Blinking attention

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Attentional blink (ger .: attentional blink ) is a phenomenon in cognitive psychology . The attentional blink is a very short attention deficit , which at RSVP tasks ( rapid serial visual presentation occurs).

Alan T. Welford already postulated a psychological refractory period (PRP, psychological refractory period) in 1952 , during which no further stimuli could be processed after a stimulus was presented. The refractory period is the longer the shorter the SOA (stimulus onset asynchrony), ie the time interval between the two presented stimuli. These considerations were incorporated into Donald Broadbents (1958) filter theory of attention , which assumes serial stimulus processing with early selection (bottle-neck) based on physical stimulus characteristics.

RSVP tasks

RSVP translates as a visual presentation of stimuli in quick succession, which always appear in the same spatial position. Usually the stimuli are presented on a screen. In the study presented here, the stimuli were letters ( T for target, X for posttarget, E , A , F etc. as distractors) that appeared at the same point on the screen every 90 ms.

examination

The letters were now presented one after the other on the screen. The test subjects were instructed to identify the T , i.e. to draw their attention to it. Immediately thereafter (within about 90 ms) other stimuli appeared, one of them was the second target stimulus which X . They should also react to this if they saw it. The second target stimulus X can therefore be presented at point 1 (corresponds to a delay of 90 ms after target stimulus 1), at point 2 (delay of 180 ms), up to point 8 (delay of 720 ms) after target stimulus 1 . In this case, seven other letters (distractors) would between the target stimulus T and the target stimulus X emerge.

Results

If target stimulus 2 was presented at positions 2 and 3 after target stimulus 1, the recognition rate was by far the weakest (approximately 10%). If target stimulus 2 occurred at positions 1, 4, 5, 6 and 7, the recognition rate was also relatively weak (on average 30%). However, if target stimulus 2 was presented at position 8 after target stimulus 1, the recognition rate was over 80%.

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

model

In a further experiment in the same study, two test arrangements were compared to test their effects on the attentional blink. In the first case, no further stimulus was presented directly (90 ms) after target stimulus 1. The next stimulus did not appear until 180 ms (at position 2) after target stimulus 1. It was found that this omission of the first stimulus after target stimulus 1 was sufficient in order not to trigger an attentional blink. In the second case, however, a single stimulus immediately after the target stimulus was sufficient to trigger the attentional blink, even if no further distractors followed. Of course, target stimulus 2 had to follow in order to confirm the attentional blink. The authors concluded from this that the processing of target stimulus 1 requires a certain time, which is less than 180 ms. If another stimulus follows within these 180 ms, which must be observed because it could be the target stimulus, a kind of protective mechanism against cognitive overload occurs in that the attention “closes the door”. The door remains locked until the cognitive confusion is removed and information can be absorbed and processed again. This process is called Attentional Blink and takes at least 270 ms.

literature

  • M. Kiefer: Awareness. In: J. Müsseler, W. Prinz (Ed.): Allgemeine Psychologie. 1st edition. Spectrum, 2000, pp. 201-203.
  • JE Raymond, KL Shapiro, KM Arnell: Temporary suppression of visual processing in an RSVP task: an attentional blink? In: Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance. 18 (3), 1992, pp. 849-860.
  • KL Shapiro, KM Arnell, JE Raymond: The attentional blink: a view on attention and glimpse on consciousness. In: Trends Cogn. Sci. 1, 1997, pp. 291-296.
  • Cornelia Kranczioch, Stefan Debener, Jens Schwarzbach, Rainer Goebel, Andreas K. Engel: Neural correlates of conscious perception in the attentional blink. In: NeuroImage. 24, 2005, pp. 704-714.
  • C. Sergent, S. Baillet, S. Dehaene : Timing of the brain events underlying access to consciousness during the attentional blink. In: Nature Neuroscience . 8, 2005, pp. 1391-1400.