Day 47 of 150 Speed Difficulty 6/10
The attentional blink is worst around 200 to 500 ms
Quick answer
The attentional blink is worst around 200 to 500 ms. Today's question (Attentional blink) asks about a finding from Raymond, J. E., Shapiro, K. L., & Arnell, K. M. in 1992. The correct option is ~200–500 ms after T1 — full explanation, primary source, and glossary cross-links below.
Today's question
When two targets (T1 and T2) appear in a rapid serial visual stream, T2 is most likely to be missed when its lag from T1 is approximately:
Reveal the answer and explanation
Correct: B — ~200–500 ms after T1
Raymond, Shapiro & Arnell (1992) coined the "attentional blink" for the U-shaped lag function: T2 detection is near-perfect at lag-1 (immediately after T1), drops sharply between roughly 200 and 500 ms, and recovers by ~700 ms. The deficit reflects a bottleneck in encoding T1 into working memory — while T1 is still being processed, T2 cannot be consolidated. The phenomenon is robust, appears with non-letter stimuli (faces, scenes), and is reduced under emotional or "open-monitoring" attentional states.
About the source
Raymond, J. E., Shapiro, K. L., & Arnell, K. M. (1992). Temporary suppression of visual processing in an RSVP task: An attentional blink?. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 18(3), 849–860.
Every Cognition Bible question cites a primary source — a paper, book chapter, or monograph that exists, that we can point to on Google Scholar, and whose finding the question accurately summarizes. No fabricated authority strings, no name-drops without paper-level grounding.
More from the Cognition Bible
Done with today's question? Play the FOKIQ Daily — six puzzles across six cognitive domains, free, every day.