注意控制定势和线索类型在注意捕获中的作用

采用前线索范式, 通过3个实验考察了注意控制定势和线索类型在注意捕获中的作用。实验1要求被试搜索颜色奇异项目标或突现目标, 涉及较弱的注意控制定势, 结果表明, 突现线索在作为匹配线索和不匹配线索时都能捕获注意, 而颜色奇异项线索只有在作为匹配线索时才能捕获注意。实验2要求被试搜索具体特征的红色或白色目标, 使被试建立较强的特征搜索定势, 结果表明, 颜色奇异项线索和突现线索在作为匹配线索时都能捕获注意, 但是在不匹配条件下, 颜色奇异项线索被抑制了, 而突现线索不能捕获注意; 实验3采取go/no-go范式, 要求被试对红色目标进行反应, 对白色目标进行抑制, 并通过设置不同的线索-目标时间间隔来进一步考察注意捕获的机制, 结果表明, 在600 ms间隔下, no-go突现线索被抑制, 而对于go颜色奇异项线索来说, 随着时间间隔的增加, 注意捕获效应减少。结果与相倚捕获假说和抑制独立捕获假说不符, 支持注意转移假说：自上而下的注意控制定势通过把注意从和目标不匹配的特征位置转移发挥作用; 颜色奇异项线索和突现线索的注意捕获机制相同, 但是突现线索相对于颜色奇异项线索来说, 在与目标不匹配的条件下, 更容易捕获注意, 更难被抑制。     

Focal spatial attention can eliminate inhibition of return

Inhibition of return (IOR) is an orienting phenomenon characterized by slower responses to spatially cued than to uncued targets. In Experiment 1, a physically small digit that required identification was presented immediately following a peripheral cue. The digit could appear in the cued peripheral box or in the central box, thus guaranteeing a saccadic response to the cue in one condition and maintenance of fixation in the other. An IOR effect was observed when a saccadic response to the cue was required, but IOR was not generated by the peripheral cue when fixation was maintained in order to process the central digit. In Experiment 2, IOR effects were observed when participants were instructed to ignore the digits, whether those digits were presented in the periphery or at fixation. These findings suggest that behaviorally manifested, cue-induced IOR effects can be eliminated by focal spatial attentional control settings.     

Inhibition of return in manual and saccadic response systems

When nonpredictive exogenous visual cues are used to reflexively orient covert visual spatial attention, the initial early facilitation for detecting stimuli at cued versus uncued spatial locations develops into inhibition by 300 msec following the cue, a pattern referred to as inhibition of return (IOR). Experiments were carried out comparing the magnitude and time course for development of IOR effects when manual versus saccadic responses were required. The results showed that both manual and saccadic responses result in equivalent amounts of facilitation following initial exposure to a spatial cue. However, IOR developed more quickly for saccadic responses, such that, at certain cue-target SOAs, saccadic responses to targets were inhibited, whereas manual responses were still facilitated. The findings are interpreted in terms of a premotor theory of visual attention.     

Averaging saccades are repelled by prior uninformative cues at both short and long intervals

When two spatially proximal stimuli are presented simultaneously, a first saccade is often directed to an intermediate location between the stimuli (averaging saccade). In an earlier study, Watanabe (2001) showed that, at a long cue–target onset asynchrony (CTOA; 600 ms), uninformative cues not only slowed saccadic response times (SRTs) to targets presented at the cued location in single target trials (inhibition of return, IOR), but also biased averaging saccades away from the cue in double target trials. The present study replicated Watanabe's experimental task with a short CTOA (50 ms), as well as with mixed short (50 ms) and long (600 ms) CTOAs. In all conditions on double target trials, uninformative cues robustly biased averaging saccades away from cued locations. Although SRTs on single target trials were delayed at previously cued locations at both CTOAs when they were mixed, this delay was not observed in the blocked, short CTOA condition. We suggest that top-down factors, such as expectation and attentional control settings, may have asymmetric effects on the temporal and spatial dynamics of oculomotor processing.     

