Hold the future,let the past go: Attention prefers the features of future targets

Previous studies have shown that attention can be captured by task-irrelevant distractors under the guidance of attentional control settings. However, it is unknown whether people can establish an attentional control setting (ACS) for a sequence of distinct events. The present study tested that question by asking observers to expect a sequence of two colored targets in a specific order. The results show that irrelevant distractors that matched either the color of the first expected target or that of the second target captured attention. Thus observers are unable to temporarily suppress the color of the future target in their ACS. However, the temporal order of targets is still useful for guiding attention: Observers were able to abandon the color of the first target and maintain an ACS for the second one as long as there was a sufficient time interval between the two targets.     

Amplification of attentional blink by distress‐related facial expressions: Relationships with alexithymia and affectivity

The present studies aimed to analyse the modulatory effect of distressing facial expressions on attention processing. The attentional blink (AB) paradigm is one of the most widely used paradigms for studying temporal attention, and is increasingly applied to study the temporal dynamics of emotion processing. The aims of this study were to investigate how identifying fear and pain facial expressions (Study 1) and fear and anger facial expressions (Study 2) would influence the detection of subsequent stimuli presented within short time intervals, and to assess the moderating influence of alexithymia and affectivity on this effect. It has been suggested that high alexithymia scorers need more attentional resources to process distressing facial expressions and that negative affectivity increases the AB. We showed that fear, anger and pain produced an AB and that alexithymia moderated it such that difficulty in describing feelings (Study 1) and externally oriented thinking (Study 2) were associated with higher interference after the processing of fear and anger at short time presentations. These studies provide evidence that distressing facial expressions modulate the attentional processing at short time intervals and that alexithymia influences the early attentional processing of fear and anger expressions. Controlling for state affect did not change these conclusions.     

Distorted subjective reports of stimulus onsets under dual-task conditions: Delayed conscious perception or estimation bias?

We investigated whether selecting a response for one task delays the conscious perception of another stimulus (delayed conscious perception hypothesis). In two experiments, participants watched a revolving clock hand while performing two tasks in close succession (i.e. a dual-task). Two stimuli were presented with varying stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). After each trial, participants separately estimated the onsets of the two stimuli on the clock face. Across two experiments and four conditions, we manipulated response requirements and assessed their impact on perceived stimulus onsets. Results showed that (a) providing speeded responses to the stimuli did lead to greater SOA-dependent misperceptions of both stimulus onsets as compared to a solely perceptual condition, and (b) that response grouping reduced these misperceptions. Overall, the results provide equivocal evidence for the delayed conscious perception hypothesis. They rather suggest that participants’ estimates of the two stimulus onsets are biased by the interval between their responses.     

No commonality between attentional capture and attentional blink

Visual search for a unique target is impaired when a salient distractor is presented (attentional capture). This phenomenon is said to occur because attention is diverted to a distractor before it reaches the target. Similarly, perception of the second of two targets embedded in a rapid stream of nontargets is impaired, suggesting attentional deprivation due to the processing of the first target (attentional blink). We examined whether these phenomena emerge from a common underlying attentional mechanism by using correlation studies. If these phenomena share a common foundation, the magnitude of these deficits should show within-subject correlations. Participants (N?=?135) revealed significant attentional deficits during spatial and temporal capture and the attentional blink tasks. However, no significant correlation was found among these tasks. Experiment 2 (N?=?95) replicated this finding using the same procedure as that used in Experiment 1 but included another attentional blink task that required spatial switching between the two targets. Strong correlations emerged only between the two attentional blink tasks (with/without spatial switching). The present results suggest that attentional deficits during spatial and temporal capture and the attentional blink tasks reflect different aspects of attention.     

Complex attentional control settings

One way that dis/likes are formed is through evaluative conditioning (EC). In two experiments we investigated the role of cognitive resources in flavour–flavour conditioning. Both experiments employed an EC procedure in which three novel flavoured conditioned stimuli (CSs) were consumed. One was consumed with a pleasant unconditioned stimulus (US; CS+ sugar), one with an aversive US (CS+ saline), and a third with plain water (CS–). Half of participants in each experiment performed a cognitive load task during conditioning. We measured EC using self-reported measures of liking (Experiments 1 and 2) and an indirect measure of liking: drink pick-up latency (Experiment 2). In both experiments, differential EC was observed in the no cognitive load condition but not in the cognitive load condition. This pattern of results was observed in self-reported measures of liking as well as in the drink pick-up latency data. Results from both experiments show that EC occurs only when there are sufficient cognitive resources available. The fact that this was observed using both self-reported and indirect measures suggests that insufficient cognitive resources affect learning itself rather than merely obstructing reporting.     

