Attentional blink is defined by psychologist Russel Revlin via Raymond, Shapiro, & Arnell (2013) as, "The moment when a person is shifting focus and is unable to attend fully to a new target." Revlin compares attentional blink to quickly closing and then opening your eyes and the time that it takes for your vision to focus.
The most common research method which studies attentional blink is rapid serial visualization presentation also know as RSVP. During RSVP a participant is given the task to identify two letters of the alphabet and press buttons when they see those letters whether there is only one letter shown, both or neither. Letters are presented in a rapid order which changes. Participants are more accurate when they are given the task to only look for one letter (Revlin 2013). Below is a video which explains attentional blink and also shows RSVP.
Identifying the second letter if it appears after the first is challenging because the brain has used it's current attention span identifying the first letter. Revlin (2013) states that the average length of a college student's attentional blink is half a second. That means that if I flash you the letter G followed in rapid secession and then flash you the letter K, it will take you the length of this video:
The real world applications of attentional blink are many; however one that Russell Revlin uses is a driving example. "Suppose you are driving along a freeway, paying attention to the distance between your car and the one in front of you, as well as to other cars around you. All of a sudden, you notice that a friend is driving a car in the lane next to you," (Revlin 2013)
Now, everyone "blinks" right? People do differ in the length of their blinks though. Some can even show no attentional blink. A study "Individual Differences in the Attentional Blink: The Temporal Profile of Blinkers and Non-Blinkers" found that non-blinkers were more precise in identifying a second target and made less order reversals (Hmm...maybe I did see K? No, no I think it was just G....Maybe...?) than participants who had an attentional blink.
The authors of the study state that the significance of their findings is, "The notable ability of non-blinkers to accurately perceive targets presented in close temporal succession might be due to a relatively faster and more precise target selection process compared to large blinkers."(Willems C, Wierda SM, van Viegen E, Martens S 2013) Attention has a limit and those who do not need the down time to process information are more likely to be able to move on to other information more quickly because brain function is not stuck focusing on another previous object. Revlin (2013) states that attentional blink as an effect, is less for people of a younger age.
If some individuals really do not have an attentional blink it is possible that RSVP testing could be used to wean certain individuals into careers that better suit people with no attentional blink. Or, using the fashion example, testing for a low or non-existent attentional blink could have been used to hire an assistant who could quickly identify mistakes in clothing which would allow you as the designer to focus more on other tasks like why your lighting isn't quite right. Testing for limited to zero attentional blink may be helpful, but it could also throw us into a Ayn Rand Anthem scenario or a George Orwell novel. Personally, it does not seem logical or even feasible to test for different levels of attentional blink.
The most common research method which studies attentional blink is rapid serial visualization presentation also know as RSVP. During RSVP a participant is given the task to identify two letters of the alphabet and press buttons when they see those letters whether there is only one letter shown, both or neither. Letters are presented in a rapid order which changes. Participants are more accurate when they are given the task to only look for one letter (Revlin 2013). Below is a video which explains attentional blink and also shows RSVP.
after identifying G before you realize that I showed you K.
The real world applications of attentional blink are many; however one that Russell Revlin uses is a driving example. "Suppose you are driving along a freeway, paying attention to the distance between your car and the one in front of you, as well as to other cars around you. All of a sudden, you notice that a friend is driving a car in the lane next to you," (Revlin 2013)
Hey, that looks like Dr. Steelman.
"You focus attention to make sure it's your friend. This impairs your ability to attend to the car in front of you for slightly less than half a second." (Revlin 2013) The length of your blink depends on how physically close your friend is to you (Revlin 2013). If Dr. Steelman is in the lane next to you, your blink will last longer than if she is in Revlin's words "two lanes over." While Russel Revlin's example of attentional blink includes distance, attentional blink is most often used to relate visual attention (looking at an object) to the brains ability to process information (time). In the words of Dr. Kelly Steelman, "It is about momentary depletion of attentional resources."
Now, close your eyes and open your brains. Imagine that you are a fashion designer (your life is so fabulous). It's fashion week and your runway show is about to start. All the seats in the audience are filled and your models are lined up and dressed ready to go. All that you need to do is quickly go down the line and check over everyone's outfits, so in all your frazzled glory you begin to quickly check over the models.
You start at one end and walk fast saying, "Good." "Great" "Perfect." Every model's outfit is spot on and not a single stitch out of place so they walk onto the runway. You reach the second to last model and...wait...nope, a gem is missing on her necklace. "This needs to be fixed," you yell and move to the last model who you say is good to go.
