Do Looming Objects Capture Overt Attention?

Researchers have demonstrated stimuli onset captures attention, particularly in visual search. Although previously published work specifically does not attribute this effect to motion, recent research suggests looming motion captures attention. We investigated eye movements during visual search with looming targets and distractors. We replicated previous response time data, and additionally demonstrated these differences were not from physical distances and varied as a function of distraction stimuli fixation. Our results indicate attentional costs may result from both overt and covert processing.