无关工作记忆表征的负性情绪信息能否捕获视觉注意?一项眼动研究

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

时间任务需求对无关情绪面孔注意捕获的影响

注意捕获是指与任务无关的刺激能够不自觉地吸引注意的现象。实验一采用视觉搜索任务,考察与主任务无关的情绪面孔的注意捕获水平及其机制,实验二进一步探究时间任务需求对无关情绪面孔注意捕获的影响。结果发现:与其他情绪面孔相比,愤怒的情绪面孔捕获了更多的注意,且受到整体情绪加工的影响;时间任务需求影响了目标刺激的注意选择,但愤怒优势效应不受到时间任务需求的影响,因此可能是一种较为自动化的加工过程。     

注意捕获与自上而下的加工过程

注意捕获对揭示两种控制过程——自下而上的加工与自上而下的加工之间的关系有着重要的研究意义。在当前对注意捕获的研究中,主要存在两大类的实验范式：线索化范式与视觉搜索范式;涉及以下几个方面：刺激驱动的注意捕获与自上而下控制的关系;注意捕获是否涉及注意的空间转移;刺激的显著性对注意捕获的影响;实验范式对注意捕获的影响。总的来说,没有任何一种视觉刺激能绝对的独立于自上而下的控制之外来捕获注意,因此也可以这样认为,注意捕获被默认为是一种自动化的过程,但这个自动化的过程可以被内源性的调节所抑制或者易化。     

Attentional misguidance in visual search

Previous research has shown that a task-irrelevant sudden onset of an object will capture an observer’s visual attention or draw it to that object (e.g., Yantis & Jonides, 1984). However, further research has demonstrated the apparent inability of an object with a task-irrelevant but unique color or luminance to capture attention (Jonides & Yantis, 1988). In the experiments reported here, we reexplore the question of whether task-irrelevant properties other than sudden onset may capture attention. Our results suggest that uniquely colored or luminous objects, as well as salient though irrelevant boundaries, do not appear to capture attention. However, these irrelevant features do appear to serve as landmarks for a top-down search strategy which becomes increasingly likely with larger display set sizes. These findings are described in terms of stimulus-driven and goal-directed aspects of attentional control.     

Increased experience amplifies the activation of task-irrelevant category representations

Prior research has demonstrated the benefits (i.e., task-relevant attentional selection) and costs (i.e., task-irrelevant attentional capture) of prior knowledge on search for an individual target or multiple targets from a category. This study investigated whether the level of experience with particular categories predicts the degree of task-relevant and task-irrelevant activation of item and category representations. Adults with varying levels of dieting experience (measured via 3 subscales of Disinhibition, Restraint, Hunger; Stunkard & Messick, Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 29(1), 71–83, 1985) searched for targets defined as either a specific food item (e.g., carrots), or a category (i.e., any healthy or unhealthy food item). Apart from the target-present trials, in the target-absent “foil” trials, when searching for a specific item (e.g., carrots), irrelevant items from the target’s category (e.g., squash) were presented. The ERP (N2pc) results revealed that the activation of task-relevant representations (measured via Exemplar and Category N2pc amplitudes) did not differ based on the degree of experience. Critically, however, increased dieting experience, as revealed by lower Disinhibition scores, predicted activation of task-irrelevant representations (i.e., attentional capture of foils from the target item category). Our results suggest that increased experience with particular categories encourages the rapid activation of category representations even when category information is task irrelevant, and that the N2pc in foil trials could potentially serve as an indication of experience level in future studies on categorization.     

Self-relevance increases the irrelevant sound effect: Attentional disruption by one's own name

Memory performance is severely disrupted when task-irrelevant sound is played during item presentation or in a retention interval. Working memory models make contrasting assumptions on whether the semantic content of the auditory distractors modulates the irrelevant sound effect. In the present study, participants made more errors in serial recall when they had to ignore sentences containing their own name as opposed to that of a yoked-control partner. These results are only consistent with working memory models that allow for attentional processes to play a role in the explanation of the irrelevant sound effect. With repeated presentation the disruptive effect of one's own name decreased, whereas the disruptive effect of the auditory distractors in the control condition remained constant. The latter finding is most consistent with the duplex model of auditory attention, which assumes that the irrelevant sound effect is primarily caused by automatic interference of acoustic distractor features, but at the same time allows for a disruption of encoding due to attentional capture by unexpected deviants. However, to explain the present results, the mechanism responsible for the attentional capture has to be extended to highly (self-)relevant auditory distractors.     

