The effect of fear and anger on selective attention

This experiment examined the effects of two discrete negative emotions, fear and anger, on selective attention. A within-subjects design was used, and all participants (N = 98) experienced the control, anger, and fear conditions. During each condition, participants viewed a film clip eliciting the target emotion and subsequently completed a flanker task and emotion report. Selective attention costs were assessed by comparing reaction times (RTs) on congruent (baseline) trials with RTs on incongruent trials. There was a significant interaction between emotion condition (control, anger, fear) and flanker type (congruent, incongruent). Contrasts further revealed a significant interaction between emotion and flanker type when comparing RTs in the control and fear conditions, and a marginally significant interaction when comparing RTs in the control and anger conditions. This indicates that selective attention costs were significantly lower in the fear compared to the control condition and were marginally lower in the anger compared with the control condition. Further analysis of participants reporting heightened anger in the anger condition revealed significantly lower selective attention costs during anger compared to a control state. These findings support the general prediction that high arousal negative emotional states inhibit processing of nontarget information and enhance selective attention. This study is the first to show an enhancing effect of anger on selective attention. It also offers convergent evidence to studies that have previously shown an influence of fear on attentional focus using the global-local paradigm.     

The interacting effect of load and space on visual selective attention

In the study of visual attention, two major determinants of our ability to ignore distracting information have been isolated, namely, (1) the spatial separation from the focus of attention and (2) perceptual load. This study manipulated both factors using a dual-task adaptation of the flanker paradigm (Eriksen & Hoffman, 1973). It showed that (1) although attention followed a gradient profile under low perceptual load it followed a Mexican-hat profile under high perceptual load, consistent with the idea that increasing load focuses spatial attention; and (2) increasing perceptual load did not improve overall selectivity: Though selectivity improved at near separations, it was impaired at far ones. Load and spatial separation exert interacting effects.     

选择性注意机制在情景线索效应中的作用

情景线索效应是指个体在视觉搜索过程中通过学习重复不变的情景信息提高搜索效率的现象。本文从情景线索效应相关行为特征、眼动特征及大脑神经活动等三个方面探讨了情景线索效应与选择性注意机制的交互作用,发现现有研究中存在着许多互相冲突的现象,增加了理解注意机制的难度。未来研究应结合认知神经科学技术寻找更多的实证数据,探索注意机制对情景线索效应的影响,以进一步完善情景线索效应中的注意机制理论。     

Distractor eccentricity and its effect on selective attention

Previous research has shown conflicting results regarding the effect of distractor eccentricity on selective attention. The present study examines the relationship between a distractor's retinal location and participants' response latencies to a target while holding constant the distribution of attention. In three experiments, the participants searched for a target among several distractors. The retinal location of the critical distractor was manipulated so that it was at either a central or a peripheral location. The results show that all else being equal, an incompatible distractor causes more interference at a peripheral location than at a central location. This distractor eccentricity effect suggests that the visual system can overcome the default bias in the distribution of attention that favors a central stimulus.     

The effect of reinforcement and verbal rehearsal on selective attention in learning-disabled children

A central-incidental task of selective attention was administered to 100 learning-disabled boys — 48 younger children (81/2–101/2 years) and 52 older children (101/2–121/2 years). Subjects at both age levels were assigned to one of four conditions: (a) a standard condition; (b) a rehearsal condition, in which subjects were taught a verbal rehearsal strategy; (c) a reinforcement condition, in which correct responses were rewarded; and (d) a combined rehearsal-reinforcement condition. Older subjects recalled more central task but not more incidental task information than younger subjects. A measure of selective attention efficiency was also greater for older than for younger subjects. Central recall in the rehearsal-reinforcement condition was greater than in any other condition. Central recall was greater in the rehearsal condition than in the standard and reinforcement conditions. Selective attention efficiency was greater for both rehearsal conditions than for both nonrehearsal conditions. Incidental recall was higher for reinforcement subjects than for rehearsal subjects. Results suggest that induced verbal rehearsal improves central recall and selective attention in learning-disabled children. Reinforcement alone does not improve central recall but may when paired with rehearsal.This article is based on a Ph.D. dissertation completed by the senior author at the University of Virginia. Preparation of this article was supported in part by a contract (300-77-0495) from the Bureau of Education for the Handicapped, Office of Education, for the University of Virginia Learning Disabilities Research Institute.     

