Age-related effects of attentional and oculomotor capture by onsets and color singletons as a function of experience

The present experiment examined the degree to which experience with different stimulus characteristics affects attentional capture, particularly as related to aging. Participants were presented with onset target/color singleton distractor or color singleton target/onset distractor pairs across three experimental sessions. The target/distractor pairs were reversed in the second session such that the target in the first session became the distractor in the second and third sessions. For both young and old adults previous experience with color as a target defining feature influenced oculomotor capture with task-irrelevant color distractors. Experience with sudden onsets had the same effect for younger and older adults, although capture effects were substantially larger for onset than for color distractors. Experience-based capture effects diminished relatively rapidly after target and distractor-defining properties were reversed. The results are discussed in terms of top-down and stimulus-driven effects on age-related differences in attentional control.     

Synergy of stimulus-driven salience and goal-directed prioritization: Evidence from the spatial blink

In the spatial blink paradigm, participants search for a target of a designated color in a rapidly presented stream of letters at fixation. Target identification is typically impaired if a peripheral distractor appears shortly before the target, inducing a spatial blink, but impairment is observed only when the distractor also shares the sought-for color. Such results reveal an important top-down influence on the capture of attention. In the present experiments, we examined the influence of the bottom-up transients associated with the appearance and disappearance of distractors in the spatial blink paradigm. Onsets and offsets alone are incapable of inducing a spatial blink, but we found that the presence of such transients did enhance the effects of target-color-matched distractors. The results reveal important synergistic interactions between top-down and bottom-up factors involved in attentional capture.     

Contingent attentional capture occurs by activated target congruence

Contingent attentional capture occurs when a stimulus property captures an observer's attention, usually related to the observer's top-down attentional set for target-defining properties. In this study, we examined whether contingent attentional capture occurs for a distractor that does not share the target-defining property at a physical level, but does share that property at an abstract level of representation. In a rapid serial visual presentation stream, we defined the target by color (e.g., a green-colored Japanese kanji character). Before the target onset, we presented a distractor that referred to the target-defining color (e.g., a white-colored character meaning "green"). We observed contingent attentional capture by the distractor, which was reflected by a deficit in identifying the subsequent target. This result suggests that because of the attentional set, stimuli were scanned on the basis of the target-defining property at an abstract semantic level of representation.     

Temporal dissociation between distractors and targets: the impact of residual distractor processing on target responses

The authors manipulated the extent of distractor interference with learned, mapped responses by presenting distractors to participants (N = 16) before, simultaneously with, or after the target. Interference was significantly less when the distractor preceded the target's presentation by 200 ms than when distractor and target were presented simultaneously. Interference decreased progressively with increasing intervals. For both simultaneous and temporally separated distractor-target presentations, incongruent distractors were associated with the greatest interference, and neutral and congruent distractors interfered to a lesser degree. Distractors at fixation had a crucially greater impact on goal-directed responses to the target than did distractors at periphery. The authors discuss the findings in the context of (a) the time course of the processing of all inputs, (b) the subsequent enhancement of target-related information and responses, and (c) the inhibition of distractor-related information and responses.     

Attentional control settings prevent abrupt onsets from capturing visual spatial attention

When a visual distractor appears earlier than a visual target in a target-detection task, response time is faster if the distractor appears at the same location as the target. When a visual distractor appears concurrently with a visual target in a target-detection task, response time is slowed relative to when no distractor is presented. Both effects have been taken as evidence of the capture of visual spatial attention, yet capture by early distractors is contingent on top-down attentional control settings (ACSs), and capture by concurrent distractors is not. The present study evaluated whether this incongruity is attributable to the timing of distractors (earlier than vs. concurrently with the target), or to the employed comparisons (same location/different location vs. distractor/no distractor). Using a task that presented both early and concurrent distractors, we observed that, regardless of timing, capture was contingent on ACSs when assessed by the same-location/different-location comparison. This result suggests that, although irrelevant stimuli cause nonspatial purely stimulus-driven effects, the capture of visual spatial attention is contingent on ACSs.     

Contingent Capture at a very short SOA: Evidence against Rapid Disengagement

Salient cues that do not contain the target's defining attribute do not cause a spatial cueing effect in response time when presented 150 ms before the target. This can be explained by Contingent Capture (under which incongruent cues do not capture attention) and also by Rapid Disengagement (under which salient but incongruent cues cause only brief capture). To discriminate between these models, a very short SOA of 35ms was employed in the standard paradigm. As is true for longer SOAs, there was no evidence of attentional capture by salient but incongruent cues. Thus, the evidence to date favours Contingent Capture over Rapid Disengagement.     

