No iconic memory without attention.
Arien Mack, Muge Erol, Jason Clarke, John Bert
Consciousness and cognition February 1, 2016 DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2015.12.006 via PubMed
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractMore than half of participants failed to notice when a letter matrix was completely absent or distorted, a phenomenon called inattentional blindness. These findings provide strong evidence that iconic memory requires attention and that conscious perception does as well, contradicting the idea that iconic memory has a phenomenal experience component independent of attention.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Experimental study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Awareness Iconic memory Inattentional blindness Phenomenal consciousness |
| Citations | 58 |
| Key finding | More than half of participants were inattentionally blind to the absence or distortion of a letter matrix, supporting the conclusion that iconic memory requires attention and that conscious perception does as well. |
Abstract
The experiments reported extend the findings of our earlier paper, (Mack, Erol, & Clarke, 2015) and allow us to reject Bachmann and Aru's critique of our conclusion (2015) that IM requires attention. They suggested our manipulations, which diverted attention from a letter reporting task in a dual task procedure where the task-cue occurred after the array disappeared, might only have affected access to IM and not the "existence of the phenomenal experience". By further decreasing the probability of reporting letters to only 10% and adding a final trial in which the letter matrix was either completely absent or distorted, we found more than half our subjects were unaware of its absence, or distortion i.e., were inattentionally blind. We take this as powerful evidence against the existence of any phenomenal experience component of iconic memory and consistent with the view that iconic memory demands attention and that conscious perception does as well.