Personally-significant information affects performance only within the focus of attention: a direct manipulation of attention

It has been suggested that personally significant (PS) information interferes with performance only when presented within the focus of attention. However, this claim was never tested by a systematic manipulation of attention, but only by using correlative measures of its locus. We addressed this issue in two experiments, utilizing a cued visual search paradigm that allowed us to directly manipulate attention and to measure behavioral and physiological responses. One of the stimuli in the search display had a higher luminance value (i.e., was cued), and, orthogonally, one of the stimuli could be a PS or neutral name. When the cue did not predict target location, PS distractors mildly interfered with task performance, regardless of the cue's location. However, when the cue predicted target location, responses were facilitated for cued targets, indicating that attention was shifted to the cue. Importantly, PS distractors interfered with task performance and elicited enhanced orienting responses only when they were cued. This implies that PS information affects performance only when presented within but not outside the focus of attention.     

Age similarities in the inertial properties of attention.

Adult age differences in the mode of allocation of visual attention were investigated, using a visual search task with a circular display containing one target letter and seven distractor letters. In two experiments, a total of 56 younger adults (M = 20 years) and 56 older adults (M = 66 years) searched for a target appearing with equal probability at one of two cued locations. The first cue appeared 115 msec before display onset, and the second cue appeared with display onset; distance between the two cued locations was varied. Target identification performance indicated that attention was inertial, in that reaction time for second-cued targets was related either to the area of the portion of the visual field containing possible target locations or to the mean path length of a serial self-terminating search. There were no age-related decrements in the allocation of visual attention.     

Age similarities in the inertial properties of attention

Adult age differences in the mode of allocation of visual attention were investigated, using a visual search task with a circular display containing one target letter and seven distractor letters. In two experiments, a total of 56 younger adults (M=20 years) and 56 older adults (M=66 years) searched for a target appearing with equal probability at one of two cued locations. The first cue appeared 115 msec before display onset, and the second cue appeared with display onset; distance between the two cued locations was varied. Target identification performance indicated that attention was inertial, in that reaction time for second-cued targets was related either to the area of the portion of the visual field containing possible target locations or to the mean path length of a serial self-tenminating search. There were no age-related decrements in the allocation of visual attention.     

视空工作记忆负载对真实场景搜索绩效的影响

采用视空工作记忆任务和真实场景搜索任务相结合的双任务范式, 结合眼动技术将搜索过程划分为起始阶段、扫描阶段和确认阶段, 探究视空工作记忆负载对真实场景搜索绩效的影响机制, 同时考查试次间搜索目标是否变化、目标模板的具体化程度以及搜索场景画面的视觉混乱度所起的调节作用。结果表明, 视空工作记忆负载会降低真实场景搜索的成绩, 在搜索过程中表现为视空负载条件下扫描阶段持续时间的延长、注视点数目的增加和空间负载条件下确认阶段持续时间的延长, 视空负载对搜索过程的影响与目标模板的具体化程度有关; 空间负载会降低真实场景搜索的效率, 且与搜索画面的视觉混乱度有关, 而客体负载则不会。由此可见, 视空工作记忆负载对真实场景搜索绩效的影响不同, 空间负载对搜索过程的影响比客体负载更长久, 二者均受到目标模板具体化程度的调节; 仅空间负载会降低真实场景的搜索效率, 且受到搜索场景画面视觉混乱度的调节。     

Selective attention and search images in pigeons

In a visual search task, pigeons detected targets when pretrial visual cues or blocked trial sequences signaled the target's identity. Sequential priming was robust over a wide range of intertrial intervals, but visual priming was unstable when the delay between cue offset and display onset was varied. Larger target set sizes enhanced sequential, but not visual, priming. Sequential priming did not depend on display size over the range of relatively large displays used. However, ambiguously cued targets in small displays were detected more quickly than primed targets in large displays. These findings suggest that naturalistic selection biases, or "search images," may be attributable to sequential priming and that the common attentional mechanism has moderately selective properties.     

Arrow-elicited cueing effects at short intervals: Rapid attentional orienting or cue-target stimulus conflict?

