Attention for emotional faces under restricted awareness revisited: do emotional faces automatically attract attention?

Theoretical models of attention for affective information have assigned a special status to the cognitive processing of emotional facial expressions. One specific claim in this regard is that emotional faces automatically attract visual attention. In three experiments, the authors investigated attentional cueing by angry, happy, and neutral facial expressions that were presented under conditions of limited awareness. In these experiments, facial expressions were presented in a masked (14 ms or 34 ms, masked by a neutral face) and unmasked fashion (34 ms or 100 ms). Compared with trials containing neutral cues, delayed responding was found on trials with emotional cues in the unmasked, 100-ms condition, suggesting stronger allocation of cognitive resources to emotional faces. However, in both masked and unmasked conditions, the hypothesized cueing of visual attention to the location of emotional facial expression was not found. In contrary, attentional cueing by emotional faces was less strong compared with neutral faces in the unmasked, 100-ms condition. These data suggest that briefly presented emotional faces influence cognitive processing but do not automatically capture visual attention.     

The effects of onsets and offsets on visual attention

 Two experiments are presented which examine the effect of onset and offset cues on early occurring attentional cueing effects and later occurring inhibition of return (IOR). The first experiment compared the effects of single onset cues, single offset cues, and simultaneous onset and offset cues (at opposite locations) at a 100-ms stimulus-onset-asynchrony (SOA) and IOR at a 900-ms SOA. Whereas the first experiment examined these conditions with choice localization keypress responses, the second experiment used simple detection keypress responses. Both experiments found that onset and offset cues presented in isolation produce early facilitation and late IOR. When onset and offset cues were simultaneously presented, facilitation but not IOR was found with localization responses, while neither facilitation or IOR was found with detection responses. Overall, these findings suggest that offset cues can be treated in the same manner as onset cues by the attentional system, although the onset cues may have priority in orienting attention when targets must be localized in space. Received: 26 May 2000 / Accepted: 31 January 2001     

Edge-induced illusory contours and visual detection: Subthreshold summation or spatial cueing?

Findings that illusory contours can facilitate visual detection of a subthreshold real line (Dresp & Bonnet, 1995) were not replicated, when line-induced instead of edge-induced illusory contour stimuli were used (Salvano-Pardieu et al., 2006). Rather, the results of the latter study supported the importance of spatial cues. The present study was designed to investigate whether spatial cueing might also facilitate detection of targets superimposed on edge-induced illusory contours. In Experiment 1, a target line was superimposed on the illusory contour of a Kanizsa square, presented between dots with a precise or distant location to the target, or on a homogeneous field (control). Detection of the target was poorest for the control, followed by the distant-dots and Kanizsa conditions, whereas it was best for precisely cueing dots. Experiment 2 replicated the conditions in Experiment 1 (Kanizsa, precisely cueing dots, and control) with additional controls for possible luminance effects. The two new conditions matched the Kanizsa condition for overall luminance and preciseness of spatial cueing without generating illusory contours. Performance was best in the dot condition and worst in the control, but the same across the Kanizsa and matched luminance conditions. In Experiments 3 and 4, the stimuli presented were matched more closely to those used by Dresp and Bonnet, but still the results confirmed those obtained in our Experiments 1 and 2. Together, these experiments strongly suggest that detection is also facilitated by spatial cueing rather than subthreshold summation, in the case of edge-induced illusory contours.     

眼睛注视线索提示效应: 内源性注意还是外源性注意?

采用改进的Posner视-空间线索提示范式, 对眼睛注视线索提示效应(eyes gaze cueing effect)的加工机制进行了探讨。实验一考察注视提示线索对空间Stroop效应的影响; 实验二考察注视提示线索对特征抽取和特征整合的影响。实验结果显示: 注视线索提示有效时的空间Stroop效应显著大于提示无效的情景; 在单一特征搜索与特征联合搜索任务中, 注视线索提示效应无差别。这说明, 注视线索通过在头脑里形成空间方位表征诱导注意转移; 注视线索通过影响特征抽取、而非特征整合阶段, 对客体加工产生易化。本研究支持注视线索提示效应属于内源性注意的观点。     