Facilitation and interference of behavioral responses by task-irrelevant affect-laden stimuli

Emotional interference on behavior is commonly observed when task-irrelevant negative stimuli appear before behavioral targets. One explanation postulates that affect-laden stimuli readily capture attention, interfering with the processing of the upcoming target. Emotional stimuli might also preactivate motor programs incompatible with the demanded response. Using a cued go/no-go procedure we showed that task-irrelevant unpleasant stimuli cause interference or facilitation depending on their onset asynchrony relative to the target. We observed interference with short (200 ms) stimulus-target asynchronies and facilitation for longer ones (600 ms), both for key press (Experiment 1) and key release (Experiment 2) responses. The interference effect is compatible with an attentional explanation, but the behavioral facilitation is hard to accommodate within either attentional or motor accounts. This interference-facilitation pattern can be explained assuming that once the attentional effect subsides, emotional processing may enhance the perceptual processing of the stimuli, or lower the decision threshold, thereby facilitating the response selection process.     

Can pupillometry index auditory attentional capture in contexts of active visual processing?

The rare presentation of a sound that deviates from the auditory background tends to capture attention, which is known to impede cognitive functioning. Such disruption is usually measured using performance on a concurrent visual task. Growing evidence recently showed that the pupillary dilation response (PDR) could index the attentional response triggered by a deviant sound. Given that the pupil diameter is sensitive to several vision-related factors, it is unclear whether the PDR could serve to study attentional capture in such contexts. Hence, the present study aimed at verifying whether the PDR can be used as a proxy for auditory attentional capture while a visual serial recall task (Experiment 1) or a reading comprehension task (Experiment 2) – respectively producing changes in luminance and gaze position – is being performed. Results showed that presenting a deviant sound within steady-state standard sounds elicited larger PDRs than a standard sound. Moreover, the magnitude of these PDRs was positively related to the amount of performance disruption produced by deviant sounds in Experiment 1. Performance remained unaffected by the deviants in Experiment 2, thereby implying that the PDR may be a more sensitive attention-capture index than behavioural measures. These results suggest that the PDR can be used to assess attentional capture by a deviant sound in contexts where the pupil diameter can be modulated by the visual environment.     

Attentional capture under high perceptual load

Attentional capture by abrupt onsets can be modulated by several factors, including the complexity, or perceptual load, of a scene. We have recently demonstrated that observers are less likely to be captured by abruptly appearing, task-irrelevant stimuli when they perform a search that is high, as opposed to low, in perceptual load (Cosman & Vecera, 2009), consistent with perceptual load theory. However, recent results indicate that onset frequency can influence stimulus-driven capture, with infrequent onsets capturing attention more often than did frequent onsets. Importantly, in our previous task, an abrupt onset was present on every trial, and consequently, attentional capture might have been affected by both onset frequency and perceptual load. In the present experiment, we examined whether onset frequency influences attentional capture under conditions of high perceptual load. When onsets were presented frequently, we replicated our earlier results; attentional capture by onsets was modulated under conditions of high perceptual load. Importantly, however, when onsets were presented infrequently, we observed robust capture effects. These results conflict with a strong form of load theory and, instead, suggest that exposure to the elements of a task (e.g., abrupt onsets) combines with high perceptual load to modulate attentional capture by task-irrelevant information.     

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

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

The time course of attentional capture under dual-task conditions

Several recent studies have shown that attentional capture is not an automatic process. For example, abrupt peripheral onsets do not affect the processing of targets presented subsequently at that location when participants have to concurrently perform a perceptually demanding task elsewhere. This result leaves open the question of whether peripheral onsets lose their effectiveness in capturing attention or whether, instead, the performance of a perceptually demanding task entails a faster disengagement of attention from the cued location. Here, we measured exogenous spatial attentional-orienting effects either while participants performed a concurrent perceptually demanding central-monitoring task (a rapid serial visual presentation of letters for a to-be-detected digit target; Experiments 1 and 2) or in isolation (the baseline condition in Experiment 2). The results showed that peripheral onsets captured participants' attention at both the 80- and 190-ms stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) in the baseline condition. Crucially, however, during concurrent central monitoring, peripheral onsets were effective in capturing attention only at an 80-ms SOA, while the orienting effect disappeared as soon as a changing letter drew participants' attention back to the central stream (at an SOA of 190 ms). These findings demonstrate that task-irrelevant abrupt onsets cannot be entirely overridden by top-down attentional control, although attentional capture effects are dramatically reduced by an ongoing perceptually demanding task.     