The spatial distribution of inhibition of return

Inhibition of return (IOR) refers to the finding that response times (RTs) are typically slower for targets at previously attended (cued) locations than for targets at novel (uncued) locations. Although previous research has indicated that IOR may spread beyond a cued location, the present study is the first to examine the spatial distribution of IOR with high spatial resolution over a large portion of the central visual field. This was done by using a typical IOR procedure (cue, delay, target) with 4 cue locations and 441 target locations (each separated by 1° of visual angle). The results indicate that IOR spreads beyond the cued location to affect the cued hemifield. However, the cues also produced a gradient of RTs throughout the visual field, with inhibition in the cued hemifield gradually giving way to facilitation in the hemifield opposite the cue.     

Disentangling perceptual and motor components in inhibition of return

Following an abrupt onset of a peripheral stimulus (a cue), the response to a visual target is faster when the target appears at the cued position than when it appears at other positions. However, if the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) is longer than approximately 300 ms, the response to the target is slower at the cued position than that at other positions. This phenomenon of a longer response time to cued targets is called "inhibition of return" (IOR). Previous hypotheses propose contributions of both response inhibition and attentional inhibition at cued position to IOR, and suggest that responding to the cue can eliminate the component of response inhibition. The current study uses tasks either executing or withholding response to the cue to investigate the relative contributions of response and attention components to IOR. A condition with bilateral display of the cue is also chosen as a control condition, and eight different SOAs between 1,000 and 2,750 ms are tested. Compared to the control condition, response delay to the target at a cued position is eliminated by responding to the cue, and a response advantage to the target at an uncued position is not affected by responding to the cue. Furthermore, both response delay at a cued position and response advantage at an uncued position decrease with SOA in the time window tested in these experiments. The results reported here indicate a dominant response inhibition at a cued position and a primary attentional allocation at an uncued position for IOR. Nonsignificant perceptual/attentional suppression at a cued position is argued to be a benefit for visual detection in a changing world.     

Perceptual and motor inhibition of return: components or flavors?

The most common evidence for inhibition of return (IOR) is the robust finding of increased response times to targets that appear at previously cued locations following a cue?Ctarget interval exceeding ~300?ms. In a variation on this paradigm, Abrams and Dobkin (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 20:467?C477, 1994b) observed that IOR was greater when measured with a saccadic response to a peripheral target than with that to a central arrow, leading to the conclusion that saccadic responses to peripheral targets comprise motoric and perceptual components (the two-components theory for saccadic IOR), whereas saccadic responses to a central target comprise a single motoric component. In contrast, Taylor and Klein (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 26:1639?C1656, 2000) discovered that IOR for saccadic responses was equivalent for central and peripheral targets, suggesting a single motoric effect under these conditions. Rooted in methodological differences between the studies, three possible explanations for this discrepancy can be found in the literature. Here, we demonstrate that the empirical discrepancy is rooted in the following methodological difference: Whereas Abrams and Dobkin (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 20:467?C477, 1994b) administered central arrow and peripheral onset targets in separate blocks, Taylor and Klein (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 26:1639?C1656, 2000) randomly intermixed these stimuli in a single block. Our results demonstrate that (1) blocking central arrow targets fosters a spatial attentional control setting that allows for the long-lasting IOR normally generated by irrelevant peripheral cues to be filtered and (2) repeated sensory stimulation has no direct effect on the magnitude of IOR measured by saccadic responses to targets presented about 1?s after a peripheral cue.     

Onset but not offset of irrelevant motion disrupts inhibition of return

In seven experiments, subjects were slower to detect targets in cued static objects than in uncued static objects, revealing inhibition of return (IOR). This occurred regardless of the presence or absence of continuous motion of other, task-irrelevant objects in the display. However, if the motion of the irrelevant objects began during the interval between cue and target, the amount of IOR was considerably reduced. Offset of motion during the cue-target interval had no effect. Implications for IOR, object perception, and attentional capture are discussed.     