Interactions Between Exogenous Auditory and Visual Spatial Attention

Six experiments were carried out to investigate the issue of cross-modality between exogenous auditory and visual spatial attention employing Posner's cueing paradigm in detection, localization, and discrimination tasks. Results indicated cueing in detection tasks with visual or auditory cues and visual targets but not with auditory targets (Experiment 1). In the localization tasks, cueing was found with both visual and auditory targets. Inhibition of return was apparent only in the within-modality conditions (Experiment 2). This suggests that it is important whether the attention system is activated directly (within a modality) or indirectly (between modalities). Increasing the cue validity from 50% to 80% influenced performance only in the localization task (Experiment 4). These findings are interpreted as being indicative for modality-specific but interacting attention mechanisms. The results of Experiments 5 and 6 (up/down discrimination tasks) also show cross-modal cueing but not with visual cues and auditory targets. Furthermore, there was no inhibition of return in any condition. This suggests that some cueing effects might be task dependent.     

The joint influence of collaboration and part-set cueing

The present study was designed to examine the effects of retrieval cues on memory performance for both individuals and collaborating pairs. Participants worked either alone or together in the presence or absence of part-set cues to recall list items in Experiments 1 and 2 and to reconstruct the order of a list items in Experiment 3. The detrimental effects of collaborative inhibition were observed across all three experiments. In contrast, part-set cueing inhibition was found following free recall, whereas part-set cueing facilitation was observed on reconstruction tasks. Taken together, the results of the present experiments suggest that the effects of collaborative inhibition and part-set cueing may operate independently of one another.     

Perceptual training methods compared: the relative efficacy of different approaches to enhancing sport-specific anticipation

The comparative efficacy of different perceptual training approaches for the improvement of anticipation was examined using a goalkeeping task from European handball that required the rapid prediction of shot direction. Novice participants (N = 60) were assigned equally to four different training groups and two different control groups (a placebo group and a group who undertook no training). The training groups received either (i) explicit rules to guide anticipation; (ii) direction as to the location of the key anticipatory cues provided either just verbally (verbal cueing) or supplemented with color highlighting (color cueing); or (iii) undertook a matching judgment task to encourage implicit learning. Performance of the groups was compared on an anticipation test administered before training, after the training intervention, under a condition involving evaluative stress, and after a 5-month retention period. The explicit learning, verbal cueing, and implicit learning conditions provided the greatest sustained improvements in performance whereas the group given color cueing performed no better than the control groups. Only the implicit learning group showed performance superior to the control groups under the stress situation. The verbal cueing, color cueing, and implicit learning groups formulated the lowest number of explicit rules related to the critical shoulder cue although the reported use of general cues and rules based on all cues did not differ between any of the groups. Anticipation can be improved through a variety of different perceptual training approaches with the relative efficacy of the different approaches being contingent upon both the time scale and conditions under which learning is assessed.     

Gaze and arrow cueing of attention reveals individual differences along the autism spectrum as a function of target context

Observing averted gaze results in a reflexive shift of attention to the gazed‐at location. In two experiments, participants scoring high and low on the Autism‐Spectrum Quotient questionnaire (AQ; Baron‐Cohen, Wheelwright, Skinner, Martin, & Clubley, 2001 ) observed arrow and gaze cues to investigate cueing effect magnitude as a function of the context in which peripheral targets could appear. While identical cueing effects were found with gaze and arrow cues, the more striking results concerned target stimuli. In Experiment 1, targets could appear on a peripheral face, or on scrambled face parts. Overall, greater cueing effects were found when the target appeared on a face. However, this face bias was only observed in participants with low AQ scores, whereas high AQ scorers oriented more to scrambled features. Experiment 2 found equal cueing to targets appearing on tools, as compared with tool parts. However, individual differences were again observed, where low AQ scorers showed larger cueing towards tools, while high scorers oriented more to scrambled parts, as in Experiment 1. These results support the idea that low AQ individuals orient strongly to objects attended by others. However, since the same results were found for arrow cues, this effect may generalize to all central cues to attention. High AQ scorers possessing many more autistic‐like traits tended to orient more to scrambled shapes, perhaps reflecting a bias for orienting to local details.     