Electrophysiological and behavioral evidence reveals the effects of trait anxiety on contingent attentional capture

Few studies have investigated the effects of anxiety on contingent attentional capture. The present study examined contingent attentional capture in trait anxiety by applying a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm during electroencephalographic recording. Overall, the behavioral and electrophysiological results showed a larger capture effect when a distractor was the same color as the target compared to when the distractor was not of the target color. Moreover, high-anxiety individuals showed a larger N2pc in the target colored distractor condition and nontarget colored distractor condition compared to the distractor-absent condition. In addition, the reaction time was slower when distractors were presented in the left visual field compared to when they were in the right visual field. This pattern was not seen in low-anxiety individuals. The findings may indicate that high-anxiety individuals allocate attention to the target less efficiently and have reduced suppression of distractors compared to low-anxiety individuals who could suppress attention to the distractors more efficiently. Future work could valuably investigate the consequences of such differences in terms of benefits and disruption associated with attentional capture differences in a range of anxious populations in different risk monitoring situations.     

Influence of Task-Irrelevant Onset Distractors on the Visual Search Performance of Young and Old Adults

We examined potential age-related differences in attentional and oculomotor capture by single and multiple abrupt onsets in a singleton search paradigm. Participants were instructed to move their eyes as quickly as possible to a color singleton target and to identify a small letter located inside it. Either single or dual onset task-irrelevant distractors were presented simultaneously with the color change that defined the target, or one onset distractor was presented prior to and another onset distractor was presented during the participant's initial eye movement away from fixation. Young and old adults misdirected their eyes to the single and dual onset task-irrelevant distractors, on an equivalent proportion of trials, relative to control trials. However, older adults' saccade latencies and RTs were influenced to a greater extent by onsets compared to younger adults'. These data are discussed in terms of age-related differences in attentional control and oculomotor capture.     

工作记忆表征捕获眼动中的颜色优先性

刺激属性所具有的引导效力在工作记忆表征自上而下地引导注意捕获过程中起重要作用, 已有研究表明工作记忆表征的颜色属性在引导注意时具有一定的优势。研究采用工作记忆任务与视觉搜索任务相结合的双任务范式, 结合眼动追踪技术, 通过设置具有较强引导效力的颜色属性与朝向属性进行直接竞争的实验条件, 进一步考察工作记忆表征的颜色属性是否依然具有优先性。实验1发现工作记忆表征的颜色属性与朝向属性同时竞争眼动捕获时, 颜色属性表现出较强的优势, 而朝向属性单独呈现时并未表现出任何捕获效应。实验2与3进一步证实了颜色属性捕获眼动的优先性, 即当颜色属性在面临作为靶子属性的朝向属性的竞争时, 依然能捕获更多的注视点。这些结果直接证实了工作记忆表征的颜色属性在工作记忆表征的捕获眼动的过程中具有较强的引导效力, 相对于其他刺激属性(如朝向、形状)更具有优先性。     

Intertrial priming due to distractor repetition is eliminated in homogeneous contexts

Targets are found more easily in a visual search task when their feature is repeatedly presented, an effect known as intertrial priming. Recent findings suggest that priming of distractors can also improve search performance by facilitated suppression of repeated distractor features. The efficacy of intertrial priming for targets can be potentiated by the expectancy of a specific target feature; systematic repetition shows larger intertrial priming than random repetition. For distractors, the underlying mechanism is less clear. We used the systematic lateralization approach to disentangle target- and distractor-related processing with subcomponents of the N2pc. We found no modulation of the N_T component, which reflects prioritization of target processing. The N_D component, which reflects attentional capture by irrelevant stimuli, however, showed intertrial priming: N_D monotonically decreased with repetition of a distractor color, but only if a specific distractor feature was expected, and if the context induced a search that was vulnerable to attentional capture. These observations suggest that distractor priming only improves visual search if volitional control is relatively high. The results also suggest that intertrial priming for distractors is due to decreased attentional capture by repeatedly presented distractors, whereas target processing remains unaffected.     

