Luminance-increment detection: capacity-limited or not?

Three experiments investigated whether spatial cuing influences luminance-increment detection accuracy. Ss saw multiple-target displays and responded yes or no to 4 locations, including cued position. To test whether cuing effects are due to the load on visual short-term memory from the number of locations, Experiments 1 and 2 presented displays with 4 or 8 relevant locations. Experiment 1 used peripheral cues; Experiment 2 used central cues. Significant cuing effects were less marked with 4- than 8-location displays. Cuing effects were largest with multiple targets, but a small reliable effect remained even with single targets. Experiment 3 replicated the single-target effect with predominantly multiple- and single-target displays. A capacity-limited selection account is developed for these findings and their implications are discussed for separate central and peripheral cuing mechanisms and the locus of spatial cuing effects.     

Audiovisual links in exogenous covert spatial orienting

Subjects judged the elevation (up vs. down, regardless of laterality) of peripheral auditory or visual targets, following uninformative cues on either side with an intermediate elevation. Judgments were better for targets in either modality when preceded by an uninformative auditory cue on the side of the target. Experiment 2 ruled out nonattentional accounts for these spatial cuing effects. Experiment 3 found that visual cues affected elevation judgments for visual but not auditory targets. Experiment 4 confirmed that the effect on visual targets was attentional. In Experiment 5, visual cues produced spatial cuing when targets were always auditory, but saccades toward the cue may have been responsible. No such visual-to-auditory cuing effects were found in Experiment 6 when saccades were prevented, though they were present when eye movements were not monitored. These results suggest a one-way cross-modal dependence in exogenous covert orienting whereby audition influences vision, but not vice versa. Possible reasons for this asymmetry are discussed in terms of the representation of space within the brain.     

Aging and shifts of visual spatial attention.

Three experiments examined adult age differences in the efficiency of endogenous (voluntary) and exogenous (involuntary) attention shifts. Younger and older subjects performed a spatial cuing task in which abruptly onset peripheral cues (Experiment 1) or central, symbolic cues (Experiments 2 and 3) were presented before a target stimulus at intervals ranging from 50 to 250 ms. With peripheral cues, the magnitude of cuing effects was at least as great for older as for younger adults and followed a similar time course. Similar results were obtained with symbolic cues, although cuing effects for older adults varied with cue difficulty. The results suggest that cue encoding may decline with advancing age but that the efficiency of the shift process is preserved.     

Part‐set cuing of texts,scenes, and matrices

In four experiments, we extended the study of part‐set cuing to expository texts and pictorial scenes. In Experiment 1, recall of expository text was tested with and without part‐set cues in the same order as the original text; cues strongly impaired recall. Experiment 2 repeated Experiment 1 but used cues in random order and found significant but reduced impairment with cuing. Experiments 3 and 4 examined the part‐set cuing of objects presented in a scene or matrix and found virtually no effect of cuing. More objects were recalled from the scene than from the matrix, indicating that the scene's organization aided memory, but the cues did not assist recall. These results extend the domains in which part‐set cues have either impaired or failed to improve recall. Implications for education and eyewitness accounts are briefly considered.     

Attentional priming and visual search in pigeons

Advance information about a target's identity improved visual search efficiency in pigeons. Experiments 1 and 2 compared information supplied by visual cues with information supplied by trial sequences. Reaction times (RTs) were lower when visual cues signaled a single target rather than two. RTs were (Experiment 1) or accuracy improved (Experiment 2) when a sequence of trials presented a single target rather than a mixture of 2. Experiments 3, 4, and 5 considered the selectivity of visual priming by introducing probe trials that reversed the usual cue-target relationship. RT was higher following such miscues than following the usual 1- or 2- target cuing relationships (Experiment 3); the miscuing effect persisted over variations in the target's concealment (Experiments 4 and 5), but did not occur when the target was presented alone (Experiment 4). The findings indicate that priming modifies an attentional mechanism and suggest that this effect accounts for search images.     

