The role of perceptual factors in the reflexive attentional shift phenomenon.

The presence of a cue in the visual scene that orients attention can interfere with what we report to see. It has been suggested that this interference effect is affected by socially-relevant characteristics of the cue (social model of interference); for instance when attention is biased by the presence of a cue to whom a mental state is attributed (e.g. another person). This paper examines whether perceptual features of the cue, readily detected by visual processes (perceptual model of interference), are sufficient to elicit the interference effect. To compare the social and perceptual models of interference, an experiment was conducted which systematically manipulated the mental state attribution to the cue. The results show that interference persists even when a mental state is not attributed to the cue, and that perceptual expectations are sufficient to explain the reflexive attentional shift, thus supporting a perceptual model of interference.