Enhancing the comparability between part-list cueing and collaborative recall: a gradual part-list cueing paradigm

The effects of part-list cueing and of collaborative recall in memory performance have been recently addressed as parallel phenomena. Notably they both impair recall (and boost frequency estimates) and they have been explained by the same underlying mechanisms. However, the comparability between the two paradigms is hindered by a number of procedural differences. The main contribution of this paper is the introduction of a new paradigm that makes standard part-list cueing and collaborative recall more comparable. In our study we compared free recall and frequency estimates of participants in a non-cueing condition with the same performance in a standard part-list cueing condition and in a condition in which part-list cues were gradually presented during recall (as it occurs in collaborative recall). Results indicate that the effects of part-list cueing continued to be reliable in both cueing conditions. Namely, recall was impaired and frequency estimates were boosted relatively to a non-cueing condition. The results obtained with this new method that enhances the direct comparability of the two paradigms provide further evidence for the parallel between the two effects.     

Agenda Cueing Effects of News and Social Media

Agenda cues, in which individuals perceive that media has frequently covered a problem regardless of actual exposure to that coverage, have initially been shown to produce powerful agenda setting effects (Pingree and Stoycheff, 2013). This study uses two experiments to test the presence and prominence cueing effects across a variety of issues and whether the cue originates from traditional news or Twitter users. Agenda cues produced significant effects on five of six issues studied for news and four of six for Twitter. For one issue (gun control/rights), both types of agenda cues produced effect sizes rivaling those of the strongest effects found in Iyengar and Kinder’s (News That Matters: Television and American Opinion, University of Chicago Press, 1987) classic agenda setting experiments. On average, news agenda cues were stronger than Twitter agenda cues, and were about 78% as strong as classic news agenda setting effects, suggesting that cueing may be the dominant mechanism driving agenda setting effects. The role of gatekeeping trust as a moderator of agenda cueing was only inconsistently replicated.s     

Combined expectancy effects are modulated by the relation between expectancy cues

Studies of combined expectancies have shown that spatial cueing effects are reduced on trials on which participants have to respond with an unexpected motor response. In the first two experiments the range of reduced expectancy effects is examined. Advance knowledge of the likely response was combined in a trial-by-trial procedure with modality cueing, object cueing, and task cueing. Effects of modality cueing were reduced on trials on which the target requested an unexpected response. However, effects of object cueing as well as effects of task cueing were unaffected by response cueing. Comparing experiments revealed that different types of cues were used in different experiments. To test the effect of type of cue on the interaction of expectancies the third experiment combined spatial cueing with response cueing. When integrated cues were used that cued the likely target location by an arrow and the likely response by an arrow too, spatial cueing effects were reduced on trials with unexpected responses. However, spatial cueing effects remained unaffected by response cueing when separated cues were used consisting in a word cueing the response and an arrow cueing target location. An account for the modulation of combined expectancies by the relation between cues is suggested in terms of the adjusted expectancy model.     

Feature integration is not the whole story of the sequence effects of symbolic cueing

ABSTRACT

Sequential modulations in symbolic cueing tasks have been attributed to complete versus partial repetition/alternation of stimulus features between consecutive trials. This feature-integration hypothesis is questioned by recent findings and further investigated in the present study. In the first two experiments, when the cueing axes switched between trials, only complete alternation of cue directions and target locations existed. Nevertheless, significant sequence effects were still found in this condition, which did not support the feature-integration hypothesis. Furthermore, although sequence effects were still significant when stimulus identities were manipulated in Experiment 3, it was abolished when different cue categories (gaze and arrow) were presented as cues in Experiment 4. The findings suggest that the integration of stimulus features is not the only source of the sequential effect and some higher level cognitive mechanisms, possibly as described in the task-file or task organization hypotheses, are involved in the sequential modulations of symbolic cueing.     

