Object Perception, Attention, and Memory (OPAM) 2010 Conference Report 18th Annual Meeting, St. Louis, Missouri, MO, USA: the attentional blink is attenuated for objects of expertise

Human information processing capacity is limited at many stages of processing. However, evidence suggests that extensive practice allows individuals to circumvent some capacity limitations. For example, visual short-term memory capacity is greater for objects of expertise than nonexpertise (Curby, Glazek, & Gauthier, 2009 Curby, K. M., Glazek, K. and Gauthier, I. 2009. A visual short-term memory advantage for objects of expertise. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 35(1): 94–107. [Google Scholar]). If visual expertise attenuates processing limitations involved in perception, experts might show a reduced attentional blink (AB) for objects from their domain of expertise. The AB refers to an impaired ability to process the second of two targets embedded within a rapid, sequentially presented stream of items (Broadbent & Broadbent, 1987 Broadbent, D. E. and Broadbent, M. H. 1987. From detection to identification: Response to multiple targets in rapid serial visual presentation. Perception and Psychophysics, 42(2): 105–113. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], , [Google Scholar]; Raymond, Shapiro, & Arnell, 1992 Raymond, J. E., Shapiro, K. L. and Arnell, K. M. 1992. Temporary suppression of visual processing in an RSVP task: An attentional blink?. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 18(3): 849–860. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], , [Google Scholar]). One “two-stage” model of the AB proposes that all items in the stream are rapidly detected but then must be “consolidated” via a capacity-limited stage in order to achieve a durable, reportable state (Chun & Potter, 1995 Chun, M. M. and Potter, M. C. 1995. A two-stage model for multiple target detection in parid serial visual presentation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 21(1): 109–127. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], , [Google Scholar]). The slow process of such consolidation leads to a perceptual “bottleneck”. Consistent with the possibility that perceptual expertise might attenuate this bottleneck, faces—a category considered to be a domain of expertise for most individuals—are immune to the AB (Awh et al., 2004 Awh, E., Serences, J., Laurey, P., Dhaliwal, H., van der Jagt, T. and Dassonville, P. 2004. Evidence against a central bottleneck during the attentional blink: Multiple channels for configural and featural processing. Cognitive Psychology, 48: 95–126. [Google Scholar]). Here, we first replicate the attenuation of the AB for faces and then examine whether this finding extends to other domains of expertise.