Visual masking plays two roles in the attentional blink

When two targets are displayed in rapid visual sequence and masked by trail ing patterns, identification accuracy is nearly perfect for the first targe t but follows a U-shaped pattern over temporal lag for the second target. T hree experiments examined the role of visual masking in this attentional bl ink. Experiment 1 compared integration and interruption masks for both targ ets. Although either mask was effective in producing the blink when applied to the first target, only the interruption mask was effective when applied to the second target. Experiment 2 showed that integration masking of the second target was ineffective over a wide range of accuracy levels. Combini ng the two forms of masking in Experiment 3 confirmed the dissociation: A c ombined mask had only a main effect on accuracy for the first target, where as it produced a qualitatively different pattern over temporal lag for the second target. These results suggest that representations of the target are substituted in consciousness by that of the interruption mask when visual attention is preoccupied.