Prioritizing new elements with a brief preview period: Evidence against visual marking

Watson and Humphreys (1997) have proposed that the ability to prioritize new elements over old elements involves a time-consuming process (of at least 400 msec) of active inhibition of the locations of the old elements, which they referred to as visual marking. Recently, Donk and Theeuwes (2001) have suggested that prioritized selection of new over old elements is an instantaneous process related to the luminance change accompanying the appearance of the new elements. The aim of the present study was to test these two alternatives by investigating whether prioritized selection of new over old elements could be achieved with a very short preview of the old elements (50 msec). The results indicated that participants were able to prioritize selection of new over old elements when the new elements were presented with luminance onset whereas the old elements were not. New elements could not be prioritized if both the old and the new elements appeared with luminance onset. The results indicated that prioritization of new elements is based on an instantaneous process, rather than on a time-consuming process.