Action selection as a guide for visual attention

We plan our actions in order to fulfil certain sensory goals. It is generally believed, therefore, that anticipation of sensory action-outcomes plays an essential role in action selection. In this study, we examined the role of action selection, prior to action execution, in the guidance of visual attention. The experiments began with an initial acquisition phase, in which participants learned to associate two actions (left/right keypress) with two visual outcomes (red/green colour). Next, participants performed in a test phase, in which they continued to select and perform the same actions while their attentional bias was measured for items that resembled the anticipated action-outcome. The findings indicate that learned action-outcome association contributes to the guidance of attention. This guidance, furthermore, was short-lived and disappeared with larger delays between action selection and execution. The findings help situate processes of visual attention in a context that includes action selection and action-outcome associative learning.     

Memory-based attentional capture by colour and shape contents in visual working memory

Current theories assume that there is substantial overlap between visual working memory (VWM) and visual attention functioning, such that active representations in VWM automatically act as an attentional set, resulting in attentional biases towards objects that match the mnemonic content. Most evidence for this comes from visual search tasks in which a distractor similar to the memory interferes with the detection of a simultaneous target. Here we provide additional evidence using one of the most popular paradigms in the literature for demonstrating an active attentional set: The contingent spatial orienting paradigm of Folk and colleagues. This paradigm allows memory-based attentional biases to be more directly attributed to spatial orienting. Experiment 1 demonstrated a memory-contingent spatial attention effect for colour but not for shape contents of VWM. Experiment 2 tested the hypothesis that the placeholders used for spatial cueing interfered with the shape processing, and showed that memory-based attentional capture for shape returned when placeholders were removed. The results of the present study are consistent with earlier findings from distractor interference paradigms, and provide additional evidence that biases in spatial orienting contribute to memory-based influences on attention.     

Responses to visual,tactile and visual–tactile forward collision warnings while gaze on and off the road

The objective of the current driving simulator study (N = 20) was to assess brake reaction time (BRT) and subjective experiences of visual (V), tactile (T), and visual–tactile (VT) collision warnings when the drivers’ visual orientation was manipulated between four locations (i.e., road and three different mirror locations). V warning was a blinking light in a windscreen, T warning was implemented by a vibrating accelerator pedal, and VT warning was their synchronous combination. The results showed that all the warning stimuli were detected in 100% accuracy in all visual orientations, but T and VT warnings produced significantly faster BRTs when compared to V warning. It was found that BRT to V warning was the slowest while observing the furthermost side mirror. However, BRTs following T and VT warnings remained unaffected by the visual orientations. Both the objective BRT measurements and subjective evaluations indicated a superiority of T and VT warnings against a sole V warning, not only in general terms, but also separately for different visual orientations.     

When alcohol narrows the field of focal attention

The aim of this study was to measure the extent to which alcohol intoxication restricts the scope of attention in the visual field. A group of intoxicated (n?=?31; mean BAC ≈ .08%) and placebo control (n?=?31; mean BAC ≈ .00%) participants were required to correctly identify visual probes while performing two verbal categorization tasks: one designed to widen the scope of visual attention on to each stimulus word, the other to narrow attention on to the central letter of each word. Response times to surprise probes interpolated between categorization trials were measured and these catch trials could appear in any of the stimulus word letter positions. As predicted by alcohol myopia theory (AMT), which assumes that the drug narrows focal attention, intoxicated participants made slower responses than the sober controls to probes displayed in non-central letter positions, although right-field probe reaction times (RTs) were slower than those for left-field targets. This response asymmetry and the wider theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Doors for memory: A searchable database

The study of human long-term memory has for over 50 years been dominated by research on words. This is partly due to lack of suitable nonverbal materials. Experience in developing a clinical test suggested that door scenes can provide an ecologically relevant and sensitive alternative to the faces and geometrical figures traditionally used to study visual memory. In pursuing this line of research, we have accumulated over 2000 door scenes providing a database that is categorized on a range of variables including building type, colour, age, condition, glazing, and a range of other physical characteristics. We describe an illustrative study of recognition memory for 100 doors tested by yes/no, two-alternative, or four-alternative forced-choice paradigms. These stimuli, together with the full categorized database, are available through a dedicated website. We suggest that door scenes provide an ecologically relevant and participant-friendly source of material for studying the comparatively neglected field of visual long-term memory.     

Instruction-driven processing in human perceptual learning

We conducted a series of experiments to determine the relative contribution of unsupervised versus controlled mechanisms to the intermixed-blocked effect. In Experiment 1, participants received pre-exposure instructions prompting a search for differences between stimuli, in keeping with past studies, and the intermixed-blocked effect was observed. In the remaining experiments, participants did not receive the aforementioned instructions, but instead were instructed either to simply observe the stimuli (Experiment 2) or in relation to a masking task (Experiment 3). None of the latter experiments produced an intermixed-blocked effect, suggesting that the effect found in Experiment 1 was driven by the instructions to search for differences, consistent with a controlled processing account of the effect. Moreover, we tested a prediction assuming the operation of a search strategy against one assuming the operation of a short-term habituation mechanism and found evidence more consistent with the search strategy hypothesis. We formulate a new account of the intermixed-blocked effect in humans based on an instruction-driven search and discuss how the account could explain many findings in the human literature.     

The development of preferences for own-race versus other-race faces in 3-, 6- and 9-month-old Caucasian infants

Visual preferences for pairs of African and Caucasian faces were repeatedly assessed in 3-, 6- and 9-month-old Caucasian infants with a preferential looking paradigm. Two different patterns of preference development were found: First, the spontaneous own-race preference at three months reported in the literature tilts to a preference for other-race faces at nine months passing through a null-preference at six months. This replicates the pattern recently reported for Asian infants [Liu et al. (2015). Development of visual preference for own- versus other-race faces in infancy. Developmental Psychology. doi:10.1037/a0038835]. Second, at all three ages fixation time towards Caucasian faces significantly reduces across the consecutive trial presentation. This is a similar effect as in novelty preference studies to occur after a sufficiently long familiarization phase. Both patterns can be explained in terms of an advantaged own-race face processing with the emerging Other-Race-Effect.     

Differences in visual orienting between persons with Down or fragile X syndrome

The voluntary and reflexive orienting abilities of persons with Down syndrome and fragile X syndrome, at average MA levels of approximately 4 and 7 years, were compared with an RT task. Reflexive orienting abilities appeared to develop in accordance with MA for the participants with Down syndrome but not for those with fragile X syndrome. However, both groups showed delayed voluntary orienting. The group differences in reflexive orienting at the low MA level reinforce the practice of separating etiologies and highlight the contribution of rudimentary attentional processes in the study of individuals with mental retardation.     

An experimental comparison between rival theories of rapid automatized naming performance and its relationship to reading

Two studies investigated the degree to which the relationship between rapid automatized naming (RAN) performance and reading development is driven by shared phonological processes. Study 1 assessed RAN, phonological awareness, and reading performance in 1010 7- to 10-year-olds. Results showed that RAN deficits occurred in the absence of phonological awareness deficits. These were accompanied by modest reading delays. In structural equation modeling, solutions where RAN was subsumed within a phonological processing factor did not provide a good fit to the data, suggesting that processes outside phonology may drive RAN performance and its association with reading. Study 2 investigated Kail's proposal that speed of processing underlies this relationship. Children with single RAN deficits showed slower speed of processing than did closely matched controls performing normally on RAN. However, regression analysis revealed that RAN made a unique contribution to reading even after accounting for processing speed. Theoretical implications are discussed.