颜色字词的识别真的无需注意力资源的参与?——来自Stroop范式的证据

3个实验采用颜色词、颜色词同音词以及颜色语义联想词作为启动词,使启动词的语义和颜色实现时空分离、启动词处于非空间注意焦点位置、降低启动词可视度的情境下,考察具有自动化加工特征的启动词是否受到注意力资源的制约以及启动词在获得不同数量的注意力资源时其自动化程度是否存在显著的差异。结果发现:(1)注意力资源实质性地决定着自动化加工能否顺利进行,具有自动激活特征的刺激在无法获得注意力资源时,自动化加工过程终止。(2)可用的注意力资源数量调控着自动化加工的效率和语义提取的效果,可用的注意力资源数量越多,对启动刺激的语义加工越完善,对目标刺激的促进效果也越有效。本研究结果支持注意力敏感模型关于自动化加工受认知系统的支持和配置才能完成的假设。     

Processing resource demands of failure detection in dynamic systems

The information-processing channels, proprioceptive versus visual, that are used to detect changes in the response of dynamic systems are investigated using a loading-task methodology. Conditions are compared in which subjects either control the dynamic system (MA mode) or monitor an autopilot controlling the same system (AU mode). Failure detection in these two modes of participation is evaluated when subjects perform the task alone and concurrently with either a tracking loading task or a mental arithmetic-memory loading task. The former task disrupted MA detection but not AU detection, whereas the converse results were obtained with the mental-arithmetic task. The results, interpreted within the framework of a structure-specific resource theory of human attention, suggest that AU detection relies exclusively on processing resources associated with perceptual/central-processing stages. MA detection in contrast relies on separate-processing resources residing in a response-related reservoir.     

Dual-task interference in perceptual category learning

The effect of a working-memory-demanding dual task on perceptual category learning was investigated. In Experiment 1, participants learned unidimensional rule-based or information integration category structures. In Experiment 2, participants learned a conjunctive rule-based category structure. In Experiment 1, unidimensional rule-based category learning was disrupted more by the dual working memory task than was information integration category learning. In addition, rule-based category learning differed qualitatively from information integration category learning in yielding a bimodal, rather than a normal, distribution of scores. Experiment 2 showed that rule-based learning can be disrupted by a dual working memory task even when both dimensions are relevant for optimal categorization. The results support the notion of at least two systems of category learning a hypothesis-testing system that seeks verbalizable rules and relies on working memory and selective attention, and an implicit system that is procedural-learning based and is essentially automatic.     

Distinguishing between automaticity and attention in the processing of emotionally significant stimuli

There is contradicting evidence as to whether irrelevant but significant emotional stimuli can be processed outside the focus of attention. In the current study, participants were asked to ignore emotional and neutral pictures while performing a competing task. In Experiment 1, orienting of attention to distracting pictures was manipulated via a peripheral cue. In Experiment 2, attentional load was varied, either leaving spare attention to process the distracting pictures or, alternatively, depleting attentional resources. Although all pictures were task irrelevant, negative pictures were found to interfere more with performance in comparison to neutral pictures. This finding suggests that processing of negative stimuli is automatic in the sense that it does not require execution of conscious monitoring. However, interference occurred only when sufficient attention was available for picture processing. Hence, processing of negative pictures was dependent on sufficient attentional resources. This suggests that processing of emotionally significant stimuli is automatic yet requires attention.     

Test of a potential link between analytic and nonanalytic category learning and automatic, effortful processing

The link between automatic and effortful processing and nonanalytic and analytic category learning was evaluated in a sample of 29 college undergraduates using declarative memory, semantic category search, and pseudoword categorization tasks. Automatic and effortful processing measures were hypothesized to be associated with nonanalytic and analytic categorization, respectively. Results suggested that contrary to prediction strong criterion-attribute (analytic) responding on the pseudoword categorization task was associated with strong automatic, implicit memory encoding of frequency-of-occurrence information. Data are discussed in terms of the possibility that criterion-attribute category knowledge, once established, may be expressed with few attentional resources. The data indicate that attention resource requirements, even for the same stimuli and task, vary depending on the category rule system utilized. Also, the automaticity emerging from familiarity with analytic category exemplars is very different from the automaticity arising from extensive practice on a semantic category search task. The data do not support any simple mapping of analytic and nonanalytic forms of category learning onto the automatic and effortful processing dichotomy and challenge simple models of brain asymmetries for such procedures.     