Nonconcurrently presented auditory tones reduce distraction

Recent research has demonstrated that task-irrelevant stimuli presented simultaneously with a target-distractor stimulus reduce distraction and improve selective attention. In studies examining this reduced interference effect, visual selective attention tasks and concurrently presented task-irrelevant stimuli are used. We report first evidence for a similar effect in the auditory domain and with nonconcurrent stimuli (i.e., the task-irrelevant stimuli are presented before the target). The effect of nonconcurrently presented auditory tones on an auditory Stroop task developed by Leboe and Mondor (Psychological Research, 71, 568--575, 2007) was investigated. Stroop interference was reduced when task-irrelevant tones were presented before the Stroop stimulus. We conclude that task-irrelevant stimuli can improve selective attention not only when presented concurrently, but also when presented before the selective attention task. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that interference reduction is due to perceptual dilution caused by task-irrelevant stimuli.     

Pavlovian reward learning underlies value driven attentional capture

Recent evidence shows that distractors that signal high compared to low reward availability elicit stronger attentional capture, even when this is detrimental for task-performance. This suggests that simply correlating stimuli with reward administration, rather than their instrumental relationship with obtaining reward, produces value-driven attentional capture. However, in previous studies, reward delivery was never response independent, as only correct responses were rewarded, nor was it completely task-irrelevant, as the distractor signaled the magnitude of reward that could be earned on that trial. In two experiments, we ensured that associative reward learning was completely response independent by letting participants perform a task at fixation, while high and low rewards were automatically administered following the presentation of task-irrelevant colored stimuli in the periphery (Experiment 1) or at fixation (Experiment 2). In a following non-reward test phase, using the additional singleton paradigm, the previously reward signaling stimuli were presented as distractors to assess truly task-irrelevant value driven attentional capture. The results showed that high compared to low reward-value associated distractors impaired performance, and thus captured attention more strongly. This suggests that genuine Pavlovian conditioning of stimulus-reward contingencies is sufficient to obtain value-driven attentional capture. Furthermore, value-driven attentional capture can occur following associative reward learning of temporally and spatially task-irrelevant distractors that signal the magnitude of available reward (Experiment 1), and is independent of training spatial shifts of attention towards the reward signaling stimuli (Experiment 2). This confirms and strengthens the idea that Pavlovian reward learning underlies value driven attentional capture.     

Differential impact of emotional task relevance on three indices of prioritised processing for fearful and angry facial expressions

It is commonly assumed that threatening expressions are perceptually prioritised, possessing the ability to automatically capture and hold attention. Recent evidence suggests that this prioritisation depends on the task relevance of emotion in the case of attention holding and for fearful expressions. Using a hybrid attentional blink (AB) and repetition blindness (RB) paradigm we investigated whether task relevance also impacts on prioritisation through attention capture and perceptual salience, and if these effects generalise to angry expressions. Participants judged either the emotion (relevant condition) or gender (irrelevant condition) of two target facial stimuli (fearful, angry or neutral) imbedded in a stream of distractors. Attention holding and capturing was operationalised as modulation of AB deficits by first target (T1) and second target (T2) expression. Perceptual salience was operationalised as RB modulation. When emotion was task-relevant (Experiment 1; N?=?29) fearful expressions captured and held attention, and were more perceptually salient than neutral expressions. Angry expressions captured attention, but were less perceptually salient and capable of holding attention than fearful and neutral expressions. When emotion was task-irrelevant (Experiment 2; N?=?30), only fearful attention capture and perceptual salience effects remained significant. Our findings highlight the importance for threat-prioritisation research to heed both the type of threat and prioritisation investigated.     