Ah, oops. After you give the clear for the last model to go you realize when she gets back that there was a small tear in her sweater. How did you not see that? Your show is ruined. Good thing you're not really a fashion designer right?
Let's address why you missed the small tear. When it comes to attentional blink, picking up on a something that you know you are supposed to be looking for is challenging when it is followed by something of the same nature. In the words of the RSVP testing, you are more likely to miss the K when it followed the J that you were also looking for. The small tear in the sweater went unnoticed because your attention and memory were already used up on the necklace that needed to be fixed. If there was another model, or a couple of models, with perfect outfits before the last model, you would have been more likely to notice the sweater.
Let's switch gears and talk about research.
Now, close your eyes and open your brains. Imagine that you are a fashion designer (your life is so fabulous). It's fashion week and your runway show is about to start. All the seats in the audience are filled and your models are lined up and dressed ready to go. All that you need to do is quickly go down the line and check over everyone's outfits, so in all your frazzled glory you begin to quickly check over the models.
You start at one end and walk fast saying, "Good." "Great" "Perfect." Every model's outfit is spot on and not a single stitch out of place so they walk onto the runway. You reach the second to last model and...wait...nope, a gem is missing on her necklace. "This needs to be fixed," you yell and move to the last model who you say is good to go.
Ah, oops. After you give the clear for the last model to go you realize when she gets back that there was a small tear in her sweater. How did you not see that? Your show is ruined. Good thing you're not really a fashion designer right?
Let's address why you missed the small tear. When it comes to attentional blink, picking up on a something that you know you are supposed to be looking for is challenging when it is followed by something of the same nature. In the words of the RSVP testing, you are more likely to miss the K when it followed the J that you were also looking for. The small tear in the sweater went unnoticed because your attention and memory were already used up on the necklace that needed to be fixed. If there was another model, or a couple of models, with perfect outfits before the last model, you would have been more likely to notice the sweater.
Now, everyone "blinks" right? People do differ in the length of their blinks though. Some can even show no attentional blink. A study "Individual Differences in the Attentional Blink: The Temporal Profile of Blinkers and Non-Blinkers" found that non-blinkers were more precise in identifying a second target and made less order reversals (Hmm...maybe I did see K? No, no I think it was just G....Maybe...?) than participants who had an attentional blink.
How did they do it? 29 volunteers were selected with corrected-to-normal visual capacity, normal hearing and no history of neurological problems. They sat down in front of a computer and pressed a space bar to initiate the trial. A cross which was fixated on the screen appeared and was then followed by letters of the RSVP stream of 18 letters.. The letters flashed across 80 ms. The first target was always the sixth letter and the second target was either the first, second, third or eighth letter. After the RSVP stream the volunteers were asked to select which target(s) they saw. The volunteers were told to take their time typing which letter(s) they saw. This experiment is the same as the CogLab experiment online (Francis, G., & Neath, I. (2013).
The authors of the study state that the significance of their findings is, "The notable ability of non-blinkers to accurately perceive targets presented in close temporal succession might be due to a relatively faster and more precise target selection process compared to large blinkers."(Willems C, Wierda SM, van Viegen E, Martens S 2013) Attention has a limit and those who do not need the down time to process information are more likely to be able to move on to other information more quickly because brain function is not stuck focusing on another previous object. Revlin (2013) states that attentional blink as an effect, is less for people of a younger age.
If some individuals really do not have an attentional blink it is possible that RSVP testing could be used to wean certain individuals into careers that better suit people with no attentional blink. Or, using the fashion example, testing for a low or non-existent attentional blink could have been used to hire an assistant who could quickly identify mistakes in clothing which would allow you as the designer to focus more on other tasks like why your lighting isn't quite right. Testing for limited to zero attentional blink may be helpful, but it could also throw us into a Ayn Rand Anthem scenario or a George Orwell novel. Personally, it does not seem logical or even feasible to test for different levels of attentional blink.
Sources:
Francis, G., & Neath, I. (2013). Attentional Blink. Retrieved from https://coglab.cengage.com/
Francis, G., & Neath, I. (2013). Attentional Blink. Retrieved from https://coglab.cengage.com/
Revlin, R. (2013). Cognition and theory and practice. New York: Worth Publishers.
skirts 11. (2010). The attentional blink test [Web]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH6ZSfhdIuM
Willems C, Wierda SM, van Viegen E, Martens S (2013) Individual Differences in the Attentional Blink: The Temporal Profile of Blinkers and Non-Blinkers. PLoS ONE 8(6): e66185. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0066185
