Attentional capture: An ameliorable side-effect of searching for salient targets

Liesefeld, Heinrich R.; Liesefeld, Anna M. und Müller, Hermann J. (2021): Attentional capture: An ameliorable side-effect of searching for salient targets. In: Visual Cognition, Vol. 29, No. 9: pp. 600-603

Abstract

This commentary highlights that some of the remaining discrepancies in the attentional-capture debate can be resolved by a simple assumption: observers do not use the priority map when this map is useless to solve the task. Rather, whenever search targets are known to be non-salient, observers resort to a previously postulated alternative search strategy for which (distractor) saliency signals are irrelevant. Equipped with this assumption, we trace thus-far unaccounted-for discrepancies between empirical studies on attentional capture back to specific design choices that affect relative target saliency (display density and non-target heterogeneity).

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Psychology and Education Science > Department Psychology
• Subjects: 100 Philosophy and Psychology > 150 Psychology
• ISSN: 1350-6285
• Language: English