An investigation of inattentional blindness using gaze and frequency tagging.

Abstract

Inattentional blindness (IB) occurs when a salient object presented in plain sight goes unnoticed when its appearance is unexpected. Across two experiments, participants completed a classic dynamic IB task while eye movements and steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) responses were continually recorded. This allowed us to measure the modulation of gaze and brain-based indices of attention during IB. While an SSVEP response to all stimuli including the unexpected object was attained, only gaze measures were able to discriminate noticers from nonnoticers. Experiment 1 used a prototypical sustained IB task and found that gaze toward the unexpected object was largely unrelated to noticing that object. Experiment 2 manipulated the contrast of the target and distractor stimuli, and instead observed a tight concordance between gazing at the unexpected object and reporting its presence. This task-based variability in gaze deployment is consistent with the broader literature and cumulatively delineates the challenges faced in translating lab-based IB research from the bench to the bedside.

No Electrophysiological Evidence for Semantic Processing During Inattentional Blindness

“…Since multiple trials are needed to achieve adequate signal-to-noise ratios in neural data, this creates a problem for gaining sufficient data for electrophysiological analysis during IB. Recent work has overcome this issue through either modification of classic paradigms (e.g., Hutchinson et al, 2023) or through block-wise classification of data via retrospective questioning (e.g., Pitts et al, 2012). For example, in Pitts et al (2012) three-phase paradigm, participants progressed through many trials of the task (where hundreds of critical stimuli were presented) before they were eventually questioned on whether they perceived the unexpected critical stimuli in phase one (the first block of trials).…”