Attention Capture
- Attention capture is involuntary. If a stimulus appears in your visual field, it will capture your attention regardless of whether you want it to or not.
- Two ways to capture attention
- Rapid luminescence captures attention – something turns abruptly bright
- Rapid appearance of a novel perceptual object captures attention – an object suddenly becomes visually distinct from its previous scene
- Example: like a tiger moving behind the reeds. Tiger becomes a novel perceptual object when it emerges from the background
Banner ads didn’t work (see lecture reading) because people can completely tune these ads out; if we know we’re not interested in these things, they no longer work.