The observation of cueing effects (faster responses for cued than uncued targets) rapidly following centrally-presented arrows has led to the suggestion that arrows trigger rapid automatic shifts of spatial attention. However, these effects have primarily been observed during easy target-detection tasks when both cue and target remain on the screen until the behavioral response. We manipulated stimulus duration and task difficulty in an attention-cueing experiment to explore non-attentional explanations for rapid cueing effects. Contrary to attention-based predictions, short-interval cueing effects were observed only for long-duration cue and target stimuli, occurred even when the cue and target were presented simultaneously, and were driven by slowing of the uncued-target responses, rather than any facilitation for cued targets. We propose that, under these long-duration, short-interval conditions, the processing of the cue and target interact more extensively in the brain, and that when the cue and target convey incongruent spatial information (i.e., on invalidly cued trials) it leads to conflict-related slowing of responses.     

Disentangling perceptual and motor components in inhibition of return

Following an abrupt onset of a peripheral stimulus (a cue), the response to a visual target is faster when the target appears at the cued position than when it appears at other positions. However, if the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) is longer than approximately 300 ms, the response to the target is slower at the cued position than that at other positions. This phenomenon of a longer response time to cued targets is called "inhibition of return" (IOR). Previous hypotheses propose contributions of both response inhibition and attentional inhibition at cued position to IOR, and suggest that responding to the cue can eliminate the component of response inhibition. The current study uses tasks either executing or withholding response to the cue to investigate the relative contributions of response and attention components to IOR. A condition with bilateral display of the cue is also chosen as a control condition, and eight different SOAs between 1,000 and 2,750 ms are tested. Compared to the control condition, response delay to the target at a cued position is eliminated by responding to the cue, and a response advantage to the target at an uncued position is not affected by responding to the cue. Furthermore, both response delay at a cued position and response advantage at an uncued position decrease with SOA in the time window tested in these experiments. The results reported here indicate a dominant response inhibition at a cued position and a primary attentional allocation at an uncued position for IOR. Nonsignificant perceptual/attentional suppression at a cued position is argued to be a benefit for visual detection in a changing world.     

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.     

A configural dominant account of contextual cueing: Configural cues are stronger than colour cues

Previous work has shown that reaction times to find a target in displays that have been repeated are faster than those for displays that have never been seen before. This learning effect, termed “contextual cueing” (CC), has been shown using contexts such as the configuration of the distractors in the display and the background colour. However, it is not clear how these two contexts interact to facilitate search. We investigated this here by comparing the strengths of these two cues when they appeared together. In Experiment 1, participants searched for a target that was cued by both colour and distractor configural cues, compared with when the target was only predicted by configural information. The results showed that the addition of a colour cue did not increase contextual cueing. In Experiment 2, participants searched for a target that was cued by both colour and distractor configuration compared with when the target was only cued by colour. The results showed that adding a predictive configural cue led to a stronger CC benefit. Experiments 3 and 4 tested the disruptive effects of removing either a learned colour cue or a learned configural cue and whether there was cue competition when colour and configural cues were presented together. Removing the configural cue was more disruptive to CC than removing colour, and configural learning was shown to overshadow the learning of colour cues. The data support a configural dominant account of CC, where configural cues act as the stronger cue in comparison to colour when they are presented together.     

Aging and guided visual search: the role of visual working memory

In the present study, we examined age-related differences in utilizing learned associations to guide visual search. Participants viewed an object cue that was associated with 1 or 2 target colors, followed by a search array. Older adults showed slower RTs, larger visual search slopes, and reduced cue–target association knowledge than did younger adults. We also found increased search RTs and higher error rates when the cue was associated with 2 colors instead of 1. However, visual search slopes did not vary with the number of associated colors. This indicates that participants could activate multiple templates simultaneously to guide the search or retrieve associative information directly from the long-term memory. Furthermore, regression analyses showed that VWMC can predict both visual search performances and cue–target association knowledge. More broadly, our results demonstrate that VWMC can modify the effects of age on cued visual search performance.     

Separating cue encoding from target processing in the explicit task-cuing procedure: are there "true" task switch effects?

Six experiments were conducted to separate cue encoding from target processing in explicitly cued task switching to determine whether task switch effects could be separated from cue encoding effects and to determine the nature of the representations produced by cue encoding. Subjects were required to respond to the cue, indicating which cue was presented (Experiments 1, 3a, and 4a) or which task was cued (Experiments 2, 3b, and 4b), before performing the cued task on the target. Cue encoding was successfully separated from target processing when the cue response indicated which task was cued but not when it indicated which cue was presented. Task switch effects were found when this separation was successful, suggesting that there are "true" task switch effects independent of cue encoding. Analysis of the conditions required for successful separation suggested that cue encoding results in a semantic categorical representation of the task to be performed rather than verbal or phonological representations of individual cues. Implications for the authors' past modeling of task-switching performance are discussed.     