Self-focused attention and reactions to conflicting standards

A fundamental postulate of self-awareness theory that has received considerable empirical support is that self-focused attention increases behavioral consistency with “standards of correctness.” This appears to be true whether the standards are internal (such as attitudes or values) or external (e.g., norms). There is some question, however, as to what happens in situations in which an important personal standard conflicts with a salient external standard. Research by E. Diener and T. K. Srull (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1979, 37, 413–423) has suggested that under such circumstances the social standard is likely to predominate. However, there is reason to believe that the standards employed in their study may not have been very salient nor very important to the subjects. In the present experiment, subjects with either conservative or liberal sexual attitudes were exposed to information suggesting a prevailing norm of sexual liberalism. They were then asked to respond to a number of sexual and nonsexual attitude measures while their attention was or was not self-directed by means of a mirror. Primary results indicated that self-awareness enhanced conformity to the social standard (as in Diener & Srull, 1979) for the conservative subjects; however, correlational analyses within the self-focused and non-self-focused conditions indicated that self-aware subjects did not “abandon” their personal standards when responding to the conformity pressure. Instead, their responses tended to be more in line with their previously expressed attitudes than did the responses of the non-self-focused group. Results are discussed in terms of the effects of self-awareness on reactions to potent, but conflicting behavioral standards.     

When motor attention improves selective attention: The dissociating role of saliency

There is evidence that preparing and maintaining a motor plan (“motor attention”) can bias visual selective attention. For example, a motor attended grasp biases visual attention to select appropriately graspable object features (Symes, Tucker, Ellis, Vainio, & Ottoboni, 2008). According to the biased competition model of selective attention, the relative weightings of stimulus-driven and goal-directed factors determine selection. The current study investigated how the goal-directed bias of motor attention might operate when the stimulus-driven salience of the target was varied. Using a change detection task, two almost identical photographed scenes of simplistic graspable objects were presented flickering back and forth. The target object changed visually, and this change was either high or low salience. Target salience determined whether or not the motor attended grasp significantly biased visual selective attention. Specifically, motor attention only had a reliable influence on target detection times when the visual salience of the target was low.     

Aging and goal-directed emotional attention: distraction reverses emotional biases

Previous findings reveal that older adults favor positive over negative stimuli in both memory and attention (for a review, see Mather & Carstensen, 2005). This study used eye tracking to investigate the role of cognitive control in older adults' selective visual attention. Younger and older adults viewed emotional-neutral and emotional-emotional pairs of faces and pictures while their gaze patterns were recorded under full or divided attention conditions. Replicating previous eye-tracking findings, older adults allocated less of their visual attention to negative stimuli in negative-neutral stimulus pairings in the full attention condition than younger adults did. However, as predicted by a cognitive-control-based account of the positivity effect in older adults' information processing tendencies (Mather & Knight, 2005), older adults' tendency to avoid negative stimuli was reversed in the divided attention condition. Compared with younger adults, older adults' limited attentional resources were more likely to be drawn to negative stimuli when they were distracted. These findings indicate that emotional goals can have unintended consequences when cognitive control mechanisms are not fully available.     

Contextual assimilation and its effect on the division of attention between nonverbal signals

Subjects performed a recognition task in which a low or a high frequency signal was presented simultaneously with a dim or a bright intensity one. The independent variable was the degree of association between the signals on the two dimensions. Unknown to the subjects four levels were tested in separate conditions, 1.0, 0.8, 0.5 and 0.2. Increasing the positive association improved overall sensitivity as measured by d' on both dimensions, but left contingent sensitivity unchanged. Changing the association did not affect overall bias, as measured by Beta. However, holding context constant by analysis produced significant differences between individual measures of contingent bias in the direction of assimilation, for example “low” responses tended to accompany dim signals and “dim” responses. The differences were unaffected by the changes in association. The results are interpreted as favouring models of contextual assimilation which assume that biasing at some level of processing depends upon the mutually contingent interaction of discrete events rather than on memory and expectation of the relative frequency of conjoint events. Further support for this conclusion comes from previous studies which indicate that assimilation occurs with separate responses but not with unitary ones. The implications of the findings for research on the division of attention are discussed, particularly the need to control variability in measured bias to establish a true change in the allocation of attention. Two generalized models of contextual assimilation are proposed, one based on “object” and the other on “lexical” assimilation. The possible application of these models to synaesthesia is considered.     