Controlled information processing resources and the development of automatic detection responses in schizophrenia

The relation between resource limitations and the type of processing (automatic vs. controlled) on a multiple-frame search task (MFST) was examined in 15 schizophrenic and 15 normal control subjects. After 320 trials of consistently mapped practice, the patients' detection accuracy was normalized, and the effect of processing load (letter array size) on their detection accuracy was eliminated, which suggests automatization. Changes in load effects with practice could not be used as an index of automatization in control subjects, because of their unexpected lack of load effects at the beginning of practice. In a dual-task (MFST during auditory shadowing) condition after MFST practice, patients' MFST accuracy deteriorated nonsignificantly, and patients' shadowing declined significantly. The findings suggest schizophrenics have reduced available processing resources, but research is needed to determine whether this is due to abnormal automatization.     

Effortful versus automatic emotional processing in schizophrenia: Insights from a face-vignette task

Adaptive emotional responding relies on dual automatic and effortful processing streams. Dual-stream models of schizophrenia (SCZ) posit a selective deficit in neural circuits that govern goal-directed, effortful processes versus reactive, automatic processes. This imbalance suggests that when patients are confronted with competing automatic and effortful emotional response cues, they will exhibit diminished effortful responding and intact, possibly elevated, automatic responding compared to controls. This prediction was evaluated using a modified version of the face-vignette task (FVT). Participants viewed emotional faces (automatic response cue) paired with vignettes (effortful response cue) that signalled a different emotion category and were instructed to discriminate the manifest emotion. Patients made less vignette and more face responses than controls. However, the relationship between group and FVT responding was moderated by IQ and reading comprehension ability. These results replicate and extend previous research and provide tentative support for abnormal conflict resolution between automatic and effortful emotional processing predicted by dual-stream models of SCZ.     

Dual processing in reasoning: two systems but one reasoner

Human reasoning has been characterized as an interplay between an automatic belief-based system and a demanding logic-based reasoning system. The present study tested a fundamental claim about the nature of individual differences in reasoning and the processing demands of both systems. Participants varying in working memory capacity performed a reasoning task while their executive resources were burdened with a secondary task. Results were consistent with the dual-process claim: The executive burden hampered correct reasoning when the believability of a conclusion conflicted with its logical validity, but not when beliefs cued the correct response. However, although participants with high working memory spans performed better than those with lower spans in cases of a conflict, all reasoners showed similar effects of load. The findings support the idea that there are two reasoning systems with differential processing demands, but constitute evidence against qualitative individual differences in the human reasoning machinery.     

Comparative judgment of numerosity and numerical magnitude: attention preempts automaticity

It is commonly believed that humans are unable to ignore the meanings of numerical symbols, even when these meanings are irrelevant to the task at hand. In 5 experiments, the authors tested the notion of automatic activation of numerical magnitude by asking participants to compare, while timed, pairs of numerical arrays on either numerosity or numerical value. Garner and Stroop effects were used to gauge the degree of interactive processing. The results showed that both effects were sensitive to the discriminability of values along the constituent dimensions, to the number of stimulus values used, and to practice and motivation. Notably, Stroop and Garner effects were eliminated under several conditions. These findings are incompatible with claims of obligatory activation of meaning in numerical processing, and they cast doubt on theories positing automatic processing of semantic information for alphanumerical symbols.     

任务转换中惯性激活对内隐记忆的影响：来自ERPs的证据

以往研究认为内隐记忆具有不受干扰影响的自动化加工特征,其证据主要来自于对内隐记忆编码过程的研究。最近已有多项研究发现,内隐记忆受提取过程中的干扰影响,但对这一现象的产生机制目前仍尚无定论。本研究根据任务转换相关理论,通过将go/no-go范式引入干扰任务,探讨提取过程中前置干扰对内隐记忆产生影响的内在机制。结果表明,前置的干扰任务产生惯性激活时,后续的内隐记忆任务会受到影响,即启动效应降低。对惯性激活进行抑制后,随后的内隐记忆则不受影响。并且,在内隐记忆相关的N400成分上得到了与行为数据一致的结果,即在no-go干扰下,获得的N400新旧效应,在go干扰下却未被发现。研究结果证明,提取干扰对内隐记忆的影响主要由干扰任务与内隐记忆任务对认知资源的竞争导致。     

And deplete us not into temptation: Automatic attitudes, dietary restraint, and self-regulatory resources as determinants of eating behavior

Linking contemporary models of self-regulation to recent research on automatic attitudes, the present study investigated the impact of automatic candy attitudes, dietary restraint standards, and self-regulation resources on eating behavior. Participants were assigned to either an emotion suppression task (low self-regulation resources) or an emotion flow task (high self-regulation resources), and were then given an opportunity to taste candies. When self-regulation resources were high, candy consumption was uniquely related to dietary restraint standards (but not automatic candy attitudes). In contrast, when self-regulation resources were low, candy consumption was primarily predicted by automatic candy attitudes, with dietary restraint standards showing a tendency for counterintentional effects. These results indicate that the behavioral impact of automatic attitudes and personal standards depends on available control resources. Implications for research on automatic attitudes and self-regulation are discussed.     

