Je. Raymond et al., SIMILARITY DETERMINES THE ATTENTIONAL BLINK, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance, 21(3), 1995, pp. 653-662
When participants are required to respond to a target letter imbedded
in a stream of rapid serially presented letters, perception of a 2nd t
arget letter is impaired if the interval between the 2 targets is less
than about 450 ms. This attentionally based posttarget suppression in
visual processing, referred to as the attentional blink (AB), is not
found when there is a brief pause in the stream immediately after the
Ist target. To investigate the importance of posttarget stimulation in
AB production, the categorical, featural, and spatial similarity of t
he immediate posttarget item to other items in the stream was manipula
ted. Although featural and spatial dissimilarity produced significant
attenuation of the AB effect, categorical dissimilarity did not. Signi
ficant AB effects were found in all conditions, suggesting that the pr
esentation of any patterned stimulus in close temporal proximity to th
e target provokes the AB.