返回抑制和抑制标签在长时训练下的分离

返回抑制(Inhibition of return, IOR)是指当线索-靶子的时隔大于约300 ms时, 被试对呈现在线索化位置的靶子相较对出现在非线索化位置的靶子而言反应更慢的现象。新近抑制标签 (Inhibitory tagging, IT) 理论指出, 除返回抑制外, 一个由前额叶执行控制系统负责的抑制标签机制也作用于先前线索化位置, 起着暂时中断刺激-反应链接的作用。然而, 迄今为止, 该理论的关键假设-“抑制标签一定程度上独立于返回抑制发挥作用”还未有来自常规被试研究的支持。结合线索-靶子和Stroop范式, 采用8(训练天数)×2(线索-靶子关系)×3(色字一致性)的三因素被试内实验设计, 通过连续8天的长时训练对常规被试的返回抑制和抑制标签功能在学习可塑性上的差别进行考察。结果发现, 返回抑制随着练习的增加呈现出了显著降低的趋势, 而抑制标签并未随着练习的变化而变化。研究结果表明返回抑制和抑制标签在一定程度上可以相互分离, 为抑制标签理论的关键假设提供了重要的来自常规被试的证据。     

Differential age effects on attention-based inhibition: inhibitory tagging and inhibition of return

The purpose of this study was to determine whether 2 forms of attentional inhibition, inhibition of return (IOR) and inhibitory tagging, are differentially affected by the aging process. The authors tested 24 younger adults (mean age = 22 years) and 24 older adults (mean age = 69 years) on a combined IOR and Stroop task (Vivas & Fuentes, 2001). As predicted, younger adults' performance was consistent with inhibitory tagging of objects at inhibited locations. Although older adults demonstrated intact IOR, there was no evidence of inhibitory tagging. The results suggest that age deficits in inhibition are selective.     

The global precedence effect is not affected in inhibition of return

This study assessed whether inhibitory processes occurring in IOR affect perceptual processing of hierarchically organised stimuli. Experiment 1 used a global/local task that presented stimuli to the left or the right side. Results showed a global task advantage and a larger interference in the local than in the global task—the global precedence effect (GPE). These effects were larger than in previous studies using centrally presented stimuli, which suggests a greater involvement of low spatial frequency analysis with peripheral than with central stimuli. Experiment 2 combined the global/local task with IOR. Results replicated those of Experiment 1 but there was no interaction with stimulus location. That is, the GPE was not affected in IOR. Thus, we conclude that the GPE and inhibitory processing occurring in IOR are subserved by different mechanisms.     

How chimpanzees (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Pan troglodytes</Emphasis>) perform in a modified emotional Stroop task

The emotional Stroop task is an experimental paradigm developed to study the relationship between emotion and cognition. Human participants required to identify the color of words typically respond more slowly to negative than to neutral words (emotional Stroop effect). Here we investigated whether chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) would show a comparable effect. Using a touch screen, eight chimpanzees were trained to choose between two simultaneously presented stimuli based on color (two identical images with differently colored frames). In Experiment 1, the images within the color frames were shapes that were either of the same color as the surrounding frame or of the alternative color. Subjects made fewer errors and responded faster when shapes were of the same color as the frame surrounding them than when they were not, evidencing that embedded images affected target selection. Experiment 2, a modified version of the emotional Stroop task, presented subjects with four different categories of novel images: three categories of pictures of humans (veterinarian, caretaker, and stranger), and control stimuli showing a white square. Because visits by the veterinarian that include anaesthetization can be stressful for subjects, we expected impaired performance in trials presenting images of the veterinarian. For the first session, we found correct responses to be indeed slower in trials of this category. This effect was more pronounced for subjects whose last anaesthetization experience was more recent, indicating that emotional valence caused the slowdown. We propose our modified emotional Stroop task as a simple method to explore which emotional stimuli affect cognitive performance in nonhuman primates.     

Knowledge of response location alone is not sufficient to generate social inhibition of return

Previous research has revealed that the inhibition of return (IOR) effect emerges when individuals respond to a target at the same location as their own previous response or the previous response of a co-actor. The latter social IOR effect is thought to occur because the observation of co-actor's response evokes a representation of that action in the observer and that the observation-evoked response code subsequently activates the inhibitory mechanisms underlying IOR. The present study was conducted to determine if knowledge of the co-actor's response alone is sufficient to evoke social IOR. Pairs of participants completed responses to targets that appeared at different button locations. Button contact generated location-contingent auditory stimuli (high and low tones in Experiment 1 and colour words in Experiment 2). In the Full condition, the observer saw the response and heard the auditory stimuli. In the Auditory Only condition, the observer did not see the co-actor's response, but heard the auditory stimuli generated via button contact to indicate response endpoint. It was found that, although significant individual and social IOR effects emerged in the Full conditions, there were no social IOR effects in the Auditory Only conditions. These findings suggest that knowledge of the co-actor's response alone via auditory information is not sufficient to activate the inhibitory processes leading to IOR. The activation of the mechanisms that lead to social IOR seems to be dependent on processing channels that code the spatial characteristics of action.     

