When do the effects of distractors provide a measure of distractibility?

We discuss how, at the present time, there is a large deal of confusion in the attention literature regarding the use of the label " distractor" and what may be inferred from experiments using distractors. In particular, investigators seem to use the concepts of distractor interference and distractibility almost interchangeably. In contrast, we argue at both the theoretical and empirical levels that these two concepts are not only different, but in fact mutually exclusive. To that end, a brief review of several subliteratures is presented, in which we identify some examples of the misuse of these terms. We also propose a new paradigm for the study of distraction, as well as present a contemporary general theory of visual attention that provides a better framework for understanding distractor-interference effects, as well as instances of true distraction.