Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of Ministry of Education, School of Psychology, Southwest University, Beibei, Chongqing, China.
PLoS One. 2012;7(9):e44786. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0044786. Epub 2012 Sep 12.
Attentional blink (AB) is a phenomenon that describes the difficulty individuals have in reporting the second of two masked targets if the second target (T2) arrives 200-500 ms after the first target (T1). Recent studies explain the AB from cognitive resources limitation to distractors interference. For example, the temporary loss of control (TLC) hypothesis suggests that the AB is conduced by distractors disrupting the input filter for target processing. The inhibition models suggest that the T1+1 distractor triggers a suppression mechanism which could be beneficial for T1 processing but would suppress T2 at short T1-T2 lags. These models consider that the AB is caused by the appearance of distractors. However, in the present study, two methods were taken to help individuals to detect the distractors more effectively. An attenuated AB deficit was found when the distractors could be excluded or suppressed in time. We consider that under an appropriate condition the distractors detection and suppression have a beneficial effect on attentional blink.
METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Two methods were employed to help individuals to detect the distractors more effectively: enlarging the low-level-physical characteristic difference between targets and distractors (Experiment 1) and restricting the sets of distractors (Experiment 2). Attenuated AB deficits were found as using the above manipulations.
CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The present study found when the distractors are detected or identified quickly, they could be effectively suppressed, in order to reduce the interference from the targets and result in a smaller AB deficit. We suggest that the suppression mechanism for distractors have a beneficial effect on AB.
注意瞬脱（AB）是一种现象，描述了个体在第一个目标（T1）之后 200-500 毫秒出现第二个掩蔽目标（T2）时报告第二个目标的难度。最近的研究从认知资源限制到干扰物干扰的角度解释了 AB。例如，临时控制损失（TLC）假说表明，AB 是由干扰物破坏目标处理的输入滤波器引起的。抑制模型表明，T1+1 分心物触发了一种抑制机制，这种机制可能有利于 T1 处理，但会在短 T1-T2 滞后时抑制 T2。这些模型认为 AB 是由干扰物的出现引起的。然而，在本研究中，采取了两种方法来帮助个体更有效地检测干扰物。当干扰物可以及时排除或抑制时，发现注意瞬脱缺陷减弱。我们认为，在适当的条件下，干扰物的检测和抑制对注意瞬脱有有益的影响。
方法/主要发现：采用两种方法帮助个体更有效地检测干扰物：扩大目标和干扰物之间的低水平物理特征差异（实验 1）和限制干扰物的集合（实验 2）。使用上述操作发现注意瞬脱缺陷减弱。
结论/意义：本研究发现，当干扰物被快速检测或识别时，可以有效地抑制干扰物，以减少目标的干扰，从而导致较小的注意瞬脱缺陷。我们建议，干扰物的抑制机制对 AB 有有益的影响。