The visual-auditory color-word Stroop asymmetry and its time course

Four experiments examined crossmodal versions of the Stroop task in order (1) to look for Stroop asymmetries in color naming, spoken-word naming, and written-word naming and to evaluate the time course of these asymmetries, and (2) to compare these findings to current models of the Stroop effect. Participants named color patches while ignoring spoken color words presented with an onset varying from 300 msec before to 300 msec after the onset of the color (Experiment 1), or they named the spoken words and ignored the colors (Experiment 2). A secondary visual detection task assured that the participants looked at the colors in both tasks. Spoken color words yielded Stroop effects in color naming, but colors did not yield an effect in spoken-word naming at any stimulus onset asynchrony. This asymmetry in effects was obtained with equivalent color- and spoken-word-naming latencies. Written color words yielded a Stroop effect in naming spoken words (Experiment 3), and spoken color words yielded an effect in naming written words (Experiment 4). These results were interpreted as most consistent with an architectural account of the color-word Stroop asymmetry, in contrast with discriminability and pathway strength accounts.     

颜色和形状工作记忆对非空间返回抑制效应的影响

为进一步考察非空间返回抑制效应是否受工作记忆内容的影响,分别采用颜色和形状工作记忆内容,通过两个实验考察了工作记忆对非空间返回抑制效应的影响。实验结果表明,在颜色和形状工作记忆条件下,均产生了颜色或形状返回抑制效应,并且颜色或形状返回抑制效应量之间均无显著差异,颜色和形状工作记忆内容只增加了判断靶刺激的反应时。研究结论对进一步认识工作记忆内容与非空间返回抑制效应之间的关系有重要参考价值。     

Effects of relevant and irrelevant color singletons on inhibition of return and attentional capture

We tested whether color singletons lead to saccadic and manual inhibition of return (IOR; i.e., slower responses at cued locations) and whether IOR depended on the relevance of the color singletons. The target display was preceded by a nonpredictive cue display. In three experiments, half of the cues were response-relevant, because participants had to perform a discrimination task at the cued location. With the exception of Experiment 2, none of the cue colors matched the target color. We observed saccadic IOR after color singletons, which was greater for slow than for fast responses. Furthermore, when the relevant cue color matched the target color, we observed attentional capture (i.e., faster responses at cued locations) with rapid responses, but IOR with slower responses, which provides evidence for attentional deallocation. When the cue display was completely response-irrelevant in two additional experiments, we did not find evidence for IOR. Instead, we found attentional capture when the cue color matched the target color. Also, attentional capture was greater for rapid responses and with short cue–target intervals. Thus, IOR emerges when cues are relevant and do not match the target color, whereas attentional capture emerges with relevant and irrelevant cues that match the target color.     

靶子-靶子任务中认知控制对返回抑制的反转

使用冲突色词作为外源性线索,通过3(任务类型)×2(线索有效性)×2(色词一致性)混合设计考察认知控制对返回抑制(IOR)的影响。结果:(1)线索-靶子任务(CT)和靶子-靶子任务(TT)均产生正值IOR,CT的IOR效应量(32ms)显著大于TT(12ms)。(2)线索有效性和任务类型交互作用显著。按键反应组IOR效应量(11.85ms)显著大于颜色反应组(-18.5ms)和词意反应组(-25.65ms)。证实冲突色词在CT任务中做为线索可产生IOR,这种范式上的新尝试同样适用于TT任务。在TT任务中对认知冲突的觉察和控制导致IOR效应反转,支持注意的非盲性机制。研究为主动操纵被试对线索的认知控制程度,考察复杂任务下实施认知控制对注意定向的影响提供了一条可行途径。     

Inhibitory tagging in inhibition of return: Evidence from flanker interference with multiple distractor features

Fuentes, Vivas, and Humphreys (1999) proposed a distinction betweeninhibition of return (IOR) and inhibitory processing taking place at a location subject to IOR. This latter mechanism,inhibitory tagging (IT), would act at a late level of processing related to response selection. In the present study, we examined whether IT was applied only to the target-relevant properties of the stimuli (e.g., to its color) or whether it was applied to other features of the stimulus as well (e.g., to its shape). Both when the task was to respond to the target’s color (Experiment 1) as well as when it was to respond to the target’s shape (Experiment 2), there was evidence of IT (reversal of the typical flanker effect at the cued location, relative to the uncued location) only to task-relevant features of the target. These findings suggest that IT is a central process of control constrained by task demands and current goals.     

