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Multiple measures of dispositional global/local bias predict attentional blink magnitude

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Abstract

When the second of two targets (T2) is presented temporally close to the first target (T1) in a rapid serial visual presentation stream, accuracy to identify T2 is markedly reduced—an attentional blink (AB). While most individuals show an AB, Dale and Arnell (Atten Percept Psychophys 72(3):602–606, 2010) demonstrated that individual differences in dispositional attentional focus predicted AB performance, such that individuals who showed a natural bias toward the global level of Navon letter stimuli were less susceptible to the AB and showed a smaller AB effect. For the current study, we extended the findings of Dale and Arnell (Atten Percept Psychophys 72(3):602–606, 2010) through two experiments. In Experiment 1, we examined the relationship between dispositional global/local bias and the AB using a highly reliable hierarchical shape task measure. In Experiment 2, we examined whether three distinct global/local measures could predict AB performance. In both experiments, performance on the global/local tasks predicted subsequent AB performance, such that individuals with a greater preference for the global information showed a reduced AB. This supports previous findings, as well as recent models which discuss the role of attentional breadth in selective attention.

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Notes

  1. Previous studies have shown that an overall global processing advantage often emerges when using traditional global/local stimuli (e.g., Navon, 1981). However, other studies (e.g., Kimchi & Palmer, 1982) have shown that this global advantage can be modulated by the relative size of the stimuli and by the number of local elements included in a global figure (i.e., the density of the figure). This is problematic for individual differences research, as this means that participants can become artificially biased toward global or local stimuli unless the stimuli are equated in terms of perceptual salience (e.g., Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005; Kimchi, 1992; Kimchi & Palmer, 1982). As such, we used the stimuli of Dale and Arnell (2013a, Experiment 1) for both Experiments 1 and 2 as these have been shown to have equally salient global and local levels, such that the stimuli are roughly global/local neutral.

  2. One of the additional tasks was an unrelated cognitive maze task used as a filler and the other was a Navon task. In addition to having two blocks of AB trials, 120 AB trials in both blocks were further subdivided into 10 mini-blocks of 12 trials each, with a 1 min Navon letter task interspersed. The Navon task had no effect on the AB trials for the first versus second block, and there were no significant differences among these mini-blocks, F < 1, thus the data were ultimately collapsed both within block and across block.

  3. When conducting an individual differences study, it is not ideal to counterbalance the tasks’ order across participants. Performance on the tasks may differ somewhat based on the order in which they are presented; therefore a participant’s relative score on a given task could be confounded with order variability if order was counterbalanced or random. This confound can be removed in individual differences studies using a constant task order, which is why all participants ran the tasks in the same order here.

  4. Note that while there are several issues surrounding the dichotomization of variables (see MacCallum, Zhang, Preacher, & Rucker, 2002), the data were split here as a supplement to the correlational analyses that were already conducted, and to allow for a better visualization of the pattern of results.

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by grants from the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI), and the Ontario Innovation Trust (OIF) to the second author. We thank Blaire Dube, Baris Bagcilar, and Tabatha Methot for their assistance with data collection.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Brock University, 500 Glenridge Ave, St. Catharines, ON, L2S 3A1, Canada

    Gillian Dale & Karen M. Arnell

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  1. Gillian Dale
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Correspondence to Gillian Dale.

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Dale, G., Arnell, K.M. Multiple measures of dispositional global/local bias predict attentional blink magnitude. Psychological Research 79, 534–547 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-014-0591-3

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