Animacy increases second target reporting in a rapid serial visual presentation task

Attentional blink occurs when two target items, T1 and T2, are presented within brief moments of each other in a series of rapidly presented items and participants fail to report T2. The purpose of the present study was to examine the effect of characteristics of T2 on T2 reporting. Participants (N = 67) completed 4 blocks of 40 trials. Each trial consisted of 15 images, two of which were designated as T1 and T2. T2 was manipulated in three ways: animacy (animate or inanimate), threat (threatening or nonthreatening), and lag (200 ms or 400 ms after T1). The results indicated that more T2s were reported at the longer lag and that animate objects were reported more often than inanimate objects at both lags. Threat did not have a significant effect on T2 reporting although it interacted with lag: threatening objects were reported more frequently than nonthreatening objects at lag 2 but this trend reversed at lag 4. The results were consistent with the animate monitoring hypothesis, which claims that animate objects, because of their importance in ancestral environments, attract attention more easily than inanimate objects. Animate objects appear to capture attention more easily than inanimate objects as second targets in a rapid serial visual presentation task. This result is similar to animacy advantages reported with other attention tasks and with memory tasks.