What’s past is past: Neither perceptual preactivation nor prior motivational relevance decrease subsequent inattentional blindness

Inattentional blindness—the phenomenon that clearly visible, yet currently unexpected objects go unnoticed when our attention is focused elsewhere—is an ecologically valid failure of awareness. It is currently subject to debate whether previous events and experiences determine whether or not inattentional blindness occurs. Using a simple two-phase paradigm in the present study, we found that the likelihood of missing an unexpected object due to inattention did not change when its defining characteristic (its color) was perceptually preactivated (Experiment 1; N = 188). Likewise, noticing rates were not significantly reduced if the object’s color was previously motivationally relevant during an unrelated detection task (Experiment 2; N = 184). These results corroborate and extend recent findings questioning the influence of previous experience on subsequent inattentional blindness. This has implications for possible countermeasures intended to thwart the potentially harmful effects of inattention.