Goal-driven modulation of stimulus-driven attentional capture in multiple-cue displays

Six location-cuing experiments were conducted to examine the goal-driven control of attentional capture in multiple-cue displays. In most of the experiments, the cue display consisted of the simultaneous presentation of a red direct cue that was highly predictive of the target location (the unique cue) and three gray direct cues (the standard cues) that were not predictive of the location. The results indicated that although target responses were faster at all cued locations relative to uncued locations, they were significantly faster at the unique-cue location than at the standard-cue locations. Other results suggest that the faster responses produced by direct cues may be associated with two different components: an attention-related component that can be modulated by goal-driven factors and a nonattentional component that occurs in parallel at multiple direct-cue locations and is minimally affected by the same goal-driven factors.     

Determining whether attentional control settings are inclusive or exclusive

The aim of the present study was to determine whether attentional control settings operate with an inclusive rule (orient attention to stimuli that share a task-relevant feature with the target) or an exclusive rule (do not orient attention to stimuli that do not share a task-relevant feature with the target). All three experiments used a variation of the Folk and Remington (e.g., Folk, Remington, & Johnston, 1992) paradigm. In Experiment 1, cuing effects were found for combination cues (cues containing an onset feature and a color feature) with both onset and color targets. Experiment 2, using a delay between cue and target, revealed inhibition of return (IOR) for combination cues with onset and color targets. Unexpectedly, IOR was also found for onset cues with color targets, and this finding was confirmed in Experiment 3. These findings indicate that attentional control settings use an inclusive rule. Moreover, the presence of IOR with onset cues and color targets suggests that onset cues may automatically capture attention, but attention control settings allow for rapid disengagement when the onset cue does not contain a task-relevant feature.     

Inhibition of return at multiple locations in visual search: When you see it and when you don't

Using a novel sequential task, Danziger, Kingstone, and Snyder (1998) provided conclusive evidence that inhibition of return (IOR) can co-occur at multiple non-contiguous locations. They argued that their findings depended crucially on the allocation of attention to cued locations. Specifically, they hypothesized that because subjects could not predict whether an onset event was a target or a non-target, all onset events had to be attended. As a result, non-targets were tagged with inhibition. The present study tested this hypothesis by manipulating whether target onset was predictable or not. In support of Danziger et al., three experiments revealed that multiple IOR was only observed when attention had to be directed to the cued locations. Interestingly, when attention did not need to be allocated to the cued locations, and multiple IOR was abolished, an IOR effect was still observed at the most recently cued location. Two possible accounts for this single IOR effect were presented for future investigation. One account attributes the effect to motor-based inhibition as hypothesized by Klein and Taylor (1994). The alternative account attributes the effect to weak attentional capture by a peripheral cue. Together the data support the view that multiple IOR is an attentional phenomenon and, as hypothesized by Tipper, Weaver, and Watson (1996), its presence or absence is largely under the control of the observer.     

Attentional capture by singletons is contingent on top-down control settings: Evidence from electrophysiological measures

The present study examined whether the capture of spatial attention is driven by stimulus salience (e.g., object uniqueness) or by a match to current attentional control settings (contingent capture). We measured the N2pc effect, a component of the event-related brain potential thought to reflect lateralized attentional allocation. On every trial, a noninformative cue display containing a colour singleton box was followed by a target display of letters. Participants searched for a target letter in a specified colour (in Experiments 1–3) or within a specified shape (in Experiment 4) while ignoring other stimuli. The key manipulation was whether the singleton cue contained the target-defining feature (e.g., a specific colour). Experiment 1 revealed signs of attention capture—a cue validity effect and an N2pc effect—only for singleton cues that contained the target-defining feature. This pattern persisted even when we increased the salience of the singleton box (Experiments 2 and 3). Irrelevant colour singletons also failed to produce a significant N2pc effect when the target was defined based on shape rather than colour (Experiment 4). We conclude that attention capture is strongly contingent on top-down attentional control settings, not bottom-up stimulus salience.     