The effects of learning instructions and cueing on free recall

Eighty unrelated high-imagery words were presented for free recall learning in groups of four words each. Learning instructions were varied, with one group told to relate the words in each input group by means of images, another group told to use verbal (sentence) mediators, and the control group not given specific learning instructions. During recall, list items were presented as retrieval cues in some conditions. In comparison with the control condition, imagery and verbal mediation instructions produced greater recall, more clustering, and a largez number of instances per group recalled. When the retrieval cues were selected such that one cue came from each of the input groups and when the strength of within-group organization was quite high, Ss recalled more words and a larger number of input groups. It was concluded that instructions and cueing conditions influenced different aspects of the free recall process. Instructions influenced the organization of individual words into units, and cueing affected the retrieval of specific units.     

Shifting attention among working memory representations: testing cue type, awareness, and strategic control

It is well known that visual working memory (VWM) performance is modulated by attentional cues presented during encoding. Interestingly, retrospective cues presented after encoding, but prior to the test phase also improve performance. This improvement in performance is termed the retro-cue benefit. We investigated whether the retro-cue benefit is sensitive to cue type, whether participants were aware of their improvement in performance due to the retro-cue, and whether the effect was under strategic control. Experiment 1 compared the potential cueing benefits of abrupt onset retro-cues relying on bottom-up attention, number retro-cues relying on top-down attention, and arrow retro-cues, relying on a mixture of both. We found a significant retro-cue effect only for arrow retro-cues. In Experiment 2, we tested participants' awareness of their use of the informative retro-cue and found that they were aware of their improved performance. In Experiment 3, we asked whether participants have strategic control over the retro-cue. The retro-cue was difficult to ignore, suggesting that strategic control is low. The retro-cue effect appears to be within conscious awareness but not under full strategic control.     

Textures shape the attentional focus: Evidence from exogenous and endogenous cueing

The spatial cueing paradigm (Posner Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 32:3–25, 1980) has often been used to investigate the time course of the deployment of visual attention in space. In a series of eight experiments we investigated whether spatial cues would not only enhance processing of stimuli presented at cued locations, but also enhance processing of the entire texture in which the stimuli were presented. Results showed highest accuracy for responses to stimuli presented at cued locations, a replication of the traditional cueing effect (Posner 1980). Additionally, stimuli presented at uncued locations were responded to with higher accuracy when they were presented inside the same texture as the cued location, as compared with stimuli presented outside the texture with the cued location. To investigate this texture advantage for both automatic and voluntary attention deployment, exogenous and endogenous cues were used. The texture advantage was observed for short interstimulus intervals (ISIs) of 50 and 100 ms for exogenous cues and for a longer ISI of 200 ms for endogenous cues. These findings indicate that the arrangement of task-irrelevant visual stimuli also can have a large impact on the cueing effect. This suggests that visual spatial attention spreads texture-wise across the visual field. Control experiments revealed that the homogeneity within texture elements contributes most to the effect but that the texture advantage is a function of both orientation contrast at the texture border and homogeneity within texture elements.     

Inhibition of return in response to gaze cues: The roles of time course and fixation cue

Recent studies have demonstrated that orienting of attention in response to nonpredictive gaze cues arises rapidly and automatically, in a similar fashion to peripheral sudden onset cueing. However, while peripheral cues consistently elicit inhibition of return (IOR) at about 300 ms following cue onset, very little is known about inhibition effects in response to gaze cues. The present experiments systematically examined the conditions under which IOR arises with such cues. Reliable inhibition effects were obtained. Importantly, IOR emerged only at long cue-target intervals and only when a second cue actively triggered attention away from the cued location. This suggests that compared to sudden onset cueing, gaze cueing results in both prolonged facilitation and a delayed onset of inhibition processes. Thus, although both types of cues elicit very similar orienting effects in terms of their basic behavioural outcomes, there are more subtle differences between gaze and peripheral cues with respect to the maintenance and quality of those cueing effects across time.     

