In a recent commentary, Memmert critiqued claims that attentional misdirection is directly analogous to inattentional blindness and cautioned against assuming too close a similarity between the two phenomena. One important difference highlighted in his analysis is that most lab-based inductions of IB rely on the taxing of attention through a demanding primary task, whereas attentional misdirection typically involves simply the orchestration of spatial attention. The present commentary argues that, rather than reflecting a complete dissociation between IB and attentional misdirection, this (...) difference highlights potential grounds for delineating mechanistically distinct forms of IB: spatial inattentional blindness, which stems from the covert misallocation of spatial attention, and central inattentional blindness, which stems from disruption or preoccupation of perceptual mechanisms that interface with higher-level processes such as working memory. Recognition of such distinctions can help situate theoretical understanding of IB more firmly within the context of the broader attention literature. (shrink)

The present commentary addresses two issues arising from Memmert’s paper. First, can the ‘misdirection’ and ‘inattentional blindness’ paradigms provide important insights into the relationship between ‘overt’ and ‘covert’ attentional processes? Second, what are the most fruitful directions for research that seeks to combine these attentional paradigms in ecologically valid settings? We argue that although Memmert’s paper postulates several important differences between the misdirection and inattentional blindness paradigms, it may not emphasise sufficiently strongly the significant insights into attention that have been (...) yielded by the former approach. To illustrate, we discuss the utility of the misdirection paradigm in providing an ecologically valid method to investigate the relationship between overt and covert attentional processes. Such naturalistic methods are required to ensure optimal integration of the misdirection and inattentional blindness paradigms within a general theory of attention. (shrink)

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)

In several of our articles we have drawn analogies between inattentional blindness paradigms and misdirection. Memmert however, has criticized this analogy and urged for caution in assuming too much of a close relationship between these two phenomena. Here we consider the points raised by Memmert and highlight some misunderstandings and omissions in his interpretation of our work, which substantially undermine his argument. Debating the similarities and differences between aspects of misdirection and inattentional blindness is valuable and has the potential to (...) highlight the utility of these two phenomena. However, it is important not to be misdirected by subtle differences between particular instances of each phenomenon, at the expense of failing to detect the opportunities that these phenomena present for extending our understanding of attention and awareness. (shrink)