B.2.6.3. Discussion

The present results were again consistent with the perceptual load hypothesis of Lavie (2005). Indeed, the AC decreased with increased perceptual load. However, the cognitive load hypothesis was not directly supported by the general ANOVA: it was only evidenced in the low perceptual load condition (size-3). Actually, this might be due to an interaction between cognitive and perceptual load effects. As predicted, increasing the perceptual load decreased the AC propensity. One could reasonably expect the AC to be modulated less when it was weaker or less prone to occur. This might explain why the cognitive load effects were only observed under the low perceptual load condition. The results of this second experiment preclude attributing the effects of task in Experiment 1 to simple perceptual effects associated with presence versus absence of noise.