Impaired color word processing at an unattended location: Evidence from a Stroop task combined with inhibition of return

A Stroop task with separate color bar and color word stimuli was combined with an inhibition-of-return procedure to examine whether visual attention modulates color word processing. In Experiment 1, the color bar was presented at the cued location and the color word at the uncued location, or vice versa, with a 100- or 1,050-msec stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between cue and Stroop stimuli. In Experiment 2, on Stroop trials, the color bar was presented at a central fixated location and the color word at a cued or uncued location above or below the color bar. In both experiments, with a 100-msec SOA, the Stroop effect was numerically larger when the color word was displayed at the cued location than when it was displayed at the uncued location, but with the 1,050-msec SOA, this relation between Stroop effect magnitude and location was reversed. These results provide evidence that processing of the color word in the Stroop task is modulated by the location to which visual attention is directed.     

Influence of color word availability on the Stroop color-naming effect

Three experiments tested whether the Stroop color-naming effect is a consequence of word recognition's being automatic or of the color word's capturing visual attention. In Experiment 1, a color bar was presented at fixation as the color carrier, with color and neutral words presented in locations above or below the color bar; Experiment 2 was similar, except that the color carrier could occur in one of the peripheral locations and the color word at fixation. The Stroop effect increased as display duration increased, and the Stroop dilution effect (a reduced Stroop effect when a neutral word is also present) was an approximately constant proportion of the Stroop effect at all display durations, regardless of whether the color bar or color word was at fixation. In Experiment 3, the interval between the onsets of the to-be-named color and the color word was manipulated. The Stroop effect decreased with increasing delay of the color word onset, but the absolute amount of Stroop dilution produced by the neutral word increased. This study's results imply that an attention shift from the color carrier to the color word is an important factor modulating the size of the Stroop effect.     

Effects of Emotional Experience for Abstract Words in the Stroop Task

In this study, we examined the effects of emotional experience, a relatively new dimension of emotional knowledge that gauges the ease with which words evoke emotional experience, on abstract word processing in the Stroop task. In order to test the context‐dependency of these effects, we accentuated the saliency of this dimension in Experiment 1A by blocking the stimuli such that one block consisted of the stimuli with the highest emotional experience ratings and the other block consisted of the stimuli with the lowest emotional experience ratings. We attenuated the saliency of this dimension in Experiment 1B by intermixing the stimuli. We observed slower color naming performance for words with higher emotional experience ratings only in Experiment 1A, suggesting that the dimension of emotional experience is an aspect of semantic representation for abstract words but that its influence can be modulated by context. We interpret these results more generally using Vigliocco, Meteyard, Andrews, and Kousta's (2009) framework of semantic representation, and more specifically using Cohen, Dunbar, and McClelland's (1990) model of Stroop task performance.     

Coloring an action: Intending to produce color events eliminates the Stroop effect

The implications of an ideomotor approach to action control were investigated. In Experiment 1, participants made manual responses to letter stimuli and they were presented with response-contingent color patches, i.e., colored action effects. This rendered stimuli of the same color as an action's effect effective primes of that action, suggesting that bilateral associations were created between actions and the effects they produced. Experiment 2 combined this set-up with a manual Stroop task, i.e., participants responded to congruent, neutral, or incongruent color-word compounds. Standard Stroop effects were observed in a control group without action effects and in a group with target-incompatible action effects, but the reaction time Stroop effect was eliminated if actions produced target-compatible color effects (e.g., blue word --> left key --> blue patch). Experiment 3 did not replicate this interaction between target-effect compatibility and color-word congruency with color words as action effects, which rules out semantically based accounts. Theoretical implications for both action-effect acquisition and the Stroop effect are discussed. It is suggested that learning action effects, the features of which overlap with the target, allows and motivates people to recode their actions in ways that make them more stimulus-compatible. This provides a processing shortcut for translating the relevant stimulus into the correct response and, thus, shields processing from the impact of competing word distractors.     

On the role of eye movements and saccade preparation in generating auditory inhibition of return.

In three experiments, listeners were required to either localize or identify the second of two successive sounds. The first sound (the cue) and the second sound (the target) could originate from either the same or different locations, and the interval between the onsets of the two sounds (Stimulus Onset Asynchrony, SOA) was varied. Sounds were presented out of visual range at 135 azimuth left or right. In Experiment 1, localization responses were made more quickly at 100 ms SOA when the target sounded from the same location as the cue (i.e., a facilitative effect), and at 700 ms SOA when the target and cue sounded from different locations (i.e., an inhibitory effect). In Experiments 2 and 3, listeners were required to monitor visual information presented directly in front of them at the same time as the auditory cue and target were presented behind them. These two experiments differed in that in order to perform the visual task accurately in Experiment 3, eye movements to visual stimuli were required. In both experiments, a transition from facilitation at a brief SOA to inhibition at a longer SOA was observed for the auditory task. Taken together these results suggest that location-based auditory IOR is not dependent on either eye movements or saccade programming to sound locations.     

