but also shows much promise to improve certain aspects of cognitive modeling (e.g., robustness and generalizability). We performed two experiments, in order to collect empirical support for the model’s prediction that the AB will disappear when the two targets are consolidated as a single chunk. Firstly, we performed an unsuccessful replication of a study reporting that the AB disappears when participants are instructed to remember the targets as a syllable. However, a subsequent experiment using easily combinable stimuli supported the model’s prediction and showed a strongly reduced AB in a large group of participants. This result suggests that it is possible to avoid the AB with the right consolidation strategy. The skill-based approach allowed relating this finding to a general cognitive process, thereby demonstrating that incorporating this approach can be very helpful to generalize the findings of cognitive models, which otherwise tends to be rather difficult.