Аннотация:The role of top-down influences on the temporal characteristics of visual attention
under dual-task RSVP conditions as manifested in the attentional blink (AB)
phenomenon was investigated. The AB was hypothesized to be due to the structure of
the observer’s perceptual activity under given conditions and therefore modulable
through the change of its units’ size. This was achieved by presenting to-be-reported
stimuli as a single word in an RSVP stream letter by letter, with a separate task
concerning the 1 st letter of the word. Words could be read in two different ways: a letter
either within or out of the AB temporal interval, functionally equivalent to a probe in
the standard AB procedure, could be skipped, so that another word with a different
meaning would be read. The analysis of results revealed no standard AB while reading
whole words, but a slight attenuation of performance through all lags and a more
pronounced attenuation shifted to the end of the mean word-stem. Most significantly,
the effect of binding of 1 st and 2 nd tasks within the same word had lasting effects on
how observers coped with the AB under more typical conditions.