Humans have only finite discriminatory capacities. This simple fact seems to be incompatible with the existence of appearances. As many authors have noted, the hypothesis that appearances exist seems to be refuted by reductio: Let A, B, C be three uniformly coloured surfaces presented to a subject in optimal viewing conditions, such that A, B, and C resemble one another perfectly except with respect to their colours. Their colours differ slightly in the following way: the difference between A and B (...) and the difference between B and C are below the discrimination threshold, but the difference between A and C is above this threshold. According to an intuitive construal of what an appearance is, given that A and B appear (to the subject) identical in colour, A and B have the same (colour1) appearance P1; likewise, B and C have the same appearance P2. B's appearance is both P1 and P2. This seems to imply that P1=P2. But then, A and C also have the same appearance, which contradicts the hypothesis that A and C are discriminable. If A and C are discriminable with respect to their colour, they do not have the same appearance with respect to colour. The paradox arising from such a series of judgments of sameness or difference between pairs of coloured surfaces seems to belong to the class of sorites paradoxes. I will show that there is a way to construe colours and their appearances in a way that does not fall prey to the reduction just sketched. (shrink)

Memmert tried to foster the development of attentional research by discussing four differences between attentional misdirection and inattentional blindness . Considering this goal, the comment was received in the intended way by the comments of 18 and 14 who make a number of highly valuable suggestions for further progress. As initially suggested by Memmert this dialog should help unravel the underlying attentional mechanisms of different paradigms. Therefore, we first discuss the suggested distinction between central and spatial IB by Most . (...) Second, we argue that working memory and perceptual load research seem particularly interesting in this regard and should be taken into consideration when conducting future research along the lines of IB and AM. Third, representative task designs can be an important mosaic piece in across-the-board attention theories and highly useful for deriving further testable hypothesis in naturalistic settings. The most important claim of all commentaries in this issue is that the proposed ideas can all be empirically tested and thereby contribute to the advancement of an unified theoretical framework incorporating IB, AM in consideration of overt and covert attention mechanisms. (shrink)

In several of our articles we have drawn analogies between inattentional blindness paradigms and misdirection. Memmert however, has criticized this analogy and urged for caution in assuming too much of a close relationship between these two phenomena. Here we consider the points raised by Memmert and highlight some misunderstandings and omissions in his interpretation of our work, which substantially undermine his argument. Debating the similarities and differences between aspects of misdirection and inattentional blindness is valuable and has the potential to (...) highlight the utility of these two phenomena. However, it is important not to be misdirected by subtle differences between particular instances of each phenomenon, at the expense of failing to detect the opportunities that these phenomena present for extending our understanding of attention and awareness. (shrink)