Self-relevance increases the irrelevant sound effect: Attentional disruption by one's own name

Memory performance is severely disrupted when task-irrelevant sound is played during item presentation or in a retention interval. Working memory models make contrasting assumptions on whether the semantic content of the auditory distractors modulates the irrelevant sound effect. In the present study, participants made more errors in serial recall when they had to ignore sentences containing their own name as opposed to that of a yoked-control partner. These results are only consistent with working memory models that allow for attentional processes to play a role in the explanation of the irrelevant sound effect. With repeated presentation the disruptive effect of one's own name decreased, whereas the disruptive effect of the auditory distractors in the control condition remained constant. The latter finding is most consistent with the duplex model of auditory attention, which assumes that the irrelevant sound effect is primarily caused by automatic interference of acoustic distractor features, but at the same time allows for a disruption of encoding due to attentional capture by unexpected deviants. However, to explain the present results, the mechanism responsible for the attentional capture has to be extended to highly (self-)relevant auditory distractors.     

Does low perceptual load enable capture by colour singletons?

There is considerable debate as to whether colour singletons can capture attention in a stimulus-driven manner. In this study, we explore one potential capture enabling condition—low perceptual load. To test this hypothesis, we manipulated perceptual load in a flanker task in which flanking letters sometimes were colour singletons. If low load enhances capture by colour singletons, then colour singletons should produce an especially large increase in overall reaction times and in flanker–target compatibility effects. Neither of these predictions was confirmed in any of the four experiments reported here, although we did replicate the classic load effects from previous studies. These experiments indicate that although perceptual load does strongly modulate overall performance, it does not facilitate capture by colour singletons. This finding contrasts sharply with findings from other types of salient stimuli (abrupt onsets and moving objects). Implications for theories of attentional capture will be discussed.     

The role of extinction and reinstatement in attentional bias to threat: a conditioning approach

We investigated the effects of extinction and reinstatement on attentional bias to fear-conditioned signals in healthy individuals using an emotional modification of a spatial cueing paradigm. Spatial cues were emotionally modulated using differential conditioning. The CS+ was sometimes followed by an aversive electrocutaneous stimulus (UCS), whereas the CS- was never followed by the UCS. During a subsequent extinction phase no UCS was presented anymore. The reinstatement phase started with one or four unpredicted UCS-only trials for half of the participants (reinstatement group). For the other half there were no additional UCS presentations (control group). We found that attention was biased to threat signals during acquisition. This biased attention largely disappeared during extinction. During the reinstatement phase attentional bias to threat signals re-emerged in the reinstatement group, but not in the control group.     

空间注意能够促进知觉表征进入工作记忆:来自注意瞬脱的证据

本研究目的一是探讨外周空间线索能否促进知觉表征进入工作记忆,二是观察线索的信息性对该促进作用时间进程的影响。实验采用注意瞬脱和空间线索结合的实验范式,考察不同信息性线索对目标识别的促进效应在注意瞬脱期间内外的变化。实验1和实验2分别采用了非信息性和信息性线索。结果显示：外周线索的促进效应在瞬脱期间内显著大于瞬脱期间外;非信息性线索和信息性线索分别在较短和较长的线索-目标间隔下起促进效应。因此,外周线索能促进知觉表征进入工作记忆,而不同信息性线索可能引发不同的注意机制．从而具有不同人促进效应。     

死亡凸显对自我姓名注意瞬脱对抗效应的影响

已有研究表明死亡凸显会抑制自我面孔和自我参照记忆加工的自我优势,可是死亡凸显对自我姓名的影响尚不明确,本研究采用事件相关电位技术,探索死亡凸显对自我姓名注意瞬脱对抗效应及其大脑神经活动的影响。58名被试在经历不同的启动任务后,完成自我姓名、朋友姓名和名人姓名的注意瞬脱任务。行为结果发现自我姓名识别正确率显著高于朋友姓名和名人姓名,表现出稳定的自我姓名加工的注意瞬脱对抗效应;电生理数据发现死亡启动后自我姓名诱发的P300波幅显著低于消极启动组和中性启动组,而朋友姓名和名人姓名并不受启动的影响。本研究结果与以往研究结果共同表明死亡想法凸显会使个体将抑制自我加工（自我姓名、自我面孔和自我参照记忆）作为应对远端死亡焦虑的一种手段。     

负性情绪对注意促进效应的调节

近期研究发现,目标探测性质的注意分散并不会削弱,甚至会提高与之同时进行的记忆任务成绩,表现出注意促进效应（ABE）,但该效应可能会受到记忆材料独特性的调节。为了验证该假设,本文采用负性刺激为记忆材料,以目标探测任务为干扰任务,探讨负性情绪对ABE的调节。结果发现,与中性材料相比,负性材料的ABE有所减弱;而高唤醒的负性材料则没有表现出任何的ABE。可见目标探测所产生的促进作用会受到背景材料是否具有独特性的限制。     

