The attentional capture debate: the long-lasting consequences of a misnomer
Dominique Lamy
Abstract
The article by Luck, Gaspelin, Folk, Remington and Theeuwes (2021 Luck, S. J., Gaspelin, N., Folk, C. L., Remington, R. W., & Theeuwes, J. (2021). Progress toward resolving the attentional capture debate. Visual Cognition, 29(1), 1–21.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], Visual Cognition, 29, 1–21) attempts to integrate the views currently defended by prominent actors in the “attentional-capture” debate. However, it glosses over important differences that remain between the competing accounts. In this commentary, I suggest that many of the lingering divergences are rooted in the fact that the authors often base their conclusions on net capture / suppression effects rather than on the modulation of these effects by relevant variables. I illustrate with two concrete examples, how relying on the presence vs. absence of attentional capture or suppression prompts the authors to sacrifice parsimony in order to account for their findings.