Degree Type
Honors Capstone Project
Date of Submission
Spring 5-1-2014
Capstone Advisor
Natalie Russo, Assistant Professor of Psychology
Honors Reader
Amy Criss, Associate Professor of Psychology
Capstone Major
Psychology
Capstone College
Arts and Science
Audio/Visual Component
no
Capstone Prize Winner
no
Won Capstone Funding
no
Honors Categories
Sciences and Engineering
Subject Categories
Biological Psychology | Cognition and Perception | Psychology
Abstract
When participants are asked to detect two targets (T1 and T2) in a stream of rapidly presented visual stimuli, T2 accuracy decreases when it follows T1 by 200 ms to 500 ms, a phenomenon known as the attentional blink (AB). Researchers have been attempting to attenuate the AB through experimental manipulations in order to understand temporal processing in the visual domain. Studies that have successfully attenuated the blink have often (but not always) done so using a concurrent task. One current model of visual temporal attention, the Wyble-Bowman-Nieuwenstien model (2009) suggests that a byproduct of the attenuation of the attentional blink would be that participants would be more likely to confuse the order in which the two targets appear (Swaps). This project uses a concurrent task manipulation to a) attempt to reduce the attentional blink and b) test whether the number of swaps increases when participants have to attend to two tasks as compared to 1. The findings after data filtering support the model in that there were significantly larger numbers of swaps that occurred during the concurrent task, relative to the control task, and that the blink was significantly attenuated. The implication of these findings for our understanding of visual temporal attention are discussed.
Recommended Citation
Debes, Samantha Riane, "Attenuating the Attentional Blink and its Consequences: Support for the Wyble-Bowman-Nieuwenstien model" (2014). Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All. 763.
https://surface.syr.edu/honors_capstone/763
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
