Attentional capture by abrupt onsets: Foundations and emerging issues.

Abstract

The study of attentional allocation due to external stimulation has a long history in psychology. Early research by Yantis and Jonides suggested that abrupt onsets constitute a unique class of stimuli that captures attention in a stimulus-driven fashion unless attention is proactively directed elsewhere. Since then, the study of visual attention has evolved significantly. This article revisits the core conclusions by Yantis and Jonides in light of subsequent findings and highlights emerging issues for future investigation. These issues include clarifying key concepts of visual attention, adopting measures with greater spatiotemporal precision, exploring how past experiences modulate the effects of abrupt onsets, and understanding individual differences in attentional allocation. Addressing these issues is challenging but crucial, and we offer some perspectives on how one might choose to study these issues going forward. Finally, we call for more investigation into abrupt onsets. Perhaps due to their strong potential to capture attention, abrupt onsets are often set aside in pursuit of other conditions that show attenuation of distractor interference. However, given their real-world relevance, abrupt onsets represent the exact type of stimuli that we need to study more to connect laboratory attention research to real life. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).