Which kind of attention is captured by cues with the relative target colour?

Most theories of visual search maintain that attention is selectively tuned to the attributes of the search target (e.g., orange). Conversely, according to the relational account, attention is biased to the relative feature of the target (e.g., redder). However, previous studies that supported the relational account mainly measured mean response times. Hence, the results might not reflect early, perceptual mechanisms (e.g., signal enhancement) but later, decision-based mechanisms (channel selection). The current study tested the relational account against feature-specific theories in a spatial cueing task, in which the targets were backward-masked, and target identification accuracy was measured. The first experiment corroborated earlier results, demonstrating that relational effects are due to signal enhancement. In the second experiment, we chose highly discriminable colours along the blue–red continuum, and obtained results that were more consistent with broad feature-specific rather than relational tuning. The implications of these findings for current theories of attention are discussed.     

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.     

Which way is upright and normal? Haptic perception of letters above head level

In three experiments, the perception of the apparent orientation of block letters shown in various orientations above the subject’s head in the horizontal plane was examined. A block letter F with its front facing down toward the observer has two crossbars on its right side; the top is the part with the long crossbar, and the base has no bar. The experiments involved changing the locations of these parts with respect to the observer. In Experiment 1, the subjects using touch most often identified a letter as having its left and right sides in a normal orientation if the front of the block letter faced upwards away from the observer, with the bar on the right and the top of the letter farther from the subject than the letter’s base. In Experiment 2, the subjects judging visualuprightness favored positions in which the bars were on the right, the top of the block letter was near them, and the letter’s front faced downwards toward the observer. In Experiment 3, the subjects using touch most often assessed letters as being upright if the top of the letter was the farthest part and the bar was on the right. The results suggest that, when assessing orientation, subjects using touch favored positions that would be reached by a letter moving vertically upwards from table height, but subjects relying on vision favored positions reached by a letter moving in an arc centered on the subject’s head (on the eyes, in particular).     

Evaluating Amazon’s Mechanical Turk for psychological research on the symbolic control of attention

The use of online crowdsourcing services like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (AMT) as a method of collecting behavioral data online has become increasingly popular in recent years. A growing body of contemporary research has empirically validated the use of AMT as a tool in psychological research by replicating a wide range of well-established effects that have been previously reported in controlled laboratory studies. However, the potential for AMT to be used to conduct spatial cuing experiments has yet to be investigated in depth. Spatial cuing tasks are typically very basic in terms of their stimulus complexity and experimental testing procedures, thus making them ideal for remote testing online that requires minimal task instruction. Studies employing the spatial cuing paradigm are typically aimed at unveiling novel facets of the symbolic control of attention, which occurs whenever observers orient their attention through space in accordance with the meaning of a spatial cue. Ultimately, the present study empirically validated the use of AMT to study the symbolic control of attention by successfully replicating four hallmark effects reported throughout the visual attention literature: the left/right advantage, cue type effect, cued axis effect, and cued endpoint effect. Various recommendations for future endeavors using AMT as a means of remotely collecting behavioral data online are also provided. In sum, the present study provides a crucial first step toward establishing a novel tool for conducting psychological research that can be used to expedite not only our own scientific contributions, but also those of our colleagues.     

Which way is upright and normal? Haptic perception of letters above head level.

In three experiments, the perception of the apparent orientation of block letters shown in various orientations above the subject's head in the horizontal plane was examined. A block letter F with its front facing down toward the observer has two crossbars on its right side; the top is the part with the long crossbar, and the base has no bar. The experiments involved changing the locations of these parts with respect to the observer. In Experiment 1, the subjects using touch most often identified a letter as having its left and right sides in a normal orientation if the front of the block letter faced upwards away from the observer, with the bar on the right and the top of the letter farther from the subject than the letter's base. In Experiment 2, the subjects judging visual uprightness favored positions in which the bars were on the right, the top of the block letter was near them, and the letter's front faced downwards toward the observer. In Experiment 3, the subjects using touch most often assessed letters as being upright if the top of the letter was the farthest part and the bar was on the right. The results suggest that, when assessing orientation, subjects using touch favored positions that would be reached by a letter moving vertically upwards from table height, but subjects relying on vision favored positions reached by a letter moving in an are centered on the subject's head (on the eyes, in particular).     

Can bottom-up processes of attention be a source of ‘interference’ in situations where top-down control of attention is crucial?