自我相关信息对视觉搜索主动抑制的易化作用

工作记忆表征会以自上而下的方式调控注意选择过程, 其中一种表现就是能够对储存的干扰物表征产生注意的主动抑制, 进而提高对目标的搜索效率。另一方面, 凸显性刺激也会以自下而上的方式优先捕获注意。那么, 当保持在工作记忆中的干扰物为更具社会凸显性特征的刺激(如与自己有关的信息)时, 会对视觉搜索过程中的注意抑制产生怎样的影响, 目前尚不清楚。本研究采用短暂联结任务和工作记忆引导的视觉搜索任务范式, 探讨了自我凸显性对注意主动抑制的影响。结果发现, 相比他人和中性条件, 当工作记忆表征为自我联结刺激时, 目标搜索反应更快。本研究从行为层面为自我相关信息能够易化主动抑制过程提供了证据。     

Measurement of auditory cues in drivers' distraction

A driving simulator was used to examine the effects on driving performance of auditory cues in an in-vehicle information search task. Drivers' distraction by the search tasks was measured on a peripheral detection task. The difficulty of the search task was systematically varied to test the distraction caused by a quantified visual load. 58 participants completed the task. Performance on both search tasks and peripheral detection tasks was measured by mean response time and percent error. Analyses indicated that in-vehicle information search performance can be severely degraded when a target is located within a group of diverse distractors. Inclusion of an auditory cue in the visual search increased the mean response time as a result of a change in modality from auditory to visual. Inclusion of such an auditory cue seemed to influence distraction as measured by performance on the peripheral detection task; accuracy was lower when auditory cues were provided, and responses were slower when no auditory cues were provided. Distraction by the auditory cue varied according to the difficulty of the search task.     

The development of landmark and beacon use in young children: evidence from a touchscreen search task

Children ages 2, 3 and 4 years participated in a novel hide-and-seek search task presented on a touchscreen monitor. On beacon trials, the target hiding place could be located using a beacon cue, but on landmark trials, searching required the use of a nearby landmark cue. In Experiment 1, 2-year-olds performed less accurately than older children on landmark trials but performed equivalently on beacon trials. In Experiment 2, the number of items on the screen was reduced and 2-year-olds' performance improved. Use of the landmark transformation technique in Experiment 3 revealed that older children formed a more precise landmark-target spatial relationship than 2-year-olds. Experiment 4 showed that the transformation itself was not responsible for the youngest participants' decreased accuracy in Experiment 3. Overall, beacons were utilized effectively by all participants, but the use of landmark cues is refined between the ages of 2 and 4.     

线索类型对阈下注视线索效应的影响

实验结合连续闪烁抑制范式和线索化范式, 通过操纵直视面孔和斜视面孔的呈现方式, 考察了动静线索类型对注视线索效应的影响。结果表明：两种线索在阈上条件都能产生注视线索效应, 且动态线索诱发的效应更大; 无意识条件下有且仅有动态注视线索能诱发注视线索效应。这说明眼睛运动是产生阈下注视线索效应的必要条件; 眼睛运动会增强阈上注视线索效应, 静态注视线索效应依赖于意识。研究结果支持了社会知觉与心理理论交互模型。     

Surprising depth cue captures attention in visual search

A substantial amount of evidence indicates that surprising events capture attention. The present study was primarily intended to investigate whether expectancy discrepant depth information also is able to capture attention immediately and—more specifically—whether cues that are relatively closer or farther differentially modulate behavior. For this purpose, participants had to identify one of two target letters in a search display. Stimulus positions were initially cued by uninformative placeholders. After half of the trials, the cue at the target position was suddenly and unexpectedly (critical trial) displayed closer to or farther from the observer. In line with previous research, both depth cues captured attention on their very first appearance. Performance in the critical trial was superior to the error rates in the trials without depth cue and was even above the performance in subsequent trials that included depth cue. This effect was only observed when the cue preceded the target by 400 ms. Using a shorter cue-stimulus interval of 100 ms, only a delayed improvement was observed, which denotes a typical feature of surprise capture. Moreover, response times were faster in trials comprising a depth cue, and this was already true for the critical trial. Apart from that, no other marked differences between near and far depth cues were observed. Therefore, the present results emphasize that surprising depth information indeed captures attention. However, in contrast to other perceptual tasks, search performance was not considerably influenced by relative position in depth.     