Reflexive and voluntary orienting of visual attention: time course of activation and resistance to interruption

To study the mechanisms underlying covert orienting of attention in visual space, subjects were given advance cues indicating the probable locations of targets that they had to discriminate and localize. Direct peripheral cues (brightening of one of four boxes in peripheral vision) and symbolic central cues (an arrow at the fixation point indicating a probable peripheral box) were compared. Peripheral and central cues are believed to activate different reflexive and voluntary modes of orienting (Jonides, 1981; Posner, 1980). Experiment 1 showed that the time courses of facilitation and inhibition from peripheral and central cues were characteristic and different. Experiment 2 showed that voluntary orienting in response to symbolic central cues is interrupted by reflexive orienting to random peripheral flashes. Experiment 3 showed that irrelevant peripheral flashes also compete with relevant peripheral cues. The amount of interference varied systematically with the interval between the onset of the relevant cue and of the distracting flash (cue-flash onset asynchrony) and with the cuing condition. Taken together, these effects support a model for spatial attention with distinct but interacting reflexive and voluntary orienting mechanisms.     

Correlational cuing as a function of target complexity and target-flanker similarity

It is generally assumed that the correlational cuing effect (CE) between targets and correlated flankers is due to learning association between the flankers and their correlated responses. The present study challenges this view. Experiment 1 shows that the CE for targets composed of color is eliminated as soon as the correlation is removed. Experiment 2 shows that the CE during training is not due to association of the flankers with responses. Experiment 3 shows that at least some of the CE during training with the correlation is due to repetition priming of the display. Experiment 4 replicates the results of Experiment 1 for orientation targets. In Experiments 5-7, more typical tasks with letter targets are examined, and it is demonstrated that preexperimental similarity between targets and correlated flankers is crucial. The CE for correlated but dissimilar target-flanker pairs, similar to that for color and orientation targets, is confined to on-line processes that occur during training. The CE is transferred, however, for correlated and similar target-flanker pairs. We propose that, at least for the simple stimulus to response mapping used in our study, the CE is not due to learning at all. Instead it is due to (1) on-line processes, such as repetition priming, that occur during training with the correlation and (2) a regular flanker effect (see, e.g., B. A. Eriksen & C. W. Eriksen, 1974) that occurs for similar target-flanker pairs.     

Look here but ignore what you see: effects of distractors at fixation

Distractor interference effects were compared between distractors in the periphery and those placed at fixation. In 6 experiments, the authors show that fixation distractors produce larger interference effects than peripheral distractors. However, the fixation distractor effects are modulated by perceptual load to the same extent as are peripheral distractor effects (Experiments 1 and 2). Experiment 3 showed that fixation distractors are harder to filter out than peripheral distractors. The larger distractor effects at fixation are not due to the cortical magnification of foveal stimuli (Experiments 4 and 5), nor can they be attributed to cuing by the fixation point (Experiment 2), the lower predictability or greater location certainty of fixation distractors (Experiment 5), or their being in a central position (Experiment 6). The authors suggest that preferential access to attention renders fixation distractors harder to ignore than peripheral distractors.     

Inhibition of return for the length of a line?

Inhibition of return is most often measured using an exogenous spatial cuing method. The experiments presented here follow up on a small number of studies that have examined whether a similar effect occurs for nonspatial stimulus attributes. In Experiments 1 and 2, the task was to identify a target line as either short or long. In this context, targets on valid trials were of the same length as that of a preceding cue, whereas targets on invalid trials were of a different length than that of a preceding cue. The results were similar to those in spatial orienting studies in that responses were slower for valid than for invalid targets only at stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) longer than 300 msec. In Experiment 3, the stimuli were the same but the task was to detect the onset of the target line. This task change resulted in slower responses for valid than for invalid targets at all SOAs. A similar result was observed in Experiment 4, in which validity was defined by color rather than line length, and the task was to identify the target color. The discussion centers on an opponent process approach to interpreting cuing effects, and consequent difficulties in distinguishing spatial and nonspatial cuing effects based on their time course.     

Differences in attentional set between athletes and nonathletes

The purpose of this study was to determine if the ability to set attention is different between athletes and nonathletes. University volleyball players were compared with nonathletes on a spatial cuing task similar to that of C. L. Folk, R. W. Remington, and J. C. Johnston (1992). As expected, both groups showed evidence of entering into a specific attentional set because attentional cuing effects were found only when cues and targets shared a task-relevant feature (onset or color). In addition, the cuing effects when the cues matched the targets were greater for the athletes than for the nonathletes. The results are discussed in terms of the orienting of attention and athletic performance.     

Deployment of spatial attention to words in central and peripheral vision

Four perceptual identification experiments examined the influence of spatial cues on the recognition of words presented in central vision (with fixation on either the first or last letter of the target word) and in peripheral vision (displaced left or right of a central fixation point). Stimulus location had a strong effect on word identification accuracy in both central and peripheral vision, showing a strong right visual field superiority that did not depend on eccentricity. Valid spatial cues improved word identification for peripherally presented targets but were largely ineffective for centrally presented targets. Effects of spatial cuing interacted with visual field effects in Experiment 1, with valid cues reducing the right visual field superiority for peripherally located targets, but this interaction was shown to depend on the type of neutral cue. These results provide further support for the role of attentional factors in visual field asymmetries obtained with targets in peripheral vision but not with centrally presented targets.     

