Resolving Visual Interference During Covert Spatial Orienting: Online Attentional Control Through Static Records of Prior Visual Experience.

Models of attentional control usually describe online shifts in control settings that accommodate changing task demands. The current studies suggest that online control over distractor exclusion--a core component of visual selection--can be accomplished without online shifts in top-down settings. Measurements of target discrimination accuracy suggested that the degree of distractor exclusion was guided by retinotopic maps of the prior probability of distractor interference at the attended locations. These probability maps can be retrieved via object-based cues, and they interact with shifts of attention to elicit increased levels of distractor exclusion when it is most needed. Thus, static probability maps can provide an internal template that guides the resolution of visual interference as spatial attention traverses the visual field. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Is Posner's "beam" the same as Treisman's "glue?" On the relation between visual orienting and feature integration theory.

In the present study we investigated whether the visually allocated "beam" studied by Posner and others is the same visual attentional resource that performs the role of feature integration in Treisman's model. Subjects were cued to attend to a certain spatial location by a visual cue, and performance at expected and unexpected stimulus locations was compared. Subjects searched for a target letter (R) with distractor letters that either could give rise to illusory conjunctions (PQ) or could not (PB). Results from three separate experiments showed that orienting attention in response to central cues (endogenous orienting) showed similar effects for both conjunction and feature search. However, when attention was oriented with peripheral visual cues (exogenous orienting), conjunction search showed larger effects of attention than did feature search. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nonspatial attentional shifts between audition and vision.

This study investigated nonspatial shifts of attention between visual and auditory modalities. The authors provide evidence that the modality of a stimulus (S?) affected the processing of a subsequent stimulus (S?) depending on whether they shared the same modality. For both vision and audition, the onset of S? summoned attention exogenously to its modality, causing a delay in processing S? in a different modality. That undermines the notion that auditory stimuli have a stronger and more automatic alerting effect than visual stimuli (M. I. Posner, M. J. Nissen, & R. M. Klein, 1976). The results are consistent with other recent studies showing cross-modal attentional limitation. The authors suggest that such cross-modal limitation can be produced by simply presenting S? and S? in different modalities and that central processing mechanisms are also, at least partially, modality dependent. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lateralized human cortical activity for shifting visuospatial attention and initiating saccades

Lateralized human cortical activity for shifting visuospatial attention and initiating saccades. J. Neurophysiol. 80: 2900-2910, 1998. The relation between shifts of visual attention and saccade preparation was investigated by studying their electrophysiological correlates in human scalp-recorded electroencephalogram (EEG). Participants had to make saccades either to a saliently colored or to a gray circle, simultaneously presented in opposite visual hemifields, under different task instructions. EEG was measured within the short interval between stimulus onset and saccade, focusing on lateralized activity, contralateral either to the side of the relevant stimulus or to the direction of the saccade. Three components of lateralization were found: 1) activity contralateral to the relevant stimulus irrespective of saccade direction, peaking 250 ms after stimulus onset, largest above lateral parietal sites, 2) activity contralateral to the relevant stimulus if the stimulus was also the target of the saccade, largest 330-480 ms after stimulus onset, widespread over the scalp but with a focus again above lateral parietal sites, and 3) activity contralateral to saccade direction, beginning about 100 ms before the saccade, largest above mesial parietal sites, with some task-dependent fronto-central contribution. Because of their sensitivity to task variables, component 1 is interpreted as the shifting of attention to the relevant stimulus, component 2 is interpreted as reflecting the enhancement of the attentional shift if the relevant stimulus is also the saccade target, and component 3 is interpreted as the triggering signal for saccade execution. Thus human neurophysiological data provided evidence both for independent and interdependent processes of saccade preparation and shifts of visual attention.     

When cross-modal spatial attention fails.

There is now convincing evidence that an involuntary shift of spatial attention to a stimulus in one modality can affect the processing of stimuli in other modalities, but inconsistent findings across different paradigms have led to controversy. Such inconsistencies have important implications for theories of cross-modal attention. The authors investigated why orienting attention to a visual event sometimes influences responses to subsequent sounds and why it sometimes fails to do so. They examined visual-cue-on-auditory-target effects in two paradigms--implicit spatial discrimination (ISD) and orthogonal cuing (OC)--that have yielded conflicting findings in the past. Consistent with previous research, visual cues facilitated responses to same-side auditory targets in the ISD paradigm but not in the OC paradigm. Furthermore, in the ISD paradigm, visual cues facilitated responses to auditory targets only when the targets were presented directly at the cued location, not when they appeared above or below the cued location. This pattern of results confirms recent claims that visual cues fail to influence responses to auditory targets in the OC paradigm because the targets fall outside the focus of attention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Overt orienting in the rat: Parametric studies of cued detection of visual targets.

Covert shifts of visual attention in space have been quantified by measuring the effects of visual cues on the detection of visual targets in humans and monkeys maintaining visual fixation. These observations of "covert orienting" have provided important information regarding the neurobiology of visual attention in primates. This article describes a cued spatial target detection task for physically unrestrained rats. Valid cues (spatially contiguous with the target) enhanced target detection, and invalid cues (spatially discontiguous with the target) degraded target detection. Both visual and auditory cues were effective. These validity effects could not be explained by stimulus additivity or response preparation mechanisms, whereas a cue-independent "alerting effect" appeared to reflect response preparation. The effects compare favorably with primate work and suggest that this method may enable assessment of visual attention shifts in rats. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of sensory modality in age-related distraction: A critical review and a renewed view.

Selective attention requires the ability to focus on relevant information and to ignore irrelevant information. The ability to inhibit irrelevant information has been proposed to be the main source of age-related cognitive change (e.g., Hasher & Zacks, 1988). Although age-related distraction by irrelevant information has been extensively demonstrated in the visual modality, studies involving auditory and cross-modal paradigms have revealed a mixed pattern of results. A comparative evaluation of these paradigms according to sensory modality suggests a twofold trend: Age-related distraction is more likely (a) in unimodal than in cross-modal paradigms and (b) when irrelevant information is presented in the visual modality, rather than in the auditory modality. This distinct pattern of age-related changes in selective attention may be linked to the reliance of the visual and auditory modalities on different filtering mechanisms. Distractors presented through the auditory modality can be filtered at both central and peripheral neurocognitive levels. In contrast, distractors presented through the visual modality are primarily suppressed at more central levels of processing, which may be more vulnerable to aging. We propose the hypothesis that age-related distractibility is modality dependent, a notion that might need to be incorporated in current theories of cognitive aging. Ultimately, this might lead to a more accurate account for the mixed pattern of impaired and preserved selective attention found in advancing age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multisensory prior entry.

Despite 2 centuries of research, the question of whether attending to a sensory modality speeds the perception of stimuli in that modality has yet to be resolved. The authors highlight weaknesses inherent in this previous research and report the results of 4 experiments in which a novel methodology was used to investigate the effects on temporal order judgments (TOJs) of attending to a particular sensory modality or spatial location. Participants were presented with pairs of visual and tactile stimuli from the left and/or right at varying stimulus onset asynchronies and were required to make unspeeded TOJs regarding which stimulus appeared first. The results provide the strongest evidence to date for the existence of multisensory prior entry and support previous claims for attentional biases toward the visual modality and toward the right side of space. These findings have important implications for studies in many areas of human and animal cognition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Covert orienting of visuospatