Attention to visual pattern information produces the attentional blink in rapid serial visual presentation.

To-investigate the temporal allocation of attention, a series of 7 experiments using rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) was designed to examine the relationship of the attentional demands of various target tasks to the production of the subsequent visual attentional deficit, or "attentional blink" (AB), recently reported by J. E. Raymond, K. L. Shapiro, and K. M. Arnell (1992). The principal finding is that AB occurs only when a target is an object and does not occur when the target is defined by a temporal interval. Target detection difficulty as estimated by d' analysis reveals no relationship between the attentional demands of the target and the production of the AB. A late-selection account of this phenomenon is offered in place of the early-selection account advanced in Raymond et al.'s previous report.