New objects do not capture attention without a top-down setting: Evidence from an inattentional blindness task

Abstract

Past studies have suggested that a new object can involuntarily capture attention in a visual search task (Yantis & Jonides, 1984). However, trials in these experiments usually begin with abrupt onsets that are considered to signal new objects; thus, there may be a bias toward paying attention to new objects. We examine whether new objects can still capture attention when this bias is excluded, using an inattentional blindness task. Our results showed that when the trials began with new objects, a new object captured attention. When new objects were totally irrelevant and all top-down settings for new objects were prevented, a new object did not capture attention. Our findings argue against the view that new objects capture attention in a purely stimulus-driven fashion.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by grants from the National Science Council in Taiwan, NSC90-2413-H-002-021, NSC93-2413-H-002-005, and NSC94-2752-H-002-008-PAE. We thank Hsin-I Liao, Chia-Chen Wu, San-Yuan Lin, and Hao-Hsiang You for their help in collecting part of the data.