UC Davis

Luck et al. (2021) reviewed evidence that observers can learn to suppress attentional capture by salient distractors. Several commentaries were written in response to this review paper, many of which raised important and interesting issues. Here, we respond to these commentaries. Although there has been substantial progress in the attentional capture debate, there are still remaining issues that need to be addressed before the debate is completely resolved. Specifically, we summarize the need for an independent measure of bottom-up salience and better metrics of how attentional control unfolds over time. Ultimately, the field may need a more refined theoretical model of visual attention that distinguishes between attentional priority, attentional orienting, and attentional engagement.