低自尊个体对拒绝性信息的注意偏向

自尊是个体对自我的情感性评价, 影响着个体对周围环境的应对方式。低自尊个体由于容易知觉到外部的拒绝性信息, 也更倾向于将别人的行为知觉为拒绝, 因而存在对拒绝性信息的注意偏向。本文首先综述了低自尊个体的认知与行为特点, 其次简单介绍了低自尊个体注意偏向的常用研究范式(Stroop范式、点探测任务、空间线索任务、惊吓探测范式、注意监测任务、注意转移任务), 随后列举了解释低自尊个体注意偏向的理论(社会计量理论、关系图式理论、注意成分说、注意控制说), 最后总结了低自尊个体注意偏向的脑机制研究。未来的研究应更多关注自尊结构的复杂性, 注意偏向的信息加工阶段性及其脑机制, 注意训练的作用机制及低自尊个体注意偏向的本土研究等问题。     

Reduced attentional capture in action video game players

Recent studies indicate that playing action video games improves performance on a number of attention-based tasks. However, it remains unclear whether action video game experience primarily affects endogenous or exogenous forms of spatial orienting. To examine this issue, action video game players and non-action video game players performed an attentional capture task. The results show that action video game players responded quicker than non-action video game players, both when a target appeared in isolation and when a salient, task-irrelevant distractor was present in the display. Action video game players additionally showed a smaller capture effect than did non-action video game players. When coupled with the findings of previous studies, the collective evidence indicates that extensive experience with action video games may enhance players’ top-down attentional control, which, in turn, can modulate the negative effects of bottom-up attentional capture.     

Overriding auditory attentional capture

Attentional capture by color singletons during shape search can be eliminated when the target is not a feature singleton (Bacon & Egeth, 1994). This suggests that a "singleton detection" search strategy must be adopted for attentional capture to occur. Here we find similar effects on auditory attentional capture. Irrelevant high-intensity singletons interfered with an auditory search task when the target itself was also a feature singleton. However, singleton interference was eliminated when the target was not a singleton (i.e., when nontargets were made heterogeneous, or when more than one target sound was presented). These results suggest that auditory attentional capture depends on the observer's attentional set, as does visual attentional capture. The suggestion that hearing might act as an early warning system that would always be tuned to unexpected unique stimuli must therefore be modified to accommodate these strategy-dependent capture effects.     

Previous attentional set can induce an attentional blink with task-irrelevant initial targets

Identification of a second target is often impaired by the requirement to process a prior target in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP). This is termed the attentional blink. Even when the first target is task irrelevant an attentional blink may occur providing this first target shares similar features with the second target (contingent capture). An RSVP experiment was undertaken to assess whether this first target can still cause an attentional blink when it did not require a response and did not share any features with the following target. The results revealed that such task-irrelevant targets can induce an attentional blink providing that they were task relevant on a previous block of trials. This suggests that irrelevant focal stimuli can distract attention on the basis of a previous attentional set.     

工作记忆表征的激活与抑制状态对注意引导效应的影响

本研究采用双任务范式, 通过定向遗忘任务操纵工作记忆表征状态, 分别在目标无关和目标相关条件下考察工作记忆激活与抑制状态对视觉搜索早期注意引导效应的影响。实验1与实验2发现当工作记忆表征只可能与视觉搜索分心物匹配时(目标无关条件), 处于激活状态的工作记忆表征会引导视觉注意偏向到与之匹配的分心物, 表现出注意引导效应, 而处于抑制状态的工作记忆表征则没有观察到注意引导效应。实验3与实验4发现, 当工作记忆表征有可能与视觉搜索目标匹配时(目标相关条件), 处于激活状态的工作记忆表征能捕获注意, 而处于抑制状态的工作记忆表征只有与视觉搜索目标匹配时, 才表现出对该搜索目标反应的延迟。这些研究的结果表明(1)处于激活状态的工作记忆表征能有效地引导注意偏向到与之匹配的搜索目标或分心物, 并且这种注意引导效应并未受到抑制动机的影响而被消除或反转; (2)处于抑制状态的工作记忆表征能将抑制状态传递到视觉搜索阶段, 并延迟对与之匹配的搜索目标的反应。     

Low self-esteem and the neural basis of attentional bias for social rejection cues: Evidence from the N2pc ERP component

Previous studies have indicated that individuals with low self-esteem show an attentional bias toward information concerning social rejection. The present study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate whether task-irrelevant rejection cues could capture the visuo-spatial attention of low self-esteem individuals during a demanding visual detection task. The N2pc ERP component was measured as an index of the allocation of spatial attention. Results revealed that rejection cues induced greater N2pc component responses among individuals with low levels of self-esteem than for those with high levels of self-esteem. These results suggest that task-irrelevant rejection cues are likely to capture the attention of individuals with low self-esteem but not those with high self-esteem. These findings provide direct electrophysiological support for the idea that individuals with low levels of self-esteem show an attentional bias for cues related to social rejection.