Self-regulation and the extended now: controlling the self alters the subjective experience of time

These studies investigated self-regulation and subjective experience of time from the perspective of the regulatory resource model. Studies 1-2 showed that participants who were instructed to regulate their emotions while viewing a film clip perceived that the film lasted longer than participants who did not regulate their emotions. In Study 3, participants provided time estimates during a resource-depleting or nondepleting task. Subsequent task persistence was measured. Time perceptions mediated the effect of initial self-regulation on subsequent self-regulated performance. In Study 4, participants performed either a resource-depleting or a nondepleting thought-listing task and then performed a different regulatorytask. Compared with nondepleted participants, depleted participants persisted less on the 2nd task but estimated that they had persisted longer. Subjective time estimates statistically accounted for reduced persistence after depletion. Together, results indicate people believe that self-regulatory endeavors last overly long, a belief that may result in abandonment of further self-control.     

工作记忆对顿悟和分析型问题解决的影响

摘要 采用顿悟-分析自我报告范式,以远距离联想任务为实验材料,从工作记忆容量和工作记忆负荷两个角度考察了工作记忆对顿悟和分析型问题解决的影响。结果表明,高工作记忆容量个体分析型问题解决的表现优于低工作记忆容量者,但在顿悟表现上无显著差异;工作记忆负荷较小时个体分析型问题解决表现更佳,但对顿悟表现没有影响。说明通过分析解决创造性问题的表现依赖于工作记忆的支持,而通过顿悟解决问题的表现与工作记忆无关。     

Recognizing speech under a processing load: Dissociating energetic from informational factors

Effects of perceptual and cognitive loads on spoken-word recognition have so far largely escaped investigation. This study lays the foundations of a psycholinguistic approach to speech recognition in adverse conditions that draws upon the distinction between energetic masking, i.e., listening environments leading to signal degradation, and informational masking, i.e., listening environments leading to depletion of higher-order, domain-general processing resources, independent of signal degradation. We show that severe energetic masking, such as that produced by background speech or noise, curtails reliance on lexical-semantic knowledge and increases relative reliance on salient acoustic detail. In contrast, informational masking, induced by a resource-depleting competing task (divided attention or a memory load), results in the opposite pattern. Based on this clear dissociation, we propose a model of speech recognition that addresses not only the mapping between sensory input and lexical representations, as traditionally advocated, but also the way in which this mapping interfaces with general cognition and non-linguistic processes.     

On the control of automatic processes: a parallel distributed processing account of the Stroop effect

Traditional views of automaticity are in need of revision. For example, automaticity often has been treated as an all-or-none phenomenon, and traditional theories have held that automatic processes are independent of attention. Yet recent empirical data suggest that automatic processes are continuous, and furthermore are subject to attentional control. A model of attention is presented to address these issues. Within a parallel distributed processing framework, it is proposed that the attributes of automaticity depend on the strength of a processing pathway and that strength increases with training. With the Stroop effect as an example, automatic processes are shown to be continuous and to emerge gradually with practice. Specifically, a computational model of the Stroop task simulates the time course of processing as well as the effects of learning. This was accomplished by combining the cascade mechanism described by McClelland (1979) with the backpropagation learning algorithm (Rumelhart, Hinton, & Williams, 1986). The model can simulate performance in the standard Stroop task, as well as aspects of performance in variants of this task that manipulate stimulus-onset asynchrony, response set, and degree of practice. The model presented is contrasted against other models, and its relation to many of the central issues in the literature on attention, automaticity, and interference is discussed.     

Effects of test anxiety on motor learning: The processing efficiency hypothesis

Abstract

The hypothesis that, under test (stress) conditions, high trait-anxious individuals invest extra processing resources to reach motor learning levels similar to those of low-anxious individuals was investigated. A transfer procedure (practice trial, rest interval, and transfer trial) was employed to analyse motor learning effects. In Experiment 1, a secondary task (click detection) was used to measure the extra processing resources expenditure on motor learning during the practice trial. Neither motor performance in the transfer trial nor secondary task performance differed as a function of test condition or anxiety trait. A critical analysis of the secondary task paradigm suggested that it was not sensitive enough to reflect the amount of processing capacity expended on the primary motor tasks. In Experiment 2, subjects performed a loading task (verbal shadowing of sentences) concurrently with the motor tasks during the practice trial to prevent extra resources from being allocated to motor learning. Results showed that anxiety trait was associated to performance time increments on the high-demanding motor tasks in the transfer trial. A plausible explanation is that anxiety impairs learning because it reduces the efficiency of processing. An alternative interpretation, concerning an ability deficit of high trait-anxious individuals, is discussed.     

