The Attentional Blink Does Not Prevent Character Identification

Abstract

The standard RSVP Attentional Blink (AB) paradigm was modified so that RT to the second target could be measured. Character distortion, intended to prolong the letter-identification processing stage, had a marked effect at long lags (baseline condition), but virtually no effect at short lags where AB interference occurred. According to locus-of-slack logic, this pattern of results indicates that the attentional blink causes a processing bottleneck at some stage subsequent to letter identification.