Abstract: Attentional capture is of great importance in revealing the relationship between two kinds of attentional control: bottom-up processes and top-down processes. Two main experimental paradigms are used in the current research on attention capture: pre-cuing paradigm and visual search paradigm. This paper reviewed several aspects concering: 1) the relationship between stimulus-driven attention capture and top-down control; 2) whether spatial shift of attention is involved in attentional capture; 3) the role of perceptual saliency in attentional capture; 4) how experimental paradigms influence attentional capture. Studies in general showed that no visual stimulus can capture attention independently of top-down control. That is, attentional capture is defaulted as an automatic process, which can be inhibited or facilitated by endogenous modulation.

Key words: Attentional capture, bottom-up processes, top-down processes