• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.127-136
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• 2017

Attentional blink is observed in an identification task of multiple targets during rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) where performance for the second target (T2) that follows within 500ms of the first (T1) shows systematic decrease although that for T1 remains highly accurate. Theories accounting for attentional blink can be classified into two broad categories of resource depletion model and disruption of input filter model. Meanwhile, visual attention capacity shows hemifield independence between left and right visual fields, and many studies reported bilateral advantage in a range of visual working memory tasks. The current research tested two major theories of attentional blink using bilateral independence of attentional capacity. To this end, we conducted two experiments where two RSVPs were presented in either bilateral or unilateral visual fields. Experiment 1 presented two RSVPs which contained both T1 and T2 in either bilateral or unilateral visual fields and tested interaction between attentional blink and bilateral advantage. Experiment 2 removed T1 in one of the two RSVPs to test whether attentional blink obtains when identification of T1 and T2 utilize independent sources of attention across two visual fields. The results showed that subjects were more accurate when two RSVPs were presented in bilateral visual fields (i.e., bilateral advantage) although there was no interaction between attentional blink and bilateral advantage (Experiment 1). In addition, attentional blink for T2 was observed in a T1-absent RSVP even when two RSVPs were presented in bilateral visual fields (Experiment 2). These results support disruption of input filter model rather than resource depletion model.