Lagroix Hayley E P, Grubert Anna, Spalek Thomas M, Di Lollo Vincent, Eimer Martin
Department of Psychology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.
Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck College, University of London, London, UK.
Psychophysiology. 2015 Aug;52(8):1031-8. doi: 10.1111/psyp.12435. Epub 2015 Apr 14.
In the phenomenon known as the attentional blink (AB), perception of the second of two rapidly sequential targets (T2) is impaired when presented shortly after the first (T1). Studies in which T2 consisted of a pop-out search array provided evidence suggesting that visual search is postponed during the AB. In the present work, we used behavioral and electrophysiological measures to test this postponement hypothesis. The behavioral measure was reaction time (RT) to T2; the electrophysiological measure was the onset latency of an ERP index of attentional selection, known as the N2pc. Consistent with the postponement hypothesis, both measures were delayed during the AB. The delay in N2pc was substantially shorter than that in RT, pointing to multiple sources of delay in the chain of processing events, as distinct from the single source postulated in current theories of the AB. Finally, the finding that the N2pc was delayed during the AB strongly suggests that attention is involved in the processing of pop-out search arrays.
在被称为注意瞬脱（AB）的现象中，当两个快速相继呈现的目标中的第二个目标（T2）在第一个目标（T1）之后不久呈现时，对其的感知会受到损害。在T2由一个突现搜索阵列组成的研究中，有证据表明在注意瞬脱期间视觉搜索被推迟。在本研究中，我们使用行为学和电生理学方法来检验这一推迟假说。行为学测量指标是对T2的反应时（RT）；电生理学测量指标是一种被称为N2pc的注意选择ERP指标的起始潜伏期。与推迟假说一致，在注意瞬脱期间这两个测量指标都出现了延迟。N2pc的延迟比RT的延迟短得多，这表明在加工事件链中存在多个延迟源，这与当前注意瞬脱理论所假定的单一延迟源不同。最后，N2pc在注意瞬脱期间出现延迟这一发现强烈表明，注意参与了突现搜索阵列的加工过程。
