The attentional blink is attenuated for objects of expertise

ABSTRACT

Perceptual expertise with a specific domain of stimuli has been shown to afford numerous benefits to information processing performance. Previous work has suggested that face perception, a domain of perceptual expertise for many, is less susceptible to one of the most robust examples of information processing limits, namely the attentional blink. Here we extend this finding to non-face objects of expertise, supporting an expertise-related account of this benefit. Further, the attenuation of the attentional blink phenomenon was correlated with expertise at an individual level, whereby greater expertise with cars yielded a smaller attentional blink for these stimuli. These results support previous work suggesting that extensive experience with a class of objects, such as in the case of perceptual experts, can reduce the consequence of inherent limitations in human information processing. Possible mechanistic accounts of how experience may circumvent processing limitations are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Attentional blink
• perceptual expertise
• capacity limitations

Notes

1 We recruited individuals for the study in two ways: (1) by advertising a need for “individuals with a range of experience identifying cars”, which yields mostly male participants; and (2) through an online recruitment pool, where we limited it to male participants to better match participants recruited via the different avenues. Expert and novice participants were recruited via both avenues.

Additional information

Funding

KMC was supported by a grant from the Australian Research Council [grant number DE130100969].