In this study, we investigate whether emotionally engaged bottom-up processes of attention can be a source of ‘interference’ in situations where top-down control of attention is necessary. Participants were asked to monitor and report on a video of a war scenario showing a developing battle in two conditions: emotionally positive and emotionally negative. Half of the participants (n = 15) were exposed to task-irrelevant pictures of positive emotional valence embedded within the scenario; the other half were exposed to task-irrelevant pictures of negative emotional valence. Sensitivity and Bias scores were calculated using signal detection theory. Overall, task accuracy scores were dependent upon the valence; negative pictures had an adverse effect on performance, whereas positive pictures improved performance. We concluded that negative emotional pictures interfered with top-down control of attention by attracting competing bottom-up processes of attention. We found the opposite effect for positive emotional stimuli.     

Are girls with problems of attention underrecognized?

There is a generally held belief that disorders of attention (e.g., ADHD) are to be found primarily among boys, not girls. We question the evidence relating to sex differences in the prevalence of attentional disorders and suggest possible reasons why reported sex differences appear limited to teacher ratings. An examination of the admittedly scarce literature on correlates of ADHD behaviors suggests no strong evidence for sex differences in the pattern of developmental, attentional and background correlates. We recommend the use of sex-specific norms and diagnostic criteria to identify girls with problems of attention and our plea is for more research to examine the nature of attention deficits in girls.     

Bimanual reaching across the hemispace: Which hand is yoked to which?

When both hands perform concurrent goal-directed reaches, they become yoked to one another. To investigate the direction of this coupling (i.e., which hand is yoked to which), the temporal dynamics of bimanual reaches were compared with equivalent-amplitude unimanual reaches. These reaches were to target pairs located on either the left or right sides of space; meaning that in the bimanual condition, one hand's contralateral (more difficult) reach accompanied by the other hand's ipsilateral (easier) reach. By comparing which hand's difficult reach was improved more by the presence of the other hand's easier ipsilateral reach, we were able to demonstrate asymmetries in the coupling. When the cost of bimanual reaching was controlled for the contralateral reaching left hand's performance was improved, suggesting that the left hand is yoked to the right during motor output. In contrast, the right hand showed the greatest improvements for contralateral reaching in terms of reaction time, pointing toward a dominant role for the left hand in the processes prior to movement onset. The results may point toward a mechanism for integrating the unitary system of attention with bimanual coordination.     

What is philosophy as a way of life? Why philosophy as a way of life?

Despite a recent surge of interest in philosophy as a way of life, it is not clear what it might mean for philosophy to guide one's life, or how a “philosophical” way of life might differ from a life guided by religion, tradition, or some other source. We argue against John Cooper that spiritual exercises figure crucially in the idea of philosophy as a way of life—not just in the ancient world but also today, at least if the idea is to be viable. In order to make the case we attempt to clarify the nature of spiritual exercises, and to explore a number of fundamental questions, such as “What role does reason have in helping us to live well?” Here we distinguish between the discerning and motivational powers of reason, and argue that both elements have limitations as guides to living well.     

Beyond unusual? Examining the role of attention in the weapon focus effect

The current study examined whether the weapon focus effect could be accounted for in terms of stimulus novelty. Participants viewed a slideshow of a simulated event while attending to a secondary task. In the critical slide, the target was shown holding a threatening object (weapon condition), a novel object (unusual condition) or a neutral object (control condition). Reaction times on the secondary task were impaired in the weapon and unusual conditions. Participants in the weapon condition had poorest recognition scores for the target's appearance when confidence was also taken into account. Results suggest that while both unusual and threatening objects command attention, the significance of a weapon can lead to impaired performance on less immediately informative aspects of a scene such as target appearance. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Failures of cognitive control or attention? The case of stop-signal deficits in schizophrenia

We used Bayesian cognitive modelling to identify the underlying causes of apparent inhibitory deficits in the stop-signal paradigm. The analysis was applied to stop-signal data reported by Badcock et al. (Psychological Medicine 32: 87-297, 2002) and Hughes et al. (Biological Psychology 89: 220-231, 2012), where schizophrenia patients and control participants made rapid choice responses, but on some trials were signalled to stop their ongoing response. Previous research has assumed an inhibitory deficit in schizophrenia, because estimates of the mean time taken to react to the stop signal are longer in patients than controls. We showed that these longer estimates are partly due to failing to react to the stop signal (“trigger failures”) and partly due to a slower initiation of inhibition, implicating a failure of attention rather than a deficit in the inhibitory process itself. Correlations between the probability of trigger failures and event-related potentials reported by Hughes et al. are interpreted as supporting the attentional account of inhibitory deficits. Our results, and those of Matzke et al. (2016), who report that controls also display a substantial although lower trigger-failure rate, indicate that attentional factors need to be taken into account when interpreting results from the stop-signal paradigm.     

