Over the last 35 years or so, there has been a heated debate about whether we can always select the objects we want to select or whether, in some cases, the properties of the environment determine what is selected (Luck et al., Reference Luck, Gaspelin, Folk, Remington and Theeuwes2021). It is a fundamental question: are we always in charge of what we select, or is it possible that, in some cases, we are not in control, and instead, the environment dictates what we attend to?

We and others have shown that even when objects are completely irrelevant to the task, they may, in some cases, capture attention (Theeuwes, Reference Theeuwes1992, Reference Theeuwes2025) or capture our eyes (Theeuwes et al., Reference Theeuwes, Kramer, Hahn and Irwin1998). This research is highly relevant because it addresses the question of who is in control. It has significant consequences for theories of attention, for understanding how our brain is wired, and for explaining why people sometimes get into accidents when distracted by irrelevant events.

Rosenholtz (Reference Rosenholtz2024) dismisses these critical findings by arguing, “who cares about 20 to 40 ms distraction,” (p.*) and suggesting that people may “enjoy spending 40 ms attending an unusual item.” (p.*). With these remarks, Rosenholtz dismisses a substantial literature in experimental psychology.

In most experiments investigating attentional capture, we instruct observers to selectively search for a well-defined, salient target. On some trials, an irrelevant distractor is also present. In these types of experiments, there are two possible outcomes: either the irrelevant distractor has no effect on performance, which would indicate perfect top-down selection, or the presence of the distractor causes a performance decrement, indicating bottom-up capture. To argue that this performance decrement is due to observers “enjoying spending 40 ms attending an unusual item” invalidates the entire approach of hypothesis testing. Regardless of the outcome of such experiments, one could always argue that there is top-down control simply because people enjoy attending to something other than the target.

In the paper, Rosenholtz makes two claims: (1) the performance decrement may result from intentional “enjoyment” of a non-target stimulus, and (2) the observed interference effect is too small to be meaningful. The first claim is clearly incorrect, as it has already been demonstrated that singleton interference is driven by salience—specifically, when a target is more salient than a distractor, no interference occurs (Theeuwes, Reference Theeuwes1992). If participants were willfully choosing to dwell on and “enjoy” a salient color singleton, then why would they not do the same for a less-salient shape singleton? This explanation only holds if salience inherently captures attention, reinforcing the idea that interference effects are a result of attentional capture rather than voluntary engagement. Regarding the second point, while it is true that in classic attentional capture experiments (Theeuwes, Reference Theeuwes1992), the irrelevant distractor typically causes only a 20 to 40 ms reaction time (RT) delay, this effect is observed in experiments where a distractor appears on every trial across 2,000 or more trials. However, when a distractor appears only once in an experiment, the interference effect is 9 to 15 times larger (∼370-580 ms) (Adam, Yang, & Serences, Reference Adam, Yang and Serences2024), demonstrating a much stronger impact when unexpected. Additionally, eye movement studies have shown that salient events can capture gaze, directing the eyes away from the target location (Theeuwes et al., Reference Theeuwes, Kramer, Hahn, Irwin and Zelinsky1999), further supporting the argument that salience-driven interference is both measurable and significant.

This is why research on 40 ms distractions is important. Even a brief moment of not attending the road in front of you such as when a blinking dashboard light momentarily captures your eyes could compromise road safety, potentially leading to a rear-end collision. If a distraction causes your eyes to shift away from an oncoming bicyclist, even for a fraction of a second, the consequences could be fatal. Selecting relevant information and avoiding distractions is crucial for driving, as over 90% of driving-related information is visual, and deficits in visual attention significantly contribute to road accidents (see for a review (Theeuwes, Reference Theeuwes2021)