PONE-D-21-21645Testing the Skill-Based Approach: Consolidation strategy impacts Attentional Blink performancePLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Hoekstra,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

The reviewers found the approach taken in your study to be both theoretically innovative and worthwhile and the experiments appear to be technically sound. Likewise, I also found the approach fascinating and can see its potential value for understanding the attentional blink. However, the reviewers have both raised important concerns, which you will need to address. I won’t reiterate all of them here, but I do want to highlight a common thread that there are inconsistencies between the model predictions and the results and that reconciling these appropriately in your conclusions is an issue that needs further attention. On this point, the reviewers raise related criticisms about the validity of your interpretation of the results, noting that the model is not particularly well supported by the data. While the results of the cluster analysis can be mapped onto the model’s prediction post hoc, doing so doesn’t provide confirmation of the validity of the model. I found the results of the cluster analysis interesting but, like Reviewer 1, I’m left wondering how to interpret three apparently distinct clusters of participants when there are only two candidate skills considered in the model. In addition, both reviewers found it somewhat problematic that most of your participants in Experiment 2 had very high accuracy, with the largest cluster showing little evidence of an AB. As they note, this is consistent with your model predictions to a degree, but could be interpreted in many other ways. To summarise these points, then, although the approach of applying PRIMS to the AB is commendable for a number of reasons, this particular study appears to generate more questions than it answers and this should be reflected in your interpretation and conclusion.

In addition to the reviewers’ comments, I couldn’t find a few details that I though would be useful for understanding and/or replicating the results. For instance, I think you should report the font in which the RSVP items are displayed, accuracy for the single-target trials in Experiment 2, and the proportion of trials that were omitted from analysis because the participant chose too many corners (as you have described on pages 21-22). You’ll have to forgive me if these details are buried in the manuscript somewhere but I couldn’t find them and I think they should be in the main text of the article, not just accessible in the data that you have made available.

As the reviewers agree that the study is technically sound, I expect that these concerns can be addressed in a substantial revision of the manuscript, focusing on the interpretation of the results in particular.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 24 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Evan James Livesey, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Partly

**********

2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: This manuscript tests the ability of the PRIMs cognitive architecture, which is based on a modular set of basic cognitive operations, to explain the attentional blink (AB). The AB is a deficit in the reporting of the second of two consecutive targets that arises when the first target must also be reported. The authors run two experiments in which they use instructional manipulations to encourage participants to treat the two AB targets as distinct or as part of a larger whole. In Experiment 1, this involved asking participants to report two letters or combine those letters to report one syllable. In Experiment 2, this involved asking participants to report corners of a square separately or as a combined shape. In Experiment 1, this manipulation did not affect performance, failing to replicate an earlier study (thus PRIMS could not be tested). In Experiment 2, the manipulation led to some improvement in T2 performance when participants were asked to report the combined shape. Modelling this difference using two PRIMs architectures that used a “consolidate-separate” or “consolidate-chunk” skill (corresponding to the instruction to encode targets separately or as a whole) yielded “model predictions [that] were in the correct direction … [but] the difference between conditions was much smaller than anticipated by the model.” (pg 28).

The authors employ an interesting and flexible approach to explaining and modeling the AB, and the experiments are conducted thoroughly and analyzed appropriately for the most part. My chief concern is that the interpretation of the results seems to move too far past the existing data. Starting with Experiment 1, the failure to replicate the earlier Ferlazzo paper is potentially attributed to a number of factors (lines 401-416), and then the authors conclude that “the failed replication does not categorically reject the original results but rather shows how difficult it is to manipulate participant strategy”. While this is a reasonable conclusion, there does not seem to be anything in the data that supports this conclusion over and above alternatives, including the possibility that the earlier results are not replicable.

In Experiment 2, a similar manipulation to promote chunking of the targets is successful in improving T2 performance at earlier lags, but then leads to worse performance at longer lags. Thus, the model captures the early benefit to some degree but then cannot account for the puzzling deficit in the “consolidate-chunk” condition at later lags. The authors then conduct a cluster analysis and show that there are three clusters of differently performing participants. While I understand that the choice of three clusters is data driven, conceptually this seems odd given that one should expect only two clusters corresponding to the two different instructions. In fact, the three-cluster structure suggests that a significant majority of participants simply showed no AB. Arguably, this makes the outcome of the experiment itself largely uninterpretable and the fit of the model to the data (which was meant to be indicative of an AB) also unreliable. The authors take a different approach suggesting that the large cluster of participants who do not show an AB reflects the fact that many in the “consolidate-separate” condition instead used a “consolidate-chunk” strategy. This is, of course, plausible but there is nothing in the data to support this particular interpretation over any other one.

To conclude then, while I am entirely sympathetic to the authors approach and I think they have conducted their experiments well, I don’t feel that their data clearly supports their model or is evidently consistent with their interpretations.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript reports the results of two experiments, and a computational modelling, aimed at investigating a skill-based model of the Attentional Blink (AB), predicting a reduced or absent AB when individuals use a single-chunk consolidation strategy while performing the AB task. The first experiment is an attempt at replicating the results from a study by Ferlazzo et al. (2007). The second experiment, prompted by the failure at replicating them, is an attempt at devising a better experimental manipulation yielding the expected reduction of the AB. The results, though complex, could be interpreted to support the model.

The study is quite interesting from a theoretical point of view. It's well-designed, and contributes nicely to our knowledge, or lack thereof, on the AB phenomenon.

In my opinion, the main weakness of the manuscript concerns the interpretation of the results from the cluster analysis. Though the analysis is interesting, its results are interpreted as demonstrating the validity of the model the Authors propose. However, the results are just post-hoc (there was no a priori expectation about the results of the cluster analysis) and cannot be used this way. The results of the experiment are indeed in contrast with those expected on the basis of the model (or at least not conclusive), and those from the cluster analysis can only, in my opinion, be used to generate new hypotheses to be investigate in further experiments. This should be made clear in the manuscript by changing the phrasing. For instance:

(from line 782) Specifically, it appears that the participants in the ‘combined’ condition rarely used the standard ‘consolidate-separate’ skill indicated by the very small number of participants showing a regular AB. However, it also shows that quite some participants in the ‘separate’ condition used the ‘consolidate-chunked’ strategy (reflected in Cluster 1).

This sentence is too strong, as an infinite number of other mechanisms could account for the observed pattern of results, and this should be reflected in the sentence.

Minor point:

Lines in Figure 8 are barely discernible, the figure should be redrawn.

In my opinion, the manuscript presents a set of interesting and new results, adding significantly to our understanding of the AB phenomenon, and only requires minor revisions.

**********

6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Testing the Skill-Based Approach: Consolidation strategy impacts Attentional Blink performance

PONE-D-21-21645R1

Dear Dr. Hoekstra,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Evan James Livesey, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Please accept my apologies for the long delay in returning this decision (completely my fault, I'm sorry to say). I secured a review from one of the original reviewers, who was satisfied with the revisions that you have made to the manuscript and has recommended accepting this version of the manuscript. I too have read through your emendations carefully. Thank you for adding the additional information that I requested. I note that you have provided a much more measured set of interpretations and conclusions, which I think fit the results appropriately now. In short, I am also happy with this version. The other reviewer did not provide further feedback on your emendations, however it is clear to me that you have addressed their original concerns and since they recommended minor revision in the first place, I will assume they too would be happy with your efforts.

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

**********

7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No