The masking account of attentional capture: A reply

B. S. Gibson (1996) has recently argued that stimulus-driven attentional capture by abrupt onsets (or new objects) may be due to forward masking of the no onsets (or old objects) by preceding figure-eight placeholders. Three experiments are reported in the present article that address recent arguments and evidence offered by S. Yantis and J. Jonides (1996) against the masking account of attentional capture. Contrary to Yantis and Jonides's claims, the present study provides strong support for the masking account of attentional capture. Thus, the masking account appears to provide the best explanation of the existing data.