Allocating attention to distractor locations is based on top-down expectations

Failures of selective attention may be explained by the attentional white bear (AWB) hypothesis maintaining that prior knowledge of distractor location causes attentional allocation to it. The AWB is demonstrated by embedding infrequent trials of two simultaneous dots among flanker trials. The dot at the expected distractor location is perceived as appearing before the dot at the expected empty location, indicating attentional allocation to expected distractor locations. A major requirement of the AWB hypothesis is that it occurs in a top-down manner due to expectations. We devised a variation of the original AWB experiment, which enabled us to differentiate between the top-down and bottom-up contributions. The results show that top-down expectancies, which are a critical part of the AWB characterization, occur independently of bottom-up contributions.     

Task difficulty and response complexity modulate affective priming by emotional facial expressions

In this study we used an affective priming task to address the issue of whether the processing of emotional facial expressions occurs automatically independent of attention or attentional resources. Participants had to attend to the emotion expression of the prime face, or to a nonemotional feature of the prime face, the glasses. When participants attended to glasses (emotion unattended), they had to report whether the face wore glasses or not (the glasses easy condition) or whether the glasses were rounded or squared (the shape difficult condition). Affective priming, measured on valence decisions on target words, was mainly defined as interference from incongruent rather than facilitation from congruent trials. Significant priming effects were observed just in the emotion and glasses tasks but not in the shape task. When the key–response mapping increased in complexity, taxing working memory load, affective priming effects were reduced equally for the three types of tasks. Thus, attentional load and working memory load affected additively to the observed reduction in affective priming. These results cast some doubts on the automaticity of processing emotional facial expressions.     

Affective processing in overwhelmed individuals: Strategic and task considerations

Previous research suggests that emotionally overwhelmed individuals (high affect intensity, intermediate attention to emotions, low clarity of emotions) attempt to counteract the influence of affective information. In five studies (ns=129, 177, 119, 339, 261), the current research found that task performance in overwhelmed individuals varied by current arousal and by whether affective influence occurred on evaluative versus non-evaluative tasks. Overwhelmed high current arousal participants exhibited decreased affective influence on evaluative tasks but increased affective influence on non-evaluative tasks. These results are consistent with the effects of active suppression of affective information, including ironic effects of monitoring for affective information. In contrast, overwhelmed low current arousal participants exhibited increased affective influence on evaluative tasks but decreased affective influence on non-evaluative tasks. These results are consistent with attentional avoidance of affective information. Overall, these results further suggest that overwhelmed individuals attempt to counteract the influence of affective information. Whether they are successful depends on their current arousal and how affect can influence performance.     

Examining attentional biases underlying trait anxiety in younger and older adults

Previous research has not adequately assessed the independent contributions of component attentional processes to anxiety-linked biases. MacLeod and Sadler developed a novel, lexical decision task using negative and neutral word stimuli, to enable the independent measurement of attentional engagement and disengagement. Their results suggest that anxiety-linked attentional biases are associated with facilitated attentional engagement with negative information. The present study aimed to determine the replicability of these findings, with two important extensions. First, this study included positive word stimuli in the lexical decision task, to determine whether anxiety-linked attentional biases exist only towards negative information, or toward emotionally arousing information in general. Second, this study explored age-related differences in anxiety-linked attentional biases. Younger (N=32) and older adults (N=32) with both high and low trait anxiety completed the lexical decision task. The results suggest that heightened anxiety may be associated with a deficit in engaging with positive words. No age-related differences in anxiety-linked attentional biases were apparent.     

Self-discrepancy and suicidal ideation

The purpose of this study was to determine whether certain self-discrepancies predicted the extent to which individuals experienced suicidal ideation. The Selves Questionnaire (an idiographic measure of self-beliefs) was administered to 152 undergraduate participants, who also completed measures of hopelessness, depression, and suicidal ideation. Three kinds of self-discrepancies were associated with suicidal ideation: actual:ideal, actual:ought, and actual:ideal:future. Covariance structure analyses indicated a best-fitting model suggesting that, actual:ideal and actual:ideal:future self-discrepancies contribute to hopelessness, which in turn contributes to depression and suicidal ideation. The findings suggest that self-discrepancy, as a form of negative self-evaluation, may contribute to an individual's risk for suicidal ideation. Moreover, the findings point to an integration of self-discrepancy theory with hopelessness theory.