Manipulations of distractor frequency do not mitigate emotion-induced blindness

Emotional distractors can impair perception of subsequently presented targets, a phenomenon called emotion-induced blindness. Do emotional distractors lose their power to disrupt perception when appearing with increased frequency, perhaps due to desensitisation or enhanced recruitment of proactive control? Non-emotional tasks, such as the Stroop, have revealed that high frequency distractors or conflict lead to reduced interference, and distractor frequency appears to modulate attentional capture by emotional distractors in spatial attention tasks. But emotion-induced blindness is thought to reflect perceptual competition between targets and emotional distractors, and it is unclear whether high frequency emotional stimuli cause less disruption at this relatively early stage of processing. In four experiments, participants searched streams of images for a rotated target image. A negative or neutral distractor appeared before the target, and their relative frequency was manipulated. Across all experiments, the frequency of emotional distractors did not modulate emotion-induced blindness even when participants were explicitly informed that they would appear often or seldom. Thus, increased distractor frequency does not appear to mitigate the priority allotted to emotional distractors during perceptual competition.     

Can new objects override attentional control settings?

Previous research suggests that attentional capture by abrupt onsets is contingent on top-down attentional control settings. Four experiments addressed whether similar contingencies hold for capture elicited by the appearance of new perceptual objects. In a modified spatial cuing task, targets defined by abrupt onset or color were paired with distractors consisting of an abrupt brightening of an existing object or the abrupt appearance of a new object. In Experiments 1 and 2, when subjects searched for an onset target, both distractor types produced evidence of capture. When subjects searched for a color target, however, distractors produced no evidence of attentional capture, regardless of whether they consisted of a new perceptual object or not. Experiments 3-5 showed that the lack of distractor effects in the color-target condition cannot be accounted for by rapid recovery from capture. It was concluded that attentional capture by new objects is subject to top-down modulation by attentional control settings.     

Nonspatial interdimensional attentional capture

Accuracy in identifying a target is impaired by a task-irrelevant singleton distractor even when the target and distractor appear in the same location. However, whether this impairment, known as a nonspatial interdimensional attentional capture, is contingent on a top-down attentional set or determined by stimulus-driven signals from distractors is unclear. To examine whether interdimensional attentional capture is affected by a top-down attentional set, the present study explicitly manipulated observers’ search strategies (the singleton detection or feature search modes) and the number of objects consisting of the search items. The results indicated that interdimensional attentional capture occurred even under the feature search mode but that the capture effect decreased under this search mode irrespective of the number of distractors, suggesting that top-down knowledge was effective in modulating nonspatial interdimensional capture.     

Statistical regularities modulate attentional capture independent of search strategy

An earlier study using the additional singleton task showed that statistical regularities regarding the distractor location can cause an attentional bias that affects the amount of attentional capture by distractors and the efficiency of selection of targets. The distractor singleton was systematically present more often in one location than in all other locations. The present study investigated whether this bias also occurs when observers adopt a feature search mode, i.e., when they search for a specific feature (circle) between elements with different shapes, while ignoring a colored distractor singleton. It is assumed that in feature search, observers can ignore distractors in a top-down way and as such one expects that statistical regularities about the distractor location should not play a role. Contrary to this prediction, we found that even in feature search, both attentional capture by the distractors and the efficiency of selecting the target were impacted by these statistical regularities. Moreover, statistical regularities regarding the feature value of the distractor (its color) had no effect on the amount of capture or the efficiency of selection. We claim that statistical regularities cause passive lingering biases of attention such that on the priority map, the location containing a high probability distractor competes less for attention than locations that are less likely to contain distractors.     

Attentional capture with various distractor and target types

Effects of nonpredictive distractors that involved changes in luminance, size, or shape were examined in three experiments. In Experiment 1, with two types of distractors (onsets and offsets), accuracy was better on trials when the distractor was near the location of either an offset or an onset target than on trials when the distractor was in a different location from that of the target, demonstrating attentional capture. Capture occurred both when the type of target (onset or offset) was blocked and therefore predictable and also when the type of target was mixed within blocks and therefore not predictable. Further experiments indicated that distractors captured attention even when the change to distractor did not create a new perceptual object. Neither a singleton-detection mode, nor a contingent involuntary orienting hypothesis, nor creation of a new object seems to explain all of these data adequately. Rather, capture may depend on a number of factors in the task.     

