A subject in a laboratory experiment is watching a stream of characters that appear on a computer screen. He has been instructed to look for two specific targets and to press a button each time he sees either of them appear. The phenomenon of attentional blink is best exemplified when he
A) detects the first target when it appears, but misses the second when it appears 300 milliseconds later.
B) detects the first target when it appears but misidentifies a character as the second target a second later.
C) misses both targets when they appear because they were located at the edges of the screen.
D) misses the first target when it appears but detects the second when it appears a second later.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Attentional blink refers to the phenomenon where the detection of a second target is impaired if it appears within a short time (200-500 milliseconds) after the first target. This is because processing the first target uses up attentional resources, making it difficult to detect the second target if it appears too soon after the first.

A Subject in a Laboratory Experiment Is Watching a Stream