Abstract
When two masked, attended targets (T1 and T2) are presented within approximately half a second of each other, report of T2 is poor, compared with when the targets are presented farther apart in time—a phenomenon known as the attentional blink (AB; Raymond, Shapiro, & Arnell, 1992). Some researchers have suggested that an amodal bottleneck on working memory consolidation underlies the AB (see, e.g., Arnell & Jolicoeur, 1999). In the present work, T1 was masked, whereas T2 was unmasked. The modality of T1 (visual or auditory) and the modality of T2 (visual or auditory) were factorially manipulated across four experiments. For all modality combinations, T2's P3 event-related brain potential component was found to be delayed when T2 was presented soon after T1 (lag 3), compared with when T1 and T2 were presented farther apart (lag 8). Results suggest that the working memory consolidation bottleneck is amodal in nature, and provide evidence that visual, auditory, and cross-modality ABs all result from a bottleneck on consolidation operations.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Anderson, A. K. (2005). Affective influences on the attentional dynamics supporting awareness.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,134, 258–281.
Arnell, K. M., &Duncan, J. (2002). Separate and shared sources of dual-task cost in stimulus identification and response selection.Cognitive Psychology,44, 105–147.
Arnell, K. M., Helion, A. M., Hurdelbrink, J. A., &Pasieka, B. (2004). Dissociating sources of dual-task interference using human electrophysiology.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,11, 77–83.
Arnell, K. M., &Jenkins, R. (2004). Revisiting within-modality and cross-modality attentional blinks: Effects of target-distractor similarity.Perception & Psychophysics,66, 1147–1161.
Arnell, K. M., &Jolicoeur, P. (1999). The attentional blink across stimulus modalities: Evidence for central processing limitations.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,25, 630–648.
Arnell, K. M., &Larson, J. M. (2002). Cross-modality attentional blinks without preparatory task-set switching.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,9, 497–506.
Broadbent, D. E., &Broadbent, M. H. (1987). From detection to identification: Response to multiple targets in rapid serial visual presentation.Perception & Psychophysics,42, 105–113.
Chun, M. M., &Potter, M. C. (1995). A two-stage model for multiple target detection in rapid serial visual presentation.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,21, 109–127.
Coles, M. G. (1989). Modern mind-brain reading: Psychophysiology, physiology, and cognition.Psychophysiology,26, 251–269.
Cowan, N. (1984). On short and long auditory stores.Psychological Bulletin,96, 341–370.
Dell'Acqua, R., Jolicoeur, P., Pesciarelli, F., Job, R., &Palomba, D. (2003). Electrophysiological evidence of visual encoding deficits in a cross-modal attentional blink paradigm.Psychophysiology,40, 629–639.
Donchin, E. (1981). Surprise! … Surprise?Psychophysiology,18, 493–513.
Donchin, E., &Coles, M. G. (1988). Is the P300 component a manifestation of context updating?Behavioral & Brain Sciences,11, 357–427.
Duncan, J., Martens, S., &Ward, R. (1997). Restricted attentional capacity within but not between sensory modalities.Nature,379, 808–810.
Duncan, J., Ward, R., &Shapiro, K. L. (1994). Direct measurement of attentional dwell time in human vision.Nature,369, 313–315.
Giesbrecht, B., &Di Lollo, V. (1998). Beyond the attentional blink: Visual masking by object substitution.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,24, 1454–1466.
Hillstrom, A. P., Shapiro, K. L., &Spence, C. (2002). Attentional limitations in processing sequentially presented vibrotactile targets.Perception & Psychophysics,64, 1068–1081.
Hoffman, J. E., Houck, M. R., MacMillan, F. W., III,Simons, R. F., &Oatman, L. C. (1985). Event-related potentials elicited by automatic targets: A dual-task analysis.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,11, 50–61.
Jolicoeur, P. (1998). Modulation of the attentional blink by on-line response selection: Evidence from speeded and unspeeded Task1 decisions.Memory & Cognition,26, 1014–1032.
Jolicoeur, P. (1999). Concurrent response-selection demands modulate the attentional blink.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,25, 1097–1113.
Jolicoeur, P., &Dell'Acqua, R. (1998). The demonstration of shortterm consolidation.Cognitive Psychology,36, 138–202.
Jolicoeur, P., &Dell'Acqua, R. (1999). Attentional and structural constraints on visual encoding.Psychological Research,62, 154–164.
Kutas, M., &Donchin, E. (1980). Preparation to respond as manifested by movement-related brain potentials.Brain Research,202, 95–115.
Luck, S. J. (1998). Sources of dual-task interference: Evidence from human electrophysiology.Psychological Science,9, 223–227.
Luck, S. J., Vogel, E. K., &Shapiro, K. L. (1996). Word meanings can be accessed but not reported during the attentional blink.Nature,383, 616–618.
Magliero, A., Bashore, T. R., Coles, M. G., &Donchin, E. (1984). On the dependence of P300 latency on stimulus evaluation processes.Psychophysiology,21, 171–186.
Mondor, T. A. (1998). A transient processing deficit following selection of an auditory target.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,5, 305–311.
Osman, A., &Moore, C. M. (1993). The locus of dual-task interference: Psychological refractory effects on movement-related brain potentials.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,19, 1292–1312.
Potter, M. C., Chun, M. M., Banks, B. S., &Muckenhoupt, M. (1998). Two attentional deficits in serial target search: The visual attentional blink and an amodal task-switch deficit.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,24, 979–992.
Raymond, J. E., Shapiro, K. L., &Arnell, K. M. (1992). Temporary suppression of visual processing in an RSVP task: An attentional blink?Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,18, 849–860.
Schneider, W., Eschman, A., &Zuccolotto, A. (2002).E-Prime user's guide. Pittsburgh, PA: Psychology Software Tools.
Shapiro, K. L., Arnell, K. M., &Raymond, J. E. (1997). The attentional blink.Trends in Cognitive Sciences,1, 291–296.
Shapiro, K. L., Caldwell, J., &Sorensen, R. E. (1997). Personal names and the attentional blink: A visual “cocktail party” effect.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,23, 504–514.
Shapiro, K. [L.], Driver, J., Ward, R., &Sorensen, R. E. (1997). Priming from the attentional blink: A failure to extract visual tokens but not visual types.Psychological Science,8, 95–100.
Shapiro, K. L., Raymond, J. E., &Arnell, K. M. (1994). Attention to visual pattern information produces the attentional blink in rapid serial visual presentation.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,20, 357–371.
Shulman, H., & Hsieh, V. (1995, November).The attentional blink in mixed modality streams. Paper presented at the 36th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Los Angeles.
Soto-Faraco, S., &Spence, C. (2002). Modality-specific auditory and visual temporal processing deficits.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,55A, 23–40.
Soto-Faraco, S., Spence, C., Fairbank, K., Kingstone, A., Hillstrom, A. P., &Shapiro, K. [L.] (2002). A crossmodal attentional blink between vision and touch.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,9, 731–738.
Vogel, E. K., &Luck, S. J. (2002). Delayed working memory consolidation during the attentional blink.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,9, 739–743.
Vogel, E. K., Luck, S. J., &Shapiro, K. L. (1998). Electrophysiological evidence for a postperceptual locus of suppression during the attentional blink.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,24, 1656–1674.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This work was made possible by an NSERC operating grant and by infrastructure grants from CFI and OIT to the author. Portions of this work were presented at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society in Vancouver, BC.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Arnell, K.M. Visual, auditory, and cross-modality dual-task costs: Electrophysiological evidence for an amodal bottleneck on working memory consolidation. Perception & Psychophysics 68, 447–457 (2006). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193689
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193689