Abstract
A rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) experiment is reported that investigates the role of conceptual interference in the attentional blink. Subjects were presented with RSVP streams that contained 5 stimuli: Target 1, T1+1 distractor, Target 2, T2+1 distractor and a symbol mask. Target 1 was always a green letter, Target 2 a red letter and the distractors were either white letters or digits. The stimuli were presented in font typically seen on the face of digital watch. Thus, “S” and “O” were identical to “5” and “0”. This allowed us to present streams that were featurally identical yet conceptually different: Two letter targets followed by distractors that were either recognised as “5” and “0” or “S” and “O”. The results demonstrated that the attentional blink was substantially attenuated when subjects were told the distractors were digits rather than letters, providing evidence that conceptual interference plays a role in the attentional blink.