can distraction keep us from getting distracted?. attentional
blink researchers christian olivers and sander nieuwenhuis noticed
something curious when they conducted their experiments. when they were
testing their stimuli, they felt that they could do the task better
when they were distracted. their participants also reported that they
tended to perform better when they were a little unfocused on the task.
attentional Blink, as we’ve reported before,
is a short period when we’re less able to notice an item flashed
briefly in our visual field. the classic experiment involves a rapidly
flashed sequence of random digits or letters — olivers and nieuwenhuis
use letters flashed every 120 milliseconds. then after a short
interval, a digit is substituted for a letter. nearly al...
