Schedule of Events | Symposia

The impact of emotional item memorability on the attentional blink

Poster Session A - Saturday, March 29, 2025, 3:00 – 5:00 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Amy MacGlashing¹ (amacglashing@worcester.edu), Brittany M. Jeye; ¹Worcester State University

Previous research has found that individuals are less likely to perceive a target item when it directly follows an emotionally evoking one (i.e., “emotion-induced blindness”, similar to the attentional blink). In the current study, we examined whether the memorability of an emotional item induces an attentional blink. Participants were asked to identify a target image (i.e., a rotated image) within a rapid serial visual presentation of images. Emotional distractor images were shown either two or eight images (e.g., lag 2 or lag 8) before the targets and were varied in their memorability (e.g., high memorability, low memorability, or neutral memorability). Analyses investigated whether the memorability level (high, low, or neutral) of the emotional distractor impacted participants’ abilities to find the target at either the lag 2 (i.e., the attentional blink) or lag 8 position. We found no difference between the mean response accuracies for high or low memorability emotional stimuli at either lag 2 or lag 8 in either experiment. Our results suggest that emotional item memorability may not impact participants' responses and that memorability does not influence the attentional blink.

Topic Area: ATTENTION: Other