The role of perceptual load in inattentional blindness

Perceptual load theory offers a resolution to the long-standing early vs. late selection debate over whether task-irrelevant stimuli are perceived, suggesting that irrelevant perception depends upon the perceptual load of task-relevant processing. However, previous evidence for this theory has relied on RTs and neuroimaging. Here we tested the effects of load on conscious perception using the "inattentional blindness" paradigm. As predicted by load theory, awareness of a task-irrelevant stimulus was significantly reduced by higher perceptual load (with increased numbers of search items, or a harder discrimination vs. detection task). These results demonstrate that conscious perception of task-irrelevant stimuli critically depends upon the level of task-relevant perceptual load rather than intentions or expectations, thus enhancing the resolution to the early vs. late selection debate offered by the perceptual load theory.

[1]  S. Tipper.  The Negative Priming Effect: Inhibitory Priming by Ignored Objects , 1985, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology.

[2]  N. Lavie.  Perceptual load as a necessary condition for selective attention. , 1995, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[3]  Anne D. Pick,et al.  Perception and its development: A tribute to Eleanor J. Gibson , 1979 .

[4]  A. Treisman,et al.  A feature-integration theory of attention , 1980, Cognitive Psychology.

[5]  P. Downing,et al.  Bodies capture attention when nothing is expected , 2004, Cognition.

[6]  G. Woodman,et al.  Neural fate of ignored stimuli: dissociable effects of perceptual and working memory load , 2004, Nature Neuroscience.

[7]  C. Chabris,et al.  Gorillas in Our Midst: Sustained Inattentional Blindness for Dynamic Events , 1999, Perception.

[8]  A. Mack,et al.  What we see: Inattention and the capture of attention by meaning , 2002, Consciousness and Cognition.

[9]  J. Wolfe.  Inattentional Amnesia , 2000 .

[10]  N Lavie,et al.  The role of perceptual load in negative priming. , 1998, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[11]  C. Eriksen,et al.  Effects of noise letters upon the identification of a target letter in a nonsearch task , 1974 .

[12]  D. Broadbent.  Perception and communication , 1958 .

[13]  N. Lavie.  Distracted and confused?: Selective attention under load , 2005, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[14]  I. Rock,et al.  Inattentional blindness: Perception without attention. , 1998 .

[15]  U. Neisser,et al.  Selective looking: Attending to visually specified events , 1975, Cognitive Psychology.

[16]  A. Bonnel,et al.  Early Modulation of Visual Input: A Study of Attentional Strategies , 1987, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology.

[17]  J. C. Johnston,et al.  Involuntary covert orienting is contingent on attentional control settings. , 1992, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[18]  I Rock,et al.  Inattentional Blindness as a Function of Proximity to the Focus of Attention , 1998, Perception.

[19]  R. Dolan,et al.  Attentional load and sensory competition in human vision: modulation of fMRI responses by load at fixation during task-irrelevant stimulation in the peripheral visual field. , 2005, Cerebral cortex.

[20]  N. Lavie,et al.  The influence of perceptual load on age differences in selective attention. , 1998, Psychology and aging.

[21]  M. Pinsk,et al.  Push-pull mechanism of selective attention in human extrastriate cortex. , 2004, Journal of neurophysiology.

[22]  Nilli Lavie,et al.  Contrasting effects of sensory limits and capacity limits in visual selective attention , 2003, Perception & psychophysics.

[23]  Steven B. Most,et al.  How not to be Seen: The Contribution of Similarity and Selective Ignoring to Sustained Inattentional Blindness , 2001, Psychological science.

[24]  J. Deutsch,et al.  Attention: Some theoretical considerations. , 1963 .

[25]  Nilli Lavie,et al.  Selective attention and cognitive control: dissociating attentional functions through different types of load , 1998 .

[26]  N. Lavie,et al.  On the Efficiency of Visual Selective Attention: Efficient Visual Search Leads to Inefficient Distractor Rejection , 1997 .

[27]  C D Frith,et al.  Modulating irrelevant motion perception by varying attentional load in an unrelated task. , 1997, Science.

[28]  M. D’Esposito.  Working memory. , 2008, Handbook of clinical neurology.

[29]  Steven B. Most,et al.  What you see is what you set: sustained inattentional blindness and the capture of awareness. , 2005, Psychological review.

[30]  Brian J. Scholl,et al.  PSYCHE an interdisciplinary journal of research on consciousness Sustained Inattentional Blindness : The Role of Location in the Detection of Unexpected Dynamic Events , 2000 .

[31]  Jochen Braun.  It's Great But Not Necessarily About Attention , 2001 .

[32]  Leslie G. Ungerleider,et al.  Neural processing of emotional faces requires attention , 2002, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.