多媒体学习中的图文整合:同步化线索和学习者经验的作用

多媒体学习中线索和经验可能在学习过程和效果上具有重要作用。研究控制线索与解说呈现的时间同步性,选取高、低经验大学生被试,采用SMI RED 250记录眼动,探讨同步化线索和经验对多媒体学习过程和效果的影响。结果发现:同步线索条件下测验成绩比非同步线索更高,感知难度更低,对线索区的总注视时间、首次注视时间更长,进入线索区次数和线索区注视点个数更多;高经验者测验成绩比低经验者更好,感知难度更低,但在注视加工上二者没有差异;线索和经验交互作用不显著。结论认为:同步线索更有利于图文整合,降低感知难度,促进注视加工,提高学习成绩;高经验者的经验优势表现在学习效果和主观难度感知上,而非注视加工;同步线索没有弥补低经验者的劣势。     

空间注意能够促进知觉表征进入工作记忆:来自注意瞬脱的证据

本研究目的一是探讨外周空间线索能否促进知觉表征进入工作记忆,二是观察线索的信息性对该促进作用时间进程的影响。实验采用注意瞬脱和空间线索结合的实验范式,考察不同信息性线索对目标识别的促进效应在注意瞬脱期间内外的变化。实验1和实验2分别采用了非信息性和信息性线索。结果显示：外周线索的促进效应在瞬脱期间内显著大于瞬脱期间外;非信息性线索和信息性线索分别在较短和较长的线索-目标间隔下起促进效应。因此,外周线索能促进知觉表征进入工作记忆,而不同信息性线索可能引发不同的注意机制．从而具有不同人促进效应。     

The role of the oculomotor system in covert social attention

Observing a change in gaze direction triggers a reflexive shift of attention and appears to engage the eye-movement system. However, the functional relationship between social attention and this oculomotor activation is unclear. One extremely influential hypothesis is that the preparation of a saccadic eye movement is necessary and sufficient for a covert, reflexive shift of attention (the premotor theory of attention; Rizzolatti et al., 1994). Surprisingly, this theory has not been directly tested with respect to reflexive gaze cueing. In order to address this issue, gaze cueing, peripheral cueing, and arrow cueing were examined under conditions in which some stimuli appeared at locations that could not become the goal of a saccadic eye movement. It was observed that peripheral cues failed to elicit reflexive attentional orienting when targets appeared beyond the range of eye movements. Similarly, nonpredictive arrow cues were ineffective when targets could not become the goal of a saccade. In contrast, significant gaze-cueing effects were still observed when targets were beyond the range of eye movements. These data demonstrate that the mechanisms involved in gaze cueing are dissociated from those involved in exogenous orienting to peripheral or arrow cues. Furthermore, the findings suggest that, unlike peripheral cueing and reflexive arrow cueing, gaze cueing is independent of oculomotor control. We conclude that the premotor theory does not offer a compelling explanation for gaze cueing.     

The neural correlates of social attention: automatic orienting to social and nonsocial cues

Previous evidence suggests that directional social cues (e.g., eye gaze) cause automatic shifts in attention toward gaze direction. It has been proposed that automatic attentional orienting driven by social cues (social orienting) involves a different neural network from automatic orienting driven by nonsocial cues. However, previous neuroimaging studies on social orienting have only compared gaze cues to symbolic cues, which typically engage top-down mechanisms. Therefore, we directly compared the neural activity involved in social orienting to that involved in purely automatic nonsocial orienting. Twenty participants performed a spatial cueing task consisting of social (gaze) cues and automatic nonsocial (peripheral squares) cues presented at short and long stimulus (cue-to-target) onset asynchronies (SOA), while undergoing fMRI. Behaviorally, a facilitation effect was found for both cue types at the short SOA, while an inhibitory effect (inhibition of return: IOR) was found only for nonsocial cues at the long SOA. Imaging results demonstrated that social and nonsocial cues recruited a largely overlapping fronto-parietal network. In addition, social cueing evoked greater activity in occipito-temporal regions at both SOAs, while nonsocial cueing recruited greater subcortical activity, but only for the long SOA (when IOR was found). A control experiment, including central arrow cues, confirmed that the occipito-temporal activity was at least in part due to the social nature of the cue and not simply to the location of presentation (central vs. peripheral). These results suggest an evolutionary trajectory for automatic orienting, from predominantly subcortical mechanisms for nonsocial orienting to predominantly cortical mechanisms for social orienting.