Attentional sensitization of unconscious visual processing: Top-down influences on masked priming

Classical theories of automaticity assume that automatic processes elicited by unconscious stimuli are autonomous and independent of higher-level cognitive influences. In contrast to these classical conceptions, we argue that automatic processing depends on attentional amplification of task-congruent processing pathways and propose an attentional sensitization model of unconscious visual processing: According to this model, unconscious visual processing is automatic in the sense that it is initiated without deliberate intention. However, unconscious visual processing is susceptible to attentional top-down control and is only elicited if the cognitive system is configured accordingly. In this article, we describe our attentional sensitization model and review recent evidence demonstrating attentional influences on subliminal priming, a prototypical example of an automatic process. We show that subliminal priming (a) depends on attentional resources, (b) is susceptible to stimulus expectations, (c) is influenced by action intentions, and (d) is modulated by task sets. These data suggest that attention enhances or attenuates unconscious visual processes in congruency with attentional task representations similar to conscious perception. We argue that seemingly paradoxical, hitherto unexplained findings regarding the automaticity of the underlying processes in many cognitive domains can be easily accommodated by our attentional sensitization model. We conclude this review with a discussion of future research questions regar-ding the nature of attentional control of unconscious visual processing.     

Role of working memory load on selective attention to affectively valent information

Empirical evidence obtained with neutral stimuli has shown that selective attention relies on working memory functions as distractor processing occurs under conditions of high but not of low working memory load. We investigated whether these findings also hold for affectively valent distractors. In three experiments, participants completed the original Flanker task with famous people (Exps 1 and 2) and an affective Flanker task (Exp. 3) in which positive and negative words were presented superimposed onto happy, angry, and neutral faces under conditions of high or low working memory load. In line with past findings, results showed greater interference effects due to processing of distractors showing known people under high working memory load. In contrast interference effects due to processing of valent distractors occurred regardless of working memory load. The present findings are in contrast with those reported with neutral stimuli as they indicate that automatic evaluation of incoming affectively valent information occurs regardless of task priorities and of working memory load.     

Automaticity versus timesharing in timing and tracking dual-task performance

Two experiments investigated the interfering effects of a manual tracking task on timing performance. Subjects generated a series of 5-s temporal productions under control (timing only) and experimental (timing + pursuit rotor tracking) conditions. Timing was more variable under experimental conditions, a finding consistent with attentional models which argue that timing tasks compete with concurrent distractor tasks for limited processing resources. A pretest-posttest paradigm was employed to evaluate the hypothesis that practice on the tracking task would lessen its attentional demands and thereby attenuate the interference effect. Experiment 1 involved single-task practice (tracking alone). Single-task practice leads to automaticity, the ability to perform a skilled task using fewer processing resources. Pretest-posttest comparisons showed that such practice reduced interference in timing. Experiment 2 involved dual-task practice (timing + tracking). Dual-task practice promotes the development of timesharing, the ability to efficiently switch attention between multiple tasks. In this case, practice failed to reduce the interference effect in timing. The results suggest that effective strategies for timing in dual-task situations must allow one to closely monitor the ongoing flow of temporal events. Received: 11 November 1996 / Accepted: 6 May 1997     

Co-occurrence of sequential and practice effects in the Simon task: Evidence for two independent mechanisms affecting response selection

The Simon effect refers to the observation that responses to a relevant stimulus dimension are faster and more accurate when the stimulus and response spatially correspond than when they do not, even though stimulus position is irrelevant. Recent findings have suggested that the Simon effect can be strongly modulated by prior practice with a spatially incompatible mapping and by correspondence sequence. Although practice is thought to influence conditional stimulus —response (S-R) processing, leaving response priming through the unconditional route unaffected, sequential effects are thought to represent trial-by-trial adaptations that selectively involve unconditional S —R processing. In the present study, we tested this assumption by assessing the effects of correspondence sequence both when the Simon task alone was performed and when it was preceded by a spatial compatibility task with either incompatible (Experiments 1-2) or compatible (Experiment 2) instructions. The observation that practice and correspondence sequence co-occur and exert additive effects strongly demonstrates that the two factors affect different processing routes.