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Congruency of gaze capturing events modulates the attended field of view
Presented at the 31st European Conference on Visual Perception, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Erik Groenewold, Remco Renken, Frans Cornelissen
Several explanations of attentional capture have invoked the idea of an attentional window that influences capture efficiency. We tested the hypothesis that observers use top-down control, by setting the size of this attentional window, to regulate whether environmental signals are allowed to capture attention. Participants (N=14) performed a dynamic serial search task that closely resembles everyday viewing behaviour. During the task, abrupt onsets were presented and participants’ eyes were being tracked. Onsets cued target positions with different validities known to the participant. Oculomotor capture allowed us to explicitly measure attentional window size. Attentional window size increased with expected onset validity, even though serial search tasks generally imply a narrow attentional focus. We suggest that the main rule that governs whether attention is captured is whether environmental signals are expected to be relevant for the task at hand.
Poster in pdf format: GrReCo08.pdf