Humans comprehend the “gist” of even a complex natural scene within a small fraction of a second. If, however, observers are asked to detect targets in a sequence of rapidly presented items, recognition of a target succeeding another target by about a third of a second is severely impaired, the “attentional blink” (AB) [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, 849–860]. Since most experiments on the AB use well controlled but artificial stimuli, the question arises whether the same phenomenon occurs for complex, natural stimuli, and if so, whether its specifics depend on stimulus category. Here we presented rapid sequences of complex stimuli (photographs of objects, scenes and faces) and asked observers to detect and remember items of a specific category (either faces, watches, or both). We found a consistent AB for both target categories but the duration of the AB depended on the target category.

In the phenomenon of attentional blink, identical visual stimuli are sometimes fully perceived and sometimes not detected at all. This phenomenon thus provides an optimal situation to study the fate of stimuli not consciously perceived and the differences between conscious and nonconscious processing. We correlated behavioral visibility ratings and recordings of event-related potentials to study the temporal dynamics of access to consciousness. Intact early potentials (P1 and N1) were evoked by unseen words, suggesting that these brain events are not the primary correlates of conscious perception. However, we observed a rapid divergence around 270 ms, after which several brain events were evoked solely by seen words. Thus, we suggest that the transition toward access to consciousness relates to the optional triggering of a late wave of activation that spreads through a distributed network of cortical association areas.

When people monitor a visual stream of rapidly presented stimuli for two targets (T1 and T2), they often miss T2 if it falls into a time window of about half a second after T1 onset-the attentional blink (AB). We provide an overview of recent neuroscientific studies devoted to analyze the neural processes underlying the AB and their temporal dynamics. The available evidence points to an attentional network involving temporal, right-parietal and frontal cortex, and suggests that the components of this neural network interact by means of synchronization and stimulus-induced desynchronization in the beta frequency range. We set up a neurocognitive scenario describing how the AB might emerge and why it depends on the presence of masks and the other event(s) the targets are embedded in. The scenario supports the idea that the AB arises from "biased competition", with the top-down bias being generated by parietal-frontal interactions and the competition taking place between stimulus codes in temporal cortex.