Mandal, A.; Liesefeld, A. M.; Liesefeld, H. R.

Completely ignoring a salient distractor presented concurrently with a target is difficult and sometimes attention is involuntarily attracted to the distractor\'s location (attentional capture). Employing the N2ac component as a marker of attention allocation towards sounds, in this study we investigate the spatio-temporal dynamics of auditory attention across two experiments. Human participants (male and female) performed an auditory search task, where the target was accompanied by a distractor in 2/3rd of the trials. For a distractor more salient than target (Exp. 1), we observe not only a distractor N2ac (indicating attentional capture), but the full chain of attentional dynamics implied by the notion of attentional capture, namely: (a) the distractor captures attention before the target is attended, (b) allocation of attention to the target is delayed by distractor presence, and (c) the target is attended after the distractor. Conversely, for a distractor less salient than the target (Exp. 2), although behavioral interference was present, no attentional capture was observed. Together, these findings reveal two types of spatial-attentional dynamics in the auditory modality (distraction with and without attentional capture).