THE STRUCTURE OF ATTENTION CONTROL - CONTINGENT ATTENTIONAL CAPTURE BY APPARENT MOTION, ABRUPT ONSET, AND COLOR

Five spatial cuing experiments tested 2 hypotheses regarding attention al capture: (a) Attentional capture is contingent on endogenous attent ional control settings, and (b) attentional control settings are limit ed to the distinction between dynamic and static discontinuities (C. L . Folk, R. W. Remington, & J. C. Johnston, 1992). In Experiments 1 and 2, apparent-motion precues produced significant costs in performance for targets signaled by motion but not for targets signaled by color o r abrupt onset. Experiment 3 established that this pattern is not due to differences in the difficulty of target discrimination. Experiments 4 and 5 revealed asymmetric capture effects between abrupt onset and apparent motion related to stimulus salience. The results support the hypotheses of Folk et al. (1992) and suggest that stimulus salience ma y also play a role in attentional capture.