Reward expectancy promotes generalized increases in attentional bias for rewarding stimuli

Expectations of drug availability increase the magnitude of attentional biases for drug-related cues. However, it is unknown whether these effects are outcome specific, or whether expectation of a specific reinforcer produces a general enhancement of attentional bias for other types of rewarding cues. In the present study, 31 social drinkers completed an eye-tracking task in which attentional bias for alcohol- and chocolate-related cues was assessed while the expectation of receiving alcohol and chocolate was manipulated on a trial-by-trial basis. Participants showed attentional bias for alcohol and chocolate cues (relative to neutral cues) overall. Importantly, these attentional biases for reward cues were magnified when participants expected to receive alcohol and chocolate, but effects were not outcome specific: The expectation of receiving either alcohol or chocolate increased attentional bias for both alcohol and chocolate cues. Results suggest that anticipation of reward produces a general rather than an outcome-specific enhancement of attentional bias for reward-related stimuli.     

Attentional sets influence perceptual load effects,but not dilution effects

Perceptual load theory [Lavie, N. (1995). Perceptual load as a necessary condition for selective attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 21, 451–468.; Lavie, N., & Tsal, Y. (1994) Perceptual load as a major determinant of the locus of selection in visual attention. Perception & Psychophysics, 56, 183–197.] proposes that interference from distractors can only be avoided in situations of high perceptual load. This theory has been supported by blocked design manipulations separating low load (when the target appears alone) and high load (when the target is embedded among neutral letters). Tsal and Benoni [(2010a). Diluting the burden of load: Perceptual load effects are simply dilution effects. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 36, 1645–1656.; Benoni, H., & Tsal, Y. (2010). Where have we gone wrong? Perceptual load does not affect selective attention. Vision Research, 50, 1292–1298.] have recently shown that these manipulations confound perceptual load with “dilution” (the mere presence of additional heterogeneous items in high-load situations). Theeuwes, Kramer, and Belopolsky [(2004). Attentional set interacts with perceptual load in visual search. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 11, 697–702.] independently questioned load theory by suggesting that attentional sets might also affect distractor interference. When high load and low load were intermixed, and participants could not prepare for the presentation that followed, both the low-load and high-load trials showed distractor interference. This result may also challenge the dilution account, which proposes a stimulus-driven mechanism. In the current study, we presented subjects with both fixed and mixed blocks, including a mix of dilution trials with low-load trials and with high-load trials. We thus separated the effect of dilution from load and tested the influence of attentional sets on each component. The results revealed that whereas perceptual load effects are influenced by attentional sets, the dilution component is not. This strengthens the notion that dilution is a stimulus-driven mechanism, which enables effective selectivity.     

On the role of goal relevance in emotional attention: Disgust evokes early attention to cleanliness

Prior evidence has shown that aversive emotional states are characterised by an attentional bias towards aversive events. The present study investigated whether aversive emotions also bias attention towards stimuli that represent means by which the emotion can be alleviated. We induced disgust by having participants touch fake disgusting objects. Participants in the control condition touched non-disgusting objects. The results of a subsequent dot-probe task revealed that attention was oriented to disgusting pictures irrespective of condition. However, participants in the disgust condition also oriented towards pictures representing cleanliness. These findings suggest that the deployment of attention in aversive emotional states is not purely stimulus driven but is also guided by the goal to alleviate this emotional state.     

The attentional window configures to object and surface boundaries

Attention can select items based on location or features. Belopolsky and colleagues posited the attentional window hypothesis, which theorized that spatial and featural selection interact such that featural selection occurs within a “window” of spatial selection. Kerzel and colleagues recently found that the attentional window can take complex shapes, but cannot configure around non-contiguous locations. The current experiments investigated whether perceptual grouping cues, which produce perceptual objects or surfaces, enable the attentional window to configure around non-contiguous locations. Using the additional singleton paradigm, we reasoned that observers (1) would be slowed by a colour singleton distractor that appears within the observers’ attentional window and (2) would be unaffected by distractors that do not appear within the attentional window. In separate blocks of trials, a target appeared upon one of two objects. Observers were cued to the relevant surface, and we asked if responses were affected by distractors on the cued task-relevant surface, and on the uncued irrelevant surface. Colour singleton distractors slowed responses when they appeared on the cued surface, even when those locations were non-contiguous locations. Distractors on the irrelevant surface did not affect responses. The results support a highly adaptable attentional window that is configurable to the surfaces and boundaries established by intermediate-level vision.