Memmert tried to foster the development of attentional research by discussing four differences between attentional misdirection and inattentional blindness . Considering this goal, the comment was received in the intended way by the comments of 18 and 14 who make a number of highly valuable suggestions for further progress. As initially suggested by Memmert this dialog should help unravel the underlying attentional mechanisms of different paradigms. Therefore, we first discuss the suggested distinction between central and spatial IB by Most . (...) Second, we argue that working memory and perceptual load research seem particularly interesting in this regard and should be taken into consideration when conducting future research along the lines of IB and AM. Third, representative task designs can be an important mosaic piece in across-the-board attention theories and highly useful for deriving further testable hypothesis in naturalistic settings. The most important claim of all commentaries in this issue is that the proposed ideas can all be empirically tested and thereby contribute to the advancement of an unified theoretical framework incorporating IB, AM in consideration of overt and covert attention mechanisms. (shrink)

The present commentary addresses the main results obtained in the Butler and Klein [Butler, B. C., & Klein, R. . Inattentional blindness for ignored words: Comparison of explicit and implicit memory tasks. Consciousness and Cognition, 18, 811–819.] study and discusses them in relation to the Perceptual Load Theory of Lavie [Lavie, N. . Perceptual load as a necessary condition for selective attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 21, 451–68.]. The authors claim that the use of implicit indexes (...) of conceptual distractor processing in high-load situations would be an important addition to the load literature, which would benefit the research field regardless of their positive or negative findings. (shrink)

Attention is necessary for the conscious perception of any object. Objects not attended to are not seen. What is it that captures attention when we are engaged in some attention-absorbing task? Earlier research has shown that there are only a very few stimuli which have this power and therefore are reliably detected under these conditions . The two most reliable are the observer’s own name and a happy face icon which seem to capture attention by virtue of their meaning. Three (...) experiments are described which explore whether these stimuli are detected under conditions, heretofore unexamined, which either cause inattentional blindness or are associated with a perceptual failure associated with the limits of attention. The evidence obtained indicates that these stimuli have a unique capacity to capture and extend the limits of attention under conditions in which this has been deemed highly unlikely. (shrink)

Past research has repeatedly documented the close relationship between visual attention and awareness. Most recently, research exploring change blindness, inattentional blindness, repetition blindness, and the attentional blink has converged on the conclusion that attention to one aspect of a scene or event may lead to a highly circumscribed awareness of only the specific information attended, while other information, even that which is spatially or temporally nearby can go completely unnoticed. In the present report, we extend these observations to the dynamic (...) allocation of attention during a well-structured meaningful event. In two experiments, subjects viewed brief videos of simple events and were told to pay close attention to them. During the events, an unexpected disruption consisting of a brief low spatial frequency motion field occurred. Despite intensive questioning and opportunities for recognition, the majority of subjects reported no awareness of 200, 400, or 600 ms disruptions. In a second experiment, blank-screen disruptions were added, and these resulted in no increase in detection. We conclude that visual attention may result in far more transitory awareness of visual information than previously appreciated. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to shape a theoretical framework of attentiveness in care, which may function as a background to study attentiveness in a health care setting empirically. More insight into the functions, forms, and aspects of attentiveness in a particular health care setting is important, as there is a lack of indicators and criteria that enable a sharp picture of the caring side of health provision. The concept of attentiveness and its relation to care have seldom been (...) examined thoroughly and broadly. This article argues that attentiveness is constitutive for good care, as it can create a space in which a relationship may arise. (shrink)

First, we discuss issues raised with respect to the Theory of Event Coding (TEC)'s scope, that is, its limitations and possible extensions. Then, we address the issue of specificity, that is, the widespread concern that TEC is too unspecified and, therefore, too vague in a number of important respects. Finally, we elaborate on our views about TEC's relations to other important frameworks and approaches in the field like stages models, ecological approaches, and the two-visual-pathways model. Footnotes1 We acknowledge the precedence (...) of both Freud¹s Instincts and Their Vicissitudes (1915) and Neisser¹s Stimulus Information and Its Vicissitudes (a term Neisser borrowed from Freud for his monograph “Cognitive psychology,” 1967). (shrink)

When the stored representation of the meaning of a stimulus is accessed through the processing of a sensory input it is maintained in an activated state for a certain amount of time that allows for further processing. This semantic activation is generally accompanied by conscious identification, which can be demonstrated by the ability of a person to perform discriminations on the basis of the meaning of the stimulus. The idea that a sensory input can give rise to semantic activation without (...) concomitant conscious identification was the central thesis of the controversial research in subliminal perception. Recently, new claims for the existence of such phenomena have arisen from studies in dichotic listening, parafoveal vision, and visual pattern masking. Because of the fundamental role played by these types of experiments in cognitive psychology, the new assertions have raised widespread interest. (shrink)