The relationship between central cues and peripheral cues in covert visual orientation

Four experiments were conducted to compare valid and invalid cue conditions for peripheral and central cues. Experiments 1, 3, and 4 used reaction time (RT) as the dependent variable. Experiment 2 used a threshold measure. Peripheral and central cues were presented on each trial. The peripheral cue was uninformative in all experiments. The central cue was informative in Experiments 1 and 2, where it predicted stimulus side on 70% of the trials. Experiment 3 included 50% and 100% central-cue prediction conditions as well as the 70% treatment. Experiment 4 included 60%, 75%, and 90% central-cue prediction conditions. The effects of the central and peripheral cues were independent and additive in all four experiments, indicating that: (1) both cue types can act simultaneously, and that the relationship between them is additive under the conditions used in these experiments, (2) informativeness is not a necessary condition for attentional effects with peripheral cues, and (3) covert visual orientation influences sensory thresholds and RT in similar ways. The results of Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated that the facilitation associated with peripheral cues was insensitive to manipulations which demonstrate that subjects use the informational value of the central cue to direct voluntary attention. The results are discussed with reference to two issues; first, the proposition that central and peripheral cues exert their influence on performance in independent information-processing stages, following the additive factor method, and, second, the problems raised for additive factors method when cues elicit both an “explicit” response—regarding the presence or absence of a specified letter—and an “implicit response”—involving the planning and possible execution of eye and hand movements.     

Constraints on strategy construction in a speeded discrimination task

In three experiments, subjects reported the identity of a word (above or below) that appeared above or below a fixation point. On some trials, a cue presented 100, 200, 400, 600, 800, or 1,000 msec before the word indicated the relation between position and identity (i.e., whether the dimensions were compatible, e.g., above/above and below/below, or conflicted, e.g., above/below and below/above). On the other trials, the cue was withheld (Experiment 2) or it bore no information about the relation between dimensions (Experiment 1 and 3). In each experiment, the cue reduced reaction time below the level of no-cue or neutral-cue controls, indicating strategic use of the relation between dimensions. Experiments 1 and 2 manipulated the number of potential cues that could occur in a block. A stronger cuing effect was found when one cue could occur (Experiment 2) than when two cues could occur (Experiment 1). Experiment 3 manipulated practice; it revealed that with practice the cuing effect reached asymptote at shorter delays. The asymptote itself did not change. Experiment 4 showed that cue-delay effects were independent of warning interval (warning interval and cue delay confounded in Experiment 1, 2, and 3). The experiments demonstrate construction and utilization of strategies; they show that construction is sensitive to constraints imposed by the subject's goals and abilities and by the structure of the task environment.     

Influence of display type and cue format on task-cuing effects: Dissociating switch cost and right-left prevalence effects

In previous studies of task switching and of the right-left prevalence effect, researchers have used a procedure in which the stimulus on each trial occurs in one of four quadrants, and responses are made by pressing one of two diagonally arranged response keys. Across these studies, discrepant effects of cuing interval have been reported. These discrepancies need clarification because cue-based preparation effects are frequently interpreted as reflecting cognitive control processes. In Experiment 1, we compared performance with display formats used by Meiran (1996; Meiran, Chorev, & Sapir, 2000; small display, cues located at sides of quadrants and displayed until response) to study task switching and by Proctor and colleagues (Proctor, Koch, & Vu, 2006; large display, cues located at center of display and shown until target onset) to study right-left prevalence. We found a decrease in task-switch cost with increasing cuing interval with the Meiran display, but not with the Proctor display, but the right-left prevalence effect was of similar size for the two display formats and was relatively unaffected by cuing interval. To determine the basis of the discrepant task-switch results, we used small and large displays in Experiments 2 and 3, respectively, with cue type and cue offset varied. With the side cues, the task-switch cost decreased in all cases at the longer cuing interval, but with the centered cues, it decreased only when the display size was small. Thus, the effects of cuing interval on switch costs are sensitive to variations of display characteristics, whereas cuing interval and display characteristics have little influence on the right-left prevalence effect, suggesting that prevalence effect is due to processes that are independent from those producing the switch cost.     