Attentional capture with various distractor and target types

Effects of nonpredictive distractors that involved changes in luminance, size, or shape were examined in three experiments. In Experiment 1, with two types of distractors (onsets and offsets), accuracy was better on trials when the distractor was near the location of either an offset or an onset target than on trials when the distractor was in a different location from that of the target, demonstrating attentional capture. Capture occurred both when the type of target (onset or offset) was blocked and therefore predictable and also when the type of target was mixed within blocks and therefore not predictable. Further experiments indicated that distractors captured attention even when the change to distractor did not create a new perceptual object. Neither a singleton-detection mode, nor a contingent involuntary orienting hypothesis, nor creation of a new object seems to explain all of these data adequately. Rather, capture may depend on a number of factors in the task.     

Object file continuity and the auditory attentional blink

Three experiments were designed to investigate the causes of the auditory attentional blink (AB). Experiments 1A and 1B revealed that there was a larger auditory AB when the target and the distractors were different in two attributes than when they were different in only one attribute. Experiments 2A and 2B showed that for pure-tone distractor sequences, there were small auditory AB deficits when both the target and the probe were different from the distractors in two attributes or in one attribute; however, for pulse distractor sequences, there was a large auditory AB when both the target and the probe were different from the distractors in one attribute, but not when they were different in two attributes. Experiments 3A and 3B revealed that regardless of the relationship of the target to the subsequent distractors, a large AB was generated if it was the first sound in a sequence. Moreover, only a very small AB was apparent when the distractors following the probe were replaced by silence. These results indicated that the auditory AB is affected by both the requirement of creating and consolidating a new object file for the target and the overwriting of the probe by the distractors following it.     

Attentional capture decreases when distractors remain visible during rapid serial visual presentations

The identification of a central visual target is impaired by the onset of a peripheral distractor. This impairment is said to occur because attentional focus is diverted to the peripheral distractor. We examined whether distractor offset would enhance or reduce attentional capture by manipulating the duration of the distractor. Observers identified a color singleton among a rapid stream of homogeneous nontargets. Peripheral distractors disappeared 43 or 172 msec after onset (the short- and long-duration conditions, respectively). Identification accuracy was greater in the long-duration condition than in the short-duration condition. The same pattern of results was obtained when participants identified a target of a designated color among heterogeneous nontargets when the color of the distractor was the same as that of the target. These findings suggest that attentional capture consists of stimulus onset and offset, both of which are susceptible to top-down attentional set.     

无关工作记忆表征的负性情绪信息能否捕获视觉注意?一项眼动研究

研究通过分析视觉搜索任务的首次注视点和行为反应时, 探讨无关工作记忆表征的负性情绪信息对视觉注意选择的影响。实验1发现在反映早期注意选择的首次注视点百分率指标上, 不管工作记忆表征的情绪效价如何, 均出现了显著的注意捕获效应; 实验2发现当采用中性情绪靶子刺激时, 首次注视点百分率指标上仍表现出了稳健的注意捕获效应; 在首次注视点持续时间指标上, 实验1和实验2均发现记忆匹配条件的干扰刺激显著小于控制条件的干扰刺激, 表现出注意的快速脱离; 而在行为反应时指标上, 早期的注意捕获效应消失(实验1), 甚至被反转为注意抑制效应(实验2)。这些结果表明在早期注意选择阶段, 记忆驱动的注意捕获效应不受工作记忆表征情绪效价的影响, 但认知控制会在早期注意捕获之后促使注意快速脱离记忆匹配的干扰刺激, 其作用效果受靶子刺激情绪效价的调节。     

The influence of relevant and irrelevant stereoscopic depth cues: Depth information does not always capture attention

Previous research reported ambiguous findings regarding the relationship of visuospatial attention and (stereoscopic) depth information. Some studies indicate that attention can be focused on a distinct depth plane, while other investigations revealed attentional capture from irrelevant items located in other, unattended depth planes. To evaluate whether task relevance of depth information modulates the deployment of attentional resources across depth planes, the additional singleton paradigm was adapted: Singletons defined by depth (i.e., displayed behind or in front of a central depth plane) or color (green against gray) were presented among neutral items and served as targets or (irrelevant) distractors. When participants were instructed to search for a color target, no attentional capture from irrelevant depth distractors was observed. In contrast, it took substantially longer to search for depth targets when an irrelevant distractor was presented simultaneously. Color distractors as well as depth distractors caused attentional capture, independent of the distractors’ relative depth position (i.e., in front of or behind the target). However, slight differences in task performance were obtained depending on whether or not participants fixated within the target depth plane. Thus, the current findings indicate that attentional resources in general are uniformly distributed across different depth planes. Although task relevant depth singletons clearly affect the attentional system, this information might be processed subsequent to other stimulus features.