Familiarity and attention : the effect of familiar and novel stimuli on attentional capture

This study investigated the influence of stimulus familiarity on attentional capture. It is, in part, designed to replicate a study by Christie and Klein (1995) that investigated the effect of familiarity on word processing and to extend their method to study the influence of familiarity in object processing. A total of 34 undergraduate students completed two computer tasks in which they were presented with familiar and novel words in one task and objects in the second task. Stimuli were presented in pairs in unpredictable diagonal locations and, after varying stimulus onset asynchronies, one of the stimuli (the target) moved either up or down. The subject's task was to indicate the direction of the movement by key presses on a computer keyboard. It was hypothesized that the processing of familiar items would require less time than novel items as was found by Christie and Klein (1995). Reaction time and accuracy were recorded to measure differences in responses to the familiar and novel stimuli. The results failed to replicate the findings of Christie and Klein (1995). There were no significant differences found in the reaction times for the familiar or unfamiliar conditions in the word and object task. From the results, it appears that familiar items may not have any benefit over novel items for rapidly attracting attention.