Attentional capture by singletons is contingent on top-down control settings: Evidence from electrophysiological measures |
| |
Authors: | Mei-Ching Lien Eric Ruthruff Logan Cornett |
| |
Institution: | 1. Department of Psychology , Oregon State University , Corvallis, OR, USA mei.lien@oregonstate.edu;3. Department of Psychology , University of New Mexico , Albuquerque, NM, USA;4. Department of Psychology , Oregon State University , Corvallis, OR, USA |
| |
Abstract: | The present study examined whether the capture of spatial attention is driven by stimulus salience (e.g., object uniqueness) or by a match to current attentional control settings (contingent capture). We measured the N2pc effect, a component of the event-related brain potential thought to reflect lateralized attentional allocation. On every trial, a noninformative cue display containing a colour singleton box was followed by a target display of letters. Participants searched for a target letter in a specified colour (in Experiments 1–3) or within a specified shape (in Experiment 4) while ignoring other stimuli. The key manipulation was whether the singleton cue contained the target-defining feature (e.g., a specific colour). Experiment 1 revealed signs of attention capture—a cue validity effect and an N2pc effect—only for singleton cues that contained the target-defining feature. This pattern persisted even when we increased the salience of the singleton box (Experiments 2 and 3). Irrelevant colour singletons also failed to produce a significant N2pc effect when the target was defined based on shape rather than colour (Experiment 4). We conclude that attention capture is strongly contingent on top-down attentional control settings, not bottom-up stimulus salience. |
| |
Keywords: | Attention capture Spatial attention Visual attention N2pc effect |
|
|