Is evidence for late selection due to automatic or attentional processing of stimulus identities?

This study determined whether evidence for late selection is due to attention processing or to processing by an automatic system that is separate from attention (two systems framework; Eriksen, Webb, & Fournier, 1990). The task was a two-choice discrimination of a target that appeared in one of two sequentially cued locations in an eight-letter visual display. Attention was directed to the first cued location (cue 1), and whether identification processing occurred at a different location before the second cue (cue 2) directed attention there was determined. Cue validity varied across two experiments, and critical trials were those in which the target appeared at cue 2. For these trials, the target was preceded by a letter (either identical, neutral, or incompatible) that changed to the target at various time intervals following cue 2. Automatic identification was assumed if the incompatible letter interfered with response to the target when it appeared only before cue 2 onset and independent of cue validity. The incompatible letter appearing only before cue 2 onset interfered with the target when the target occurred equally often at cue 1 and cue 2, but not when the target occurred at cue 1 70% and at cue 2 30% of the time. This disconfirms the two systems framework and suggests that attention is required for spatial form processing and response competition.     

Object-based attention with endogenous cuing and positional certainty

Previous studies have concluded that object-based attention does not always arise if attention is cued endogenously (Macquistan, 1997) or if the target location is known with certainty (Shomstein & Yantis, 2002). In the Experiments reported here, we found object-based attention even when the locations of the two targets were known with certainty due to presentation of an endogenous cue. However, object-based attention can be prevented by limiting the exposure time of the object stimuli. These findings provide additional evidence against a search prioritization account of object-based attention. They lead to a fuller view of the role of object boundaries in directing attention. Object-based attention is frequently used spontaneously, even when the object boundaries are irrelevant to the task. However, object segmentation is not necessary for all tasks, because attention can be allocated before the stimulus has been segregated into objects.     

Detection costs and contingent attentional capture

Peripheral cues reduce reaction times (RTs) to targets at the cued location with short cue-target SOAs (cueing benefits) but increase RTs at long SOAs (cueing costs or inhibition of return). In detection tasks, cueing costs occur at shorter SOAs and are larger compared with identification tasks. To account for effects of task, detection cost theory claims that the integration of cue and target into an object file makes it more difficult to detect the target as a new event, which is the principal task-requirement in detection tasks. The integration of cue and target is expected to increase when cue and target are similar. We provided evidence for detection cost theory in the modified spatial cueing paradigm. Two types of cues (onset, color) were paired with two types of targets (onset, color) in separate blocks of trials. In the identification task, we found cueing benefits with matching (i.e., similar) cue-target pairs (onset-onset, color-color) and no cueing effects with nonmatching cue-target pairs (onset-color, color-onset), which replicates previous work. In the detection task, cueing effects with matching cues were reduced and even turned into cueing costs for onset cues with onset targets, suggesting that cue-target integration made it more difficult to detect targets at the cued location as new events. In contrast, the results for nonmatching cue-target pairs were not affected by task. Furthermore, the pattern of false alarms in the detection task provides a measure of similarity that may explain the size of cueing benefits and costs.     

Altering memory through recall: The effects of cue-guided retrieval processing

Three experiments were designed to investigate the influence of initial recall on memory by assessing delayed recall after different immediate cued-recall tests. In all experiments, subjects performed semantic and phonemic encoding tasks on a word list. The subjects then received a cued-recall test that cued the target using the same word as the context word in the encoding task, a test that cued the target with a word from the same level at which the target was encoded, a test that cued the target with a cue from a different level at which the target was encoded, or no immediate-recall test. One day later, the subjects performed a final cued-recall test in which the type of cue (semantic or phonemic) was varied. Consistently, delayed recall was facilitated primarily when the cue on the immediate test was from the same level as the cue on the delayed test. This pattern of facilitation suggests that immediate cued-recall produces an elaboration of an existing memory representation that is closely tied to the type of cue used on the immediate test.