Where is the phenomenology of attention that Husserl intended to perform? A transcendental pragmatic-oriented description of attention

For the most part, attention occurs as a theme adjacent to much more topical and innovatingly operating acts: first, the intentional act, which represents a destitution of the abstract opposition between subject and object and which paves the way for a detailed analysis of our perceptive horizontal subjective life; second, the reductive act, specified in a psycho-phenomenological sense as a reflective conversion of the way I am looking at things; third, the genetic method understood as a genealogy of logic based on our experiential affective pre-discursive world-life. In this respect, here are some of the leading questions of my investigation: What are the differences and the proximities between these methods and attentional activity? Why is the latter not put to the fore as a method? To what extent is this secondary part played by attention linked to the constitution of phenomenology as opposed to psychology (for which attention is a central theme), and what does it mean for the impossibility of phenomenology to freeing itself completely from psychology?     

Multiple cues for quantification in infancy: is number one of them?

A review and synthesis of the literature on quantification in infancy and early childhood is provided. In most current conceptualizations, early quantification is assumed to be number based. However, the extant literature provides no clear-cut evidence that infants use number to perform quantitative tasks. Instead, new research suggests that quantification is initially based on nonnumerical cues, such as area and contour length, whether or not a task involves discrete items. The authors discuss the implications of these findings with respect to early quantification and its relation to later numerical development.     

Perception of objects in natural scenes: is it really attention free?

Studies have suggested attention-free semantic processing of natural scenes in which concurrent tasks leave category detection unimpaired (e.g., F. Li, R. VanRullen, C. Koch, & P. Perona, 2002). Could this ability reflect detection of disjunctive feature sets rather than high-level binding? Participants detected an animal target in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) sequence and then reported its identity and location. They frequently failed to identify or to localize targets that they had correctly detected, suggesting that detection was based only on partial processing. Detection of targets was considerably worse in sequences that also contained humans, presumably because of shared features. When 2 targets were presented in RSVP, a prolonged attentional blink appeared that was almost eliminated when both targets were detected without being identified. The results suggest rapid feature analysis mediating detection, followed by attention-demanding binding for identification and localization.     

What is the central feature of extraversion? Social attention versus reward sensitivity

R. E. Lucas, E. Diener, A. Grob, E. M. Suh, and L. Shao (2000) recently argued that the core of the personality dimension of Extraversion is not sociability but a construct called reward sensitivity. This article accepts their argument that the mere preference for social interaction is not the central element of Extraversion. However, it claims that the real core of the Extraversion factor is the tendency to behave in ways that attract social attention. Data from a sample of 200 respondents were used to test the 2 hypotheses with comparisons of measures of reward sensitivity and social attention in terms of their saturation with the common variance of Extraversion measures. The results clearly showed that social attention, not reward sensitivity, represents the central feature of Extraversion.     

How does reward compete with goal-directed and stimulus-driven shifts of attention?

In order to behave adaptively, attention can be directed in space either voluntarily (i.e. endogenously) according to strategic goals, or involuntarily (i.e. exogenously) through reflexive capture by salient or novel events. The emotional or motivational values of stimuli can also influence attentional orienting. However, little is known about how reward-related effects compete or interact with endogenous and exogenous attention mechanisms. Here we designed a visual search paradigm in which goal-driven and stimulus-driven shifts of attention were manipulated by classic spatial cueing procedures, while an irrelevant, but previously rewarded stimulus also appeared as a distractor and hence competed with both types of spatial attention during search. Our results demonstrated that stimuli previously associated with a high monetary reward received higher attentional priority in the subsequent visual search task, even though these stimuli and reward were no longer task-relevant, mitigating the attentional orienting induced by both endogenous and exogenous cues.     

