The review argues that researchers can and should disregard the examination of eye movement behavior when seeking to understand the role that peripheral vision plays in various tasks. We present specific examples to argue that eye movement behavior has and will continue to aid in confirming and disconfirming hypotheses regarding visual-cognitive information processing in a variety of tasks.

The similarities between 2D summary statistics and fragmentary 3D vision suggest common principles. Specifically, both 2D and 3D visual processing discard information whenever that information is redundant or inessential for ecologically valid vision in a consistent world. Change blindness and other illusions result from information loss without awareness, when the corresponding consistency assumptions are violated.

The field has chosen gate as its preferred metaphor for attention. This commentary will discuss the power and the consequences of this choice. It will make the case that a better metaphor is needed, to liberate our understanding of attention from the constraints imposed by the gate metaphor.

Attention has been used to explain performance deficits in many visual tasks, even though it lacks a clear definition or distinction from visual perception. We agree with Dr. Rosenholtz that perceptual processes may account for many phenomena previously attributed to spatial attention. We further suggest that perceptual processes may underlie the study of temporal attention, namely the “attentional blink.”

Understanding the limits of visual processing is at the core of understanding visual attention. Rosenholtz proposes task complexity as a potential solution to identify a putative unifying capacity limit. We argue that if task complexity is indeed used to identify a unifying limit, effort must crucially be incorporated to prevent a future crisis in the field of visual 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.

We do not share Rosenholtz’s central worry that visual attention is in “crisis”. There are many examples of notable progress in understanding how the brain prioritizes and gathers information about the environment where “attention,” as a relatively loose concept, has worked well. We also discuss how focusing on a single definition, the field can be led astray.

The debate on attention’s validity in cognitive psychology persists. However, attention remains essential beyond peripheral vision constraints, as it is a resource-limited process (Norman & Bobrow, 1975). The outright dismissal of attention proposed in the target article risks conceptual voids without superior alternatives. Instead, refining attention as a theoretical framework offers a pragmatic path for advancing cognitive research.

We examine “allocentric” neglect from Rosenholtz’s perspective, focusing on visual limitations in the periphery rather than attention. Studies of allocentric neglect report no or limited data on visual field defects and extinction. We propose that if visual input is degraded, patients may fail to detect the left part of the stimulus and complete it perceptually (preattentively) rather than attentionally.

Rosenholtz’s framework reconciles contradictory findings in ensemble perception by attributing perceptual failures to task complexity and peripheral summary-statistic limitations rather than attentional lapses. This perspective also reframes the attentional blink (AB) as a manifestation of temporal crowding rather than a failure of selective attention. Philosophically, this challenges the idea that attention is constitutive of action, suggesting instead that task constraints shape both perception and agency.

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.

Rosenholtz is right that the multiple meanings of attention hinder development of a unified attention theory, but this is not a crisis. Embracing its diversity can advance fields like clinical psychology. However, inattentional blindness challenges attempts to move beyond attention as an explanatory concept. I illustrate this by highlighting attentional set, which demonstrates selective prioritization rather than mere task constraints.

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.

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.

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.

We agree that while there is a “crisis” in visual attention, the Rosenholtz’ article does not offer bold enough solutions. We argue that the real crisis extends beyond attention, reflecting a broader need for theoretical integration. Addressing this requires abandoning artificial subdivisions and adopting a more ecologically valid, contextually grounded approach to cognition.

Why have some organisms evolved processes of attention as distinct from perception in general? Investigation of freely behaving organisms (not in laboratory tasks) suggests that attention as distinct from perception is critical for goal-directed organisms’ value-based decision making. As such, the target of attention is not punctate stimuli, but whole situations (scenes) that are relevant to that decision.

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.

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.

While I agree with Rosenholtz that attention as mechanism should often be “banned”—this conception is confused and often explanatorily useless—I suggest that the real crisis is the proliferation of different, too often underspecified, mechanisms as attention. Attention is not an explainer. It is what we are trying to explain. Confusion on this point leads to unnecessary theoretical disunity.