Inhibitory interaction: the effects of multiple non-predictive visual cues

When the interval between a non-predictive cue and a target appearing at the same spatial location is longer than about 200 ms, target performance is typically poorer than when the cue and target appear at different locations. Recent studies have shown that this effect, known as inhibition of return (IOR), can occur at multiple cued locations, and is enhanced when multiple cues are presented at the same spatial location. However, little is known about how the magnitude of IOR at one spatial location is influenced by a subsequent or preceding cue presented at a different spatial location. We investigated this issue by presenting single or multiple cues at varying inter-cue intervals prior to target onset. Results suggest that the magnitude of IOR at a given location is influenced by the presentation of a preceding cue, but that once IOR occurs, it is unaffected by the presentation of a subsequent cue.     

The relationship between attentional capture and deviations in movement trajectories in a selective reaching task

According to action-centered models of attention, attention and action systems are tightly linked such that the capture of attention by an object automatically initiates response-producing processes. In support of this link, studies have shown that movements deviate towards or away from non-target stimuli. These deviations are thought to emerge because attentional capture by non-target stimuli generates responses that summate with target responses to develop a combined movement vector. The present study tested attention–action coupling by examining movement trajectories in the presence of non-target stimuli that do or do not capture attention. Previous research has revealed that non-target cue stimuli only capture attention when they share critical features with the target. Cues that do not share this feature do not capture attention. Following these studies and their findings, participants in the present study aimed to the location of a single white square (onset singleton target) or a single red square presented with two white squares (color singleton target). In separate blocks, targets were preceded by non-predictive cues that did or did not share the target feature (color or onset singleton cues). The critical finding of the present study was that trajectory effects mirrored the temporal interference effects in that deviations were only observed when cue and target properties matched. Deviations were not observed when the cue and target properties did not match. These data provide clear support for the link between attentional capture and the activation of response-producing processes.     

Inhibition of return with rapid serial shifts of attention: implications for memory and visual search

Horowitz and Wolfe (2001) suggested that inhibition of return (IOR) should not be observed in tasks that involve rapid deployments of attention. To examine this issue, five of six possible locations were sequentially cued with either short-duration peripheral cues (50 msec) or long-duration peripheral cues (500 msec). As was expected, IOR was observed in the first two experiments at every cued location with the long-duration cues, with the magnitude of IOR decreasing for earlier cued locations relative to later cued locations. In the short-cue condition, IOR was observed at only one cued location (the second to last). The pattern of results for the short-duration cues was found regardless of whether the fixation cue was of a short (Experiment 1) or a long (Experiment 2) duration. In Experiment 3, the final fixation cue was removed, and IOR was again observed at virtually all locations in both the short- and the long-cue conditions. These findings indicate that IOR can be observed at multiple locations when attention is shifted rapidly between locations.     

Spatiotemporal distribution of facilitation and inhibition of return arising from the reflexive orienting of covert attention

Currently, there is debate regarding both the spatial and temporal relationship between facilitation and inhibition of return (IOR) components of attention, as observed on the covert orienting of visual attention task (COVAT). These issues were addressed in a series of experiments where the spatial and temporal relationships between cue and target were manipulated. Facilitation occurred only when the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was short and there was temporal overlap between cue and target. IOR occurred only when SOA was long and there was no temporal overlap between cue and target. Facilitation encompassed the cued location and all locations between the cue and fixation, whereas IOR arose for the entire cued hemifield. These findings suggest that the facilitation and IOR found on COVATs that use noninformative peripheral cues are separable and stimulus-driven processes.     

