Introspective Awareness of Oculomotor Attentional Capture

• Published in: Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance 2021-03, Vol.47 (3), p.442-459
• Main Authors: Adams, Owen J., Gaspelin, Nicholas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Attentional Capture; Awareness; Eye Movements; Feedback; Female; Human; Introspection; Male; Metacognition; Visual Search
• ISSN: 0096-1523; 1939-1277
• DOI: 10.1037/xhp0000898

Recent research has demonstrated that observers can learn to prevent attentional capture by physically salient stimuli. One critical question is how observers learn to avoid capture, particularly in situations where they receive no direct feedback about attentional performance. One possibility is that individuals have some level of introspective awareness of capture when it occurs. Once capture is detected, participants then adjust performance strategies to avoid subsequent attentional capture. It is currently unclear, however, if observers have any introspective awareness of attentional capture when it occurs. In the current study, participants attempted to locate a target shape and ignore a salient distractor. On half of trials, participants were then asked to classify whether their first eye movement was misdirected to the singleton distractor on that trial. The results demonstrated that participants clearly had some level of introspective awareness of attentional capture: Oculomotor capture effects were much larger on "capture" report trials than on "no capture" report trials. Interestingly, there was no evidence that awareness of oculomotor capture prevented subsequent capture by salient items. Future research is needed to definitively determine whether metacognitive awareness can be used as a training tool to prevent capture. Public Significance Statement This study demonstrates that observers can introspectively detect eye movements that were misdirected to physically salient distractors, such as uniquely colored shapes. This ability may be important in understanding the mechanisms by which individuals learn to avoid visual distraction by salient items, especially in applied scenarios where observers receive no direct feedback regarding attentional performance.