Word meanings can be accessed but not reported during the attentional blink

Abstract

AFTER the detection of a target item in a rapid stream of visual stimuli, there is a period of 400–600 ms during which subsequent targets are missed. This impairment has been labelled the 'attentional blink'¹. It has been suggested that, unlike an eye blink, the additional blink does not reflect a suppression of perceptual processing, but instead reflects a loss of information at a postperceptual stage, such as visual short-term memory^2–4. Here we provide electrophysiological evidence that words presented during the attentional blink period are analysed to the point of meaning extraction, even though these extracted meanings cannot be reported 1–2 s later. This shows that the attentional blink does indeed reflect a loss of information at a postperceptual stage of processing, and provides a demonstration of the modularity of human brain function.