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.     

Visual attention modulates signal detectability

The mechanism by which visual-spatial attention affects the detection of faint signals has been the subject of considerable debate. It is well known that spatial cuing speeds signal detection. This may imply that attentional cuing modulates the processing of sensory information during detection or, alternatively, that cuing acts to create decision bias favoring input at the cued location. These possibilities were evaluated in 3 spatial cuing experiments. Peripheral cues were used in Experiment 1 and central cues were used in Experiments 2 and 3. Cuing similarly enhanced measured sensitivity, P(A) and d', for simple luminance detection in all 3 experiments. Under some conditions it also induced shifts in decision criteria (beta). These findings indicate that visual-spatial attention facilitates the processing of sensory input during detection either by increasing sensory gain for inputs at cued locations or by prioritizing the processing of cued inputs.     

Metacognition and part-set cuing: Can interference be predicted at retrieval?

Although prior research has examined predictions of memory performance under conditions of interference at encoding, predictions of memory performance have not been examined for interference introduced via cues at retrieval. This was investigated in the present study by exposing participants to a random subset of to-be-recalled items just prior to retrieval (part-set cuing) and then eliciting an overall prediction of memory performance. Across three experiments, participants in part-set cuing conditions recalled proportionally fewer items than did participants who were not exposed to any cues. However, participants were unable to predict the detrimental effect of part-set cues on memory performance in either a semantic (Experiment 1) or an episodic (Experiment 2) memory task. Predictions were better calibrated after practice with part-set cuing, and there was evidence that prior experience with part-set cuing transferred to predictions made for a different part-set cuing task (Experiment 3). This suggests that only under some conditions are participants sensitive to the diminished accessibility of memories wrought by part-set cues and illustrates situations in which participants are or are not aware of variables at retrieval that influence memory performance.     

Part-set cuing effects in younger and older adults

In 3 experiments, the authors examined part-set cuing effects in younger and older adults. Participants heard lists of category exemplars and later recalled them. Recall was uncued or cued with a subset of studied items. In Experiment 1, participants were cued with some of the category names, and they remembered fewer never-cued categories than a free-recall condition. In Experiment 2, a similar effect was observed for category exemplar cues. There was also an age difference: By some measures, a small number of cues impaired older adults more than younger. Experiment 3 replicated this result and found that older adults were disproportionately slow in the presence of cues. Across experiments, older adults showed robust part-set cuing effects, and sometimes, they were disproportionately impaired by cues.     

What variety of attention is automatically captured by peripheral cues?

Previous studies have shown that the voluntary allocation of attention to a location in space can influence accuracy in two ways. First, additional processing resources can be allocated to the attended location, leading to an improvement in perceptual quality for objects presented at that location. Second, decision processes can be restricted to information arising from the attended location, which improves accuracy without influencing the perceptual representation. The present study examined the operation of these two attentional mechanisms when nonpredictive peripheral cues were used to capture attention automatically. Experiment 1 showed that, like predictive cues, nonpredictive cues influence accuracy by summoning perceptual resources and also by influencing decision processes. However, both the cues and the targets in this experiment were defined by luminance increments, making it possible that the cuing effects were mediated by a task-controlled attentional set rather than being fully automatic. Experiments 2 and 3 examined this possibility by using luminance-defined cues and color-defined targets; evidence was again obtained for both perceptual-level and decision-level attention effects. The capture of attention by a nonpredictive peripheral cue thus appears to influence both perceptual resource allocation and postperceptual decision processes.     

Contextual cuing based on spatial arrangement of color

Previous studies have demonstrated that, in visual search, repetition of a target's "context" significantly improves search performance (contextual cuing; Chun & Jiang, 1998). Context in those studies was defined as either spatial configuration or featural combination. In the present work, we demonstrate that repeating the spatial arrangement of object colors (conjunction of spatial configuration and featural combination) also leads to contextual cuing (Experiment 1). Experiments 2 and 3 rule out the possibility that the contextual cuing we find in Experiment 1 is caused only by the spatial configuration of color patches. Experiment 4 rules out the possibility that it is caused only by featural combination. Experiments 5 and 6 demonstrate that color-arrangement-based contextual cuing is an unconscious process. Experiments 7 and 8 demonstrate that contextual cuing seems to be more effective onchromatic (hue) variation than on achromatic (luminance) variation. In sum, our results demonstrate that contextual cuing is not merely associated learning in separate domains; it is a more integrated process than has perhaps been appreciated.