Data from: Is predictability salient? A study of attentional capture by auditory patterns

In this series of behavioural and electroencephalography (EEG)
experiments, we investigate the extent to which repeating patterns of
sounds capture attention. Work in the visual domain has revealed
attentional capture by statistically predictable stimuli, consistent with
predictive coding accounts which suggest that attention is drawn to
sensory regularities. Here, stimuli comprised rapid sequences of tone
pips, arranged in regular (REG) or random (RAND) patterns. EEG data
demonstrate that the brain rapidly recognizes predictable patterns
manifested as a rapid increase in responses to REG relative to RAND
sequences. This increase is reminiscent of the increase in gain on neural
responses to attended stimuli often seen in the neuroimaging literature,
and thus consistent with the hypothesis that predictable sequences draw
attention. To study potential attentional capture by auditory
regularities, we used REG and RAND sequences in two different behavioural
tasks designed to reveal effects of attentional capture by regularity.
Overall, the pattern of results suggests that regularity does not capture
attention.