Talking heads or talking eyes? Effects of head orientation and sudden onset gaze cues on attention capture

The direction of gaze towards or away from an observer has immediate effects on attentional processing in the observer. Previous research indicates that faces with direct gaze are processed more efficiently than faces with averted gaze. We recently reported additional processing advantages for faces that suddenly adopt direct gaze (abruptly shift from averted to direct gaze) relative to static direct gaze (always in direct gaze), sudden averted gaze (abruptly shift from direct to averted gaze), and static averted gaze (always in averted gaze). Because changes in gaze orientation in previous study co-occurred with changes in head orientation, it was not clear if the effect is contingent on face or eye processing, or whether it requires both the eyes and the face to provide consistent information. The present study delineates the impact of head orientation, sudden onset motion cues, and gaze cues. Participants completed a target-detection task in which head position remained in a static averted or direct orientation while sudden onset motion and eye gaze cues were manipulated within each trial. The results indicate a sudden direct gaze advantage that resulted from the additive role of motion and gaze cues. Interestingly, the orientation of the face towards or away from the observer did not influence the sudden direct gaze effect, suggesting that eye gaze cues, not face orientation cues, are critical for the sudden direct gaze effect.     

Which factors best account for academic success: Those which college students can control or those they cannot?

This study integrates research linking academic performance with individual differences and class attendance. Whereas individual differences (ability, traits) are not controllable by students, students can control their attendance, study and work. Thus we sought to determine the extent to which “control” and “no control” variables predict academic performance. With N = 338, measures of verbal ability, the five-factor model, GPA, academic goals, and study behavior were used to predict exams, attendance, and independent projects completed. Uncontrollable factors accounted for 37% of the variance in exam scores; controllable factors accounted for an additional 6–10%. We also found an interaction such that, relative to low-ability peers, high-ability students’ attendance most enhanced their exam performance. Attendance was best accounted for by GPA, study and work. Projects were best predicted by low verbal ability and by personality traits.     

Does an attention bias to appetitive and aversive words modulate interference control in youth with ADHD?

Interference control refers to the ability to selectively attend to certain information while ignoring distracting information. This ability can vary as a function of distractor relevance. Distractors that are particularly relevant to an individual may attract more attention than less relevant distractors. This is referred to as attention bias. Weak interference control and altered reward sensitivity are both important features of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, interference control is typically studied in isolation. This study integrates both. Youths (aged 9 to 17 years) with ADHD (n = 37, 25 boys) and typically-developing controls (n = 38, 20 boys) completed a Stroop task using appetitive words and matched neutral words to assess whether appetitive distractors diminished interference control more in youths with ADHD than controls. In order to test for specificity, aversive words were also included. As expected, appetitive words disrupted interference control but this effect was not stronger for youths with ADHD than the controls. Aversive words, on the other hand, facilitated interference control. Dimensional analyses revealed that this facilitation effect increased substantially as a function of ADHD symptom severity. Possible mechanisms for this effect include up-regulation of interference control as a function of induced negative mood, or as a function of increased effort. In conclusion, appetitive words do not lead to worse interference control in youths with ADHD compared with controls. Interference control was modulated in a valence-specific manner, concurrent with mood-induced effects on cognitive control.     

Mental Practice or Spontaneous Play? Examining Which Types of Imagery Constitute Deliberate Practice in Sport

Imagery use was examined within the deliberate practice framework (Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer, 1993 Ericsson, K., Krampe, R. and Tesch-Römer, C. 1993. The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100: 363–406. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Athletes (N = 150) from three competitive levels (recreational, intermediate, and elite) completed an adapted version of the Sport Imagery Questionnaire (SIQ; Hall, Mack, Paivio, & Hausenblas, 1998 Hall, C., Mack, D., Paivio, A. and Hausenblas, H. 1998. Imagery use by athletes: Development of the sport imagery questionnaire. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 29: 73–89. [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Each SIQ item was scored for frequency, deliberation, relevance, concentration, and enjoyment. Eight SIQ items were deemed to be deliberate practice: five cognitive-specific images, two cognitive-general images, and one motivational general-mastery image. Motivational-specific imagery instead resembled deliberate play (Côté, Baker, & Abernethy, 2003 Côté, J., Baker, J. and Abernethy, B. 2003. “From play to practice: A developmental framework for the acquisition of expertise in team sports”. In Expert performance in sports: Advances in research on sport expertise, Edited by: Starkes, J. L. and Ericsson, K. A. 89–114. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.  [Google Scholar]). Elite and intermediate athletes used imagery more frequently and deliberately and perceived imagery to be more relevant and requiring more concentration than recreational athletes. Differences also existed regarding how deliberately the athletes engaged in various imagery types. The findings may inform applied practitioners regarding differences in imagery use between competitive levels and differences in the characteristics of imagery types.