Irrelevant auditory and visual events induce a visual attentional blink.

In the present study we investigated whether a task-irrelevant distractor can induce a visual attentional blink pattern. Participants were asked to detect only a visual target letter (A, B, or C) and to ignore the preceding auditory, visual, or audiovisual distractor. An attentional blink was observed regardless of the distractor modality. The magnitude of the attentional blink was greater when the target was preceded by a visual or an audiovisual distractor than when the target letter was preceded by an auditory distractor. The presence of a distractor-induced attentional blink regardless of the distractor modality suggests that the attentional blink phenomenon is at least partly due to an amodal processing limitation.