The development of perceived structure and attention: evidence from divided and selective attention tasks

Three experiments provide converging evidence for the view that both perceived structure and attention change during the elementary school years. Kindergarteners, second graders, and adults performed three speeded tasks: divided attention to conjunctions of features, selective attention to orthogonal dimensions and selective attention to correlated dimensions. The tasks were performed with sizes and shapes that were either spatially integrated or spatially separated. In the divided attention task, conjunctions were identified as quickly as single features with integrated stimuli at all ages, but conjunctions were identified more slowly than single features with separated stimuli by all age group. In the orthogonal dimensions task, interference was observed with integrated stimuli across ages, but the interference in adult performance was asymmetric. With separated stimuli, interference was gradually eliminated with increasing age. In correlated dimensions tasks, younger children showed a redundancy gain with integrated stimuli, but no gain was observed in the performances of the older subjects. With separated stimuli there was no redundancy gain at any age. These results were interpreted to mean that integrated stimuli are initially perceived as wholes by all subjects, but that features become more accessible with increasing age. Even so, attention remains constrained by stimulus structure. In contrast, separated stimuli are initially perceived as features at all ages, and the improvement in performance with increasing age is attributable to the increasing command of attentional resources that accompanies development. Our discussion of these findings focuses on three issues: multiple trends in perceptual development, the characteristics of an adequate theory of perceptual representation and processing, and a comparison of the separability hypothesis and other developmental accounts of perceptual development.     

The selective attention of learning-disabled children: Three studies

Three studies were performed to assess the selective attention of learning-disabled (LD) children. In the first study, 10 LD and 16 non-LD children were given the Speeded Classification task. LD children sorted cards more slowly than non-LD children, and children in both groups had trouble ignoring irrelevant information. Non-LD children became more accurate across trials, while LD children did not. In the second study, one group of 13 LD children was taught to accompany their Speeded Classification sorting verbally in an attempt to improve their performance; the other group of LD children (n=12) received no such instruction. The experimental group, however, showed poorer performance across trials compared with the control group. In the third study, the children from Experiments 1 and 2 were given the Central-Incidental Learning task. Older children learned more central memory items than younger children and, LD children learned more incidentally than non-LD children.The authors would like to thank James Merola, Lisa Hart, Donna Woods, and Leonne Paquette for their assistance in this project, and the headmaster, director, teachers, and staff who were so helpful. Parts of this paper were presented at the 1982 meeting of the American Psychological Association.     

The impact of spatial cues on preschoolers' selective attention

The effects of spatial arrangement on preschool children's ability to selectively attend were investigated. Three- and 4-year old children were shown a multicolor dollhouse room intended to serve as a special place containing miniature chairs and models of animals. One category of objects was designated as relevant and 1 as irrelevant. Relevant items were placed in each of the apparatus's corners or in the middle of its walls. Children in the corners condition correctly relocated more relevant items than children in the wall or control conditions. The findings suggest that for both age groups, the ability to recall relevant items may be independent of their ability to demonstrate a selective attention strategy.     

Attention biases and habituation of attention biases are associated with 5-HTTLPR and COMTval158met

Fundamental biases in affective information processing are modulated by individual differences in the emotional response to environmental stimuli that may be partly based on the individual’s genetic make-up. To extend prior dot probe studies on attention genetics, we used a visual-search paradigm (VSP) with pictures of angry and happy faces of both sexes as targets, neutral faces as distractors, and a varying set size. Participants were selected a priori depending on their 5-HTTLPR (s/s, s/l, l/l; on a constant rs25531 A-allele background) and COMTval158met (val/val, valmet, met/met) genotypes and were matched for sex and age. We demonstrate a bias towards angry male faces (as opposed to happy male faces) irrespective of 5-HTTLPR genotype in the first experimental block that was maintained during the second experimental block only in carriers of the s-allele, which implies differential habituation processes. While a bias towards angry male faces was observed irrespective of COMTval158met genotype, only individuals with the val/val genotype exhibited a bias towards a happy female face (as opposed to an angry female face). In sum, our results both replicate and extend prior findings in the field of attention genetics and add important pieces of information to the research on attentional biases in emotion processing.     

