1. Conclusions Two measures of attentional control failed to predict IB. Instead processing speed (and conscientious to some extent) appear to be critical in distinguishing noticers and non-noticers. In addition to exploring avenues for increasing the reliability of IB, future work should examine how individual differences in attentional disengagement predict IB. References Most, S. B. (2010). What’s “inattentional” about inattentional blindness?. Consciousness and Cognition, 19(4), 1102-1104. Most, S. B., Simons, D. J., Scholl, B. J., & Chabris, C. F. (2000). Sustained inattentional blindness: The role of location in the detection of unexpected dynamic events. Psyche, 6 (14). Wright, T. J. & Boot, W. R. (in revision). Working memory capacity and inattentional blindness: A meta-analysis. Timothy J. Wright 1, Nelson Roque 2, Walter R. Boot 2, & Cary Stothart 2 1 UMass Amherst 2 Florida State University Do individual differences in attentional control and susceptibility to distraction predict inattentional blindness? Introduction Individual differences in susceptibility to inattentional blindness (IB) have been difficult to find. There could be an advantage to using a more reliable measure of IB: 1) One that leaves less to chance regarding the observer’s focus of attention. 2) One that considers more information (questions). Potential moderators should be considered: 1)Unexpected object distance from fixation (Most et al., 2000) 2) Unexpected object salience (Wright & Boot, in revision) Two studies considered potential moderators and issues of reliability that may account for the difficulty in revealing individual difference predictors of IB: Both studies examined whether attentional control is predictive of IB: 1)Study 1 included working memory capacity (WMC). 2)Study 2 included attention capture (susceptibility to distraction). DOWNLOAD http://goo.gl/hw7E8u Study 1 Does unexpected object salience moderate the relationship between WMC and IB? 1) Varied unexpected object salience (gray or red cross) 2) Varied unexpected object location (attended or unattended region; see Most, 2010 for central vs. spatial IB distinction) Central IB Tasks Spatial IB Task = hypothesized location of attention 753 participants were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and completed an Automated Operation Span (AOSPAN) task prior to completing 1 of 3 IB tasks pictured above. Noticing Metrics 1) Classic Metric: Indicated something unusual AND Correctly identified one feature Descriptive Statistics 2) Novel Metric: Factor score of all 5 IB items WMC & IB Results Across both noticing metrics and in all experimental conditions, working memory capacity did not predict inattentional blindness. Study 2 Do individual differences in attention capture or processing speed predict IB? D) Contingent Blink Paradigm Attention Capture Measures IB Measure 145 undergraduates completed attention capture measures first (order counterbalanced) and then the IB task. Ten-item personality inventory included as a measure of conscientiousness. Overall correct RT from speed-based attention capture measures aggregated to produce processing speed measure Results Overall, individual differences in attention capture are unrelated to IB. Across both metrics, efficiently encoding information was associated with detecting the unexpected stimulus. Across both metrics, more conscientious individuals were more likely to miss the unexpected event.. A)Additional Singleton Paradigm A)Irrelevant Singleton Paradigm A)Contingent Capture Paradigm B)Contingent Blink Paradigm