While agreeing with Rosenholtz that the broad concept of visual attention conflates phenomena with explanatory mechanisms, leading to a crisis that demands a paradigm shift, we argue that this issue partially arises from viewing attention within a predominantly perception-focused framework. We propose reframing visual attention as part of an integrated sensorimotor system, emphasizing its role in linking vision and action.

The groundbreaking, anti-homuncular view presented by the author complements conclusions from diverse areas of research, including (a) research on phenomena not concerning attention (e.g., involving anosognosia, scotomata, dreams, and consciousness) and (b) the hypothesis that attention should be construed as an effect (e.g., from the activation of priority signals and task sets) rather than as a cause.

We suggest that the crisis in visual attention is caused by problems prevalent in many other areas of psychology: low-power experiments and questionable research practices. We demonstrate that many attention experiments use sample sizes that are several orders of magnitude too small and argue that it is unreasonable to expect theoretical clarity based on such unreliable empirical data.

Rosenholtz describes “attention theory” as a scientific paradigm in crisis, in the Kuhnian sense. But is attention a theory? Here, I question this premise. Although there can be theories of attentional phenomena, attention is not a theory. Rather, like memory and emotion, attention is a psychological concept that captures a broad class of phenomena, requiring multiple mechanistic explanations.

Here, we argue that Rosenholtz’ call for a paradigm shift in attention theory is unwarranted based on psychological evidence as well as philosophical theory and would disrupt scientific progress by preventing incremental science. To move forward, we suggest a different philosophical view on attention research that preserves the cumulative nature of scientific progress rather than waxing and waning theoretical paradigms.

This commentary refutes Rosenholtz’s claim that visual attention lacks conceptual validity. We contend that attention remains important for elucidating capacity-limited perceptual processing and explaining phenomenological experience. Alternative frameworks centered on tasks and decision boundaries fail to account for perceptual effects that attentional mechanisms can capture. Thus, preserving attention as a theoretical construct is important, providing interpretive frameworks for empirical investigations.

Rosenholtz addresses the crisis of proliferating mechanisms for visual attention by redefining the concept in terms of (a) the known limitations of peripheral vision and (b) a proper assessment of task complexity. We argue that abandoning the see → decide → act pipeline model and the myth of a centralized gate or resource eliminates this crisis. In our view, “attention” describes an outcome—the consequence of multiple constraints on perception and action—rather than a reified cause.

An outbreak of emm92/ST82 Streptococcus pyogenes was detected through prospective genomic surveillance at a military treatment facility. Twenty-one of twenty-six patients had confirmed epidemiological links to grappling sports. One case resulted from household transmission. The benefits of routine surveillance extend beyond the hospital environment enabling the detection of community-driven transmission.

This anonymous survey of hospitalists and acute care nurses evaluated awareness of peripheral intravenous catheters (PIVC) presence and decision-making regarding PIVC insertion, maintenance, and removal. Nurses were most aware of PIVC presence and regarded as best to make decisions about PIVC, yet <50% of respondents felt nurses should remove PIVC without an order.

Paradigm shifts as advocated by Kuhn (1962), should be rarely occurring and based upon true crises. The study of attention, however, is not in crisis requiring a paradigm shift but instead has a firm empirical foundation that can accommodate the findings in visual search cited in the target article.

Rosenholtz’s paper is a solid addition to a long tradition of throwing out babies with attentional bathwater (Di Lollo, 2012) (Wolfe, 2012) (Hulleman & Olivers, 2017) (Wolfe, 2017). She is correct that the term “attention” has been used in profligate and often ill-defined ways. That said, I argue that any plausible model of visual search must include visual selective attention.

Recent electrophysiological studies of visual attention have highlighted the importance of visual circuits through evolutionarily conserved brain regions in the midbrain that target processing stages downstream from early visual cortex. These findings support the target article’s emphasis on late-stage “task selection” but are also consistent with early-stage modulation of basic visual features and flexible pooling of visual signals.

Rosenholtz argues that summary statistics explain attentional phenomena via peripheral vision. While we acknowledge their role, we challenge the claim that they serve as an alternative mechanism. Instead, we argue that summary statistics and selective attention are interdependent, shaping visual perception under limited capacity, as evidenced by perceptual biases in numerosity judgments and mean estimations of shape size, color, and position.

I agree that, in some literature, the term “attention” is ill-defined and the constraints of peripheral vision have been overlooked. However, I disagree with omitting the empirical studies that have emphasized the importance of defining, operationalizing, and manipulating different types of attention and have investigated their effects on perception as a function of eccentricity and polar angle in peripheral vision.

The commentaries debated numerous points in the target article. Many questioned the existence of a crisis and the benefits of a paradigm shift, even though none countered the listed signs of a crisis. Paradigm shifts are an important way that science progresses. There remains hope for a unifying theory, and for a reawakening of an ambitious science of visual attention.

Rosenholtz (2024) dismisses attentional capture, arguing that brief distractions (20–40 ms) are insignificant or intentional. However, we argue that distractions are never intentional nor negligible, and studying them is crucial both theoretically and for real-world applications.