Inhibition of return for the discrimination of faces

When a target appears unpredictably in the same rather than a different location relative to a preceding onset cue, reaction times (RTs) of participants tasked with responding to the target are slowed. This pattern of results, referred to as inhibition of return (IOR), is believed to reflect the operation of a mechanism that prevents perseverative search of nontarget locations. On the grounds that an evolved mechanism might be sensitive to social stimuli, Taylor and Therrien (2005) examined IOR for localization responses under conditions in which cues and targets could be intact face configurations or nonface configurations; contrary to their predictions, there was no influence of cue or target configuration on the magnitude of IOR, indicating that the mere occurrence of task-irrelevant face and nonface stimuli does not alter IOR. In the present study, we further examined this issue in a task that required a face/nonface target discrimination. When target configuration was thereby made task relevant, we found that IOR differed for face and nonface targets in terms of magnitude (when a single cue-target stimulus onset asynchrony was employed) and time course. We suggest that the RT delay associated with IOR may enable additional processing time and/or response selection when a task-relevant face is presented at the cued location.     

Automatic attentional orienting to other people’s gaze in schizophrenia

Explicit tests of social cognition have revealed pervasive deficits in schizophrenia. Less is known of automatic social cognition in schizophrenia. We used a spatial orienting task to investigate automatic shifts of attention cued by another person’s eye gaze in 29 patients and 28 controls. Central photographic images of a face with eyes shifted left or right, or looking straight ahead, preceded targets that appeared left or right of the cue. To examine automatic effects, cue direction was non-predictive of target location. Cue–target intervals were 100, 300, and 800?ms. In non-social control trials, arrows replaced eye-gaze cues. Both groups showed automatic attentional orienting indexed by faster reaction times (RTs) when arrows were congruent with target location across all cue–target intervals. Similar congruency effects were seen for eye-shift cues at 300 and 800?ms intervals, but patients showed significantly larger congruency effects at 800?ms, which were driven by delayed responses to incongruent target locations. At short 100-ms cue–target intervals, neither group showed faster RTs for congruent than for incongruent eye-shift cues, but patients were significantly slower to detect targets after direct-gaze cues. These findings conflict with previous studies using schematic line drawings of eye-shifts that have found automatic attentional orienting to be reduced in schizophrenia. Instead, our data indicate that patients display abnormalities in responding to gaze direction at various stages of gaze processing—reflected by a stronger preferential capture of attention by another person’s direct eye contact at initial stages of gaze processing and difficulties disengaging from a gazed-at location once shared attention is established.     

线索靶子关联和搜索策略对注意捕获的作用

采用线索化范式, 通过实验任务设计线索与靶子不同的关联并鼓励被试采用不同的搜索策略, 探讨线索与靶子间的知觉关联、语义关联及特征独子检测模式、特征搜索模式对注意捕获的作用。通过线索无效条件和线索有效条件反应时之差判断每一条件下的捕获量, 并综合各条件的反应情况做出结论如下：(1)线索与靶子的知觉关联调控注意捕获, 其效应不受语义关联和搜索策略影响; (2)线索与靶子的语义关联只在排除知觉关联后调控注意捕获; (3)控制知觉关联和语义关联后, 特征搜索模式不影响注意捕获, 而特征独子检测模式对注意捕获有影响。这表明语义知识和知觉经验根据当前任务要求共同作用指导个体的视觉加工, 表现了人类加工系统的灵活性和可调节性。     

Irrelevant singletons capture attention: evidence from inhibition of return

Previous research has shown that a salient feature singleton may capture attention in a stimulus-driven, bottom-up fashion (e.g., Theeuwes, 1992,1994b). This conclusion has been challenged by others claiming that the observed attentional capture by irrelevant singletons may not be stimulus driven but due to top-down attentional control settings and/or nonspatial filtering costs. In the present study, we show that inhibition of return (IOR) occurs at the location of an irrelevant singleton. Participants were slower to detect a target presented at the location of the irrelevant singleton, relative to other locations. Since IOR can be observed only as a result of an exogenous, stimulus-driven shift of spatial attention, it isun-likely that top-down control settings and/or nonspatial filtering costs played a role. In line with earlier claims, the present findings provide strong evidence that salient singletons capture spatial attention in a purely bottom-up way.