Assessing the evidence for novel popout

Between 1990 and 1994, Johnston and colleagues (K.J. Hawley, W.A. Johnston, & J.M. Farnham, 1994; W.A. Johnston, K.J. Hawley, J.M. Farnham, 1993; W.A. Johnston, K.J. Hawley, S.H. Plewe, J.M.G. Elliott, & M. J. DeWitt, 1990) published 3 articles on a phenomenon they designated ''novel popout.'' The typical interpretation of their findings is that a novel item rapidly and automatically attracts attention when displayed with familiar ones. J. Christie and R. Klein first show that the empirical pattern on which this claim is based can be easily explained in terms of a simple cognitive-load principle and note that effects not subject to this principle (or probability confounds) are rare in the target articles. We then show that these latter effects can be easily explained without assuming visual orienting toward the novel item. Finally, we outline 2 criteria that must be satisfied in order to make claims about the rapid orienting of attention in arrays with familiar and unfamiliar items, neither of which were met in any of the reviewed experiments.