Can attention really be captured in the absence of awareness?

Abstract

In attentional capture, a target is identified poorly when presented 200-500 ms after a previously attended distractor. Oriet et al. (2017) have argued that awareness of the distractor is not necessary for it to capture attention. However, Ophir et al. (2020) found only subjects who were aware of the distractor captured attention, suggesting awareness of the distractor is necessary for capture to occur. To explain the conflicting results Ophir et al. argued that Oriet et al.’s awareness measure was not sufficiently sensitive to detect awareness of the distractor. However, Ophir et al.’s subjects were not required to describe what they saw, and were questioned repeatedly throughout the experiment; in contrast, Oriet et al.’s subjects were interviewed once at the end of the experiment. Thus, repeated questioning using Ophir et al.’s measure may reveal awareness of the distractor when it captures attention. The present study replicated Oriet and colleagues’ design, with the addition of Ophir et al.’s Perceptual Awareness Scale (PAS) to measure the subjects’ awareness of the distractor. Despite the addition of the PAS, the results of the present study replicated those of Oriet et al., with both their original measure and the PAS revealing evidence of capture in the absence of awareness. Furthermore, repeated questioning did not increase awareness of the distractor. Thus, I conclude that the measure used to assess awareness of the distractor in Oriet et al. would have been sufficient to demonstrate awareness on trials where the distractor captured attention, had awareness been necessary for capture.