Actions modulate attentional capture

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to determine whether the action system plays a role in determining which stimulus characteristics capture attention by assessing the interference effects caused by dynamic discontinuities that have similar attention-capturing properties, but different action affordances. Results revealed that offset distractors caused significant interference when onset targets were presented in a keypress task, but did not increase reaction times when the same onset targets were presented in a goal-directed aiming task. In contrast, onset distractors caused interference when offset targets were presented in both keypress and aiming tasks. This pattern of results suggests that the attentional set, and thus the properties of stimuli that capture attention, is modulated by the interaction between stimulus and response expectations.