Inhibition of return for the discrimination of faces

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

On the immunity of perceptual implicit memory to manipulations of attention

In four experiments, we examined the effect of manipulating study phase attention in a Stroop task on the extent of repetition priming in the lexical decision task (LDT). Experiment 1 replicated the immunity of the LDT to division of attention reported by Szymanski and MacLeod (1996), using a standard Stroop configuration. Response times to previously encountered words were identical regardless of whether the participants were required to read the words or name the color in which they were presented. Experiment 2 demonstrated that implementing the Stroop manipulation across separate visual objects reduced but did not eliminate priming of unattended words, provided the words remained in the attended region of the stimulus display. When this constraint was removed in Experiment 3, priming of unattended words disappeared. Experiment 4 demonstrated statistically equivalent priming for attended and unattended words when the Stroop manipulation remained in the same visual object but attention was directed to a single letter of the word. In all four experiments, the Stroop manipulation had a clear effect on recognition. These results qualify claims that the LDT might be immune to manipulations of study phase attention and suggest that the LDT has a lower threshold level of attention at encoding than do other standard implicit tests of memory.     

Searching for inhibition of return in the rat using the covert orienting of attention task

Inhibition of return (IOR) is an important psychological construct describing inhibited responses to previously attended locations. In humans, it is investigated using Posner’s cueing paradigm. This paradigm requires central visual fixation and detection of cued stimuli to the left or right of the fixation point. Stimuli can be validly or invalidly cued, appearing in the same or opposite location to the cue. Although a rat version of the spatial cueing paradigm (the covert orienting of attention task) does exist, IOR has so far not been demonstrated. We therefore investigated whether IOR could be robustly demonstrated in adult male rats using the covert orienting of attention task. This task is conducted in holed wall operant chambers with the central three holes mimicking the set-up for Posner cueing. Across four samples of rats (overall n = 84), we manipulated the following task parameters: stimulus onset asynchronies (Experiments 1–3), cue brightness (Experiment 1b) and the presence of a central reorienting event (Experiment 4). In Experiment 1, we also investigated strain differences by comparing Lister Hooded rats to Sprague–Dawley rats. Although Lister Hooded rats briefly showed evidence of IOR (Experiment 1a, and see Online Resource 1 data), we were unable to replicate this finding in our other experiments using different samples of this strain. Taken together, our findings suggest that IOR cannot be robustly demonstrated in the rat using the covert orienting of attention task conducted in holed wall operant chambers.     

同时线索化条件下儿童返回抑制的容量

返回抑制是对先前注意过的目标再次做出反应的时候反应时延长的一种现象。返回抑制具有一定的生物学意义,忽略已经注意过的位置(或客体),使得有机体可以更加有效的注意新的内容。基于这一点,返回抑制现象应该可以在多个已经注意过的位置出现,这便是返回抑制的容量问题。在本研究中,采用同时呈现的线索化方式,考查8岁、10岁儿童在不同的实验任务——觉察任务和辨别任务——中的返回抑制容量。结果发现觉察任务中,10岁组儿童和8岁组儿童最多在5个线索化位置上出现返回抑制,但8岁年龄组的返回抑制容量缺乏稳定;辨别任务中,10岁年龄组只在一个位置上出现返回抑制,而8岁年龄组并没有明显返回抑制现象出现。年龄因素和任务类型对儿童返回抑制容量都产生了一定程度的影响。     

Verbal coding and the elimination of Stroop interference in a matching task

Translational models of the Stroop effect (Virzi & Egeth, 1985) predict that Stroop interference can be eliminated if subjects can be induced to process target colors using a coding system separate from the coding system used to process distractors. This hypothesis was tested in two experiments. In the first experiment, we attempted to eliminate the need for subjects to translate target colors to verbal codes when responding to Stroop stimuli. Before responding to verbal incongruent color word distractors, subjects practiced matching colors to irregular shapes. It was expected that subjects would use nonverbal codes to mediate responding in this task. After practice, subjects continued the matching task in the presence of incongruent color words. Stroop interference persisted, contrary to predictions. Because subjects reported adopting verbal strategies to perform the matching task, Experiment 2 was designed to control the verbal coding strategies that subjects employed. Before responding to Stroop distractor stimuli, subjects in the nonsense name group practiced using nonsense names to mediate the matching of shapes to colors; subjects in the actual name group used actual color names to mediate performance in the matching task. When incongruent color word distractors were introduced, Stroop interference was eliminated for subjects in the nonsense name group, but persisted for subjects in the actual name group. The results are interpreted as consistent with an outcome conflict (Navon & Miller, 1987) or a modified translational model of the Stroop effect.