Selective attention to pitch amid conflicting auditory information: context-coding and filtering strategies

An auditory Eriksen-flanker task was used to study how conflicting information interferes with selective attention to task-relevant differences in pure-tone frequency. Across the observation intervals of the discrimination task, the relevant frequency differences between target tones were positive, but within an observation interval, they could appear to be small or negative relative to conflicting differences in flanker tones leading or trailing the target. Being correct required attending to the between-target and ignoring the target–flanker pitch relation (across and within observation-interval, respectively). The interference index was an elevation of conflict-laden frequency discrimination thresholds (FDTs), relative to no-conflict FDTs. When conflicting differences in frequency or level (but not in duration) trailed the relevant differences, interference (i.e., FDT elevation) was large and persistent, increased with the target–flanker time proximity, but decreased with extensive training. Interference occurs when the target–flanker pitch relation is more prominent than the one between targets, and the physical and/or perceptual effects of relevant and conflicting differences tend to cancel one another, as with the above conflicting differences. With untrained participants, the target–flanker pitch relation is most prominent in conditions fostering both the perceptual grouping of the target and flanker (e.g., close time proximity), and the recency and salience of the conflicting differences (e.g., trailing conflicting difference); conversely, by lessening such grouping and salience, prolonged training decreases or nullifies the interference. The interference observed herein does not arise because the relevant and the conflicting differences each prompt separate decisions or responses that are in mutual conflict; instead, it arises from the early-stage interaction between their perceptual effects.     

The role of neuromodulators in selective attention

Several classes of neurotransmitters exert modulatory effects on a broad and diverse population of neurons throughout the brain. Some of these neuromodulators, especially acetylcholine and dopamine, have long been implicated in the neural control of selective attention. We review recent evidence and evolving ideas about the importance of these neuromodulatory systems in attention, particularly visual selective attention. We conclude that, although our understanding of their role in the neural circuitry of selective attention remains rudimentary, recent research has begun to suggest unique contributions of neuromodulators to different forms of attention, such as bottom-up and top-down attention.     

Neurodisruption of selective attention: insights and implications

Mechanisms of selective attention are vital for coherent perception and action. Recent advances in cognitive neuroscience have yielded key insights into the relationship between neural mechanisms of attention and eye movements, and the role of frontal and parietal brain regions as sources of attentional control. Here we explore the growing contribution of reversible neurodisruption techniques, including transcranial magnetic stimulation and microelectrode stimulation, to the cognitive neuroscience of spatial attention. These approaches permit unique causal inferences concerning the relationship between neural processes and behaviour, and have revealed fundamental mechanisms of attention in the human and animal brain. We conclude by suggesting that further advances in the neuroscience of attention will be facilitated by the combination of neurodisruption techniques with established neuroimaging methods.     

Reconciling conflicting electrophysiological findings on the guidance of attention by working memory

Maintaining a representation in working memory has been proposed to be sufficient for the execution of top-down attentional control. Two recent electrophysiological studies that recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) during similar paradigms have tested this proposal, but have reported contradictory findings. The goal of the present study was to reconcile these previous reports. To this end, we used the stimuli from one study (Kumar, Soto, & Humphreys, 2009) combined with the task manipulations from the other (Carlisle & Woodman, 2011b). We found that when an item matching a working memory representation was presented in a visual search array, we could use ERPs to quantify the size of the covert attention effect. When the working memory matches were consistently task-irrelevant, we observed a weak attentional bias to these items. However, when the same item indicated the location of the search target, we found that the covert attention effect was approximately four times larger. This shows that simply maintaining a representation in working memory is not equivalent to having a top-down attentional set for that item. Our findings indicate that high-level goals mediate the relationship between the contents of working memory and perceptual attention.     

The effects of spatial configuration on preschoolers' attention strategies,selective attention,and incidental learning

This study investigated the effects of spatial arrangement on preschool children's selective attention and incidental learning. Three‐ and four‐year old children were shown a multi‐coloured box designated as a ‘special place’ containing miniature chairs and models of animals. One category of objects were designated as relevant and one as irrelevant. Relevant items were placed in each of the apparatus' corners, in the middle of its walls, or in two corners and in the middle of two walls. Findings revealed that children shown relevant items in corners demonstrated the greatest number of correct relocations for relevant items while those shown relevant items in the middle of the walls showed the greatest number of correct relocations for irrelevant items. Findings also suggest that for both age groups, the ability to recall relevant items may have been independent of their ability to demonstrate a selective attention strategy. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.