Attention capture is modulated in dual-task situations.

Overview

Because some features affect the efficiency of visual search even when they are irrelevant to the task, they are thought to capture attention in a stimulus-driven manner. If such attention shifts are stimulus driven, they should be unaffected by reduced resources. We added a concurrent auditory task to a traditional attention capture paradigm and found that capture by an irrelevant, abruptly appearing stimulus (i.e., an onset) was eliminated. In contrast, prioritization of an irrelevant color singleton--a stimulus that at most receives only mild prioritization in this paradigm--was increased under dual-task conditions. These results challenge the hypothesis that attention capture by irrelevant features is stimulus driven. Instead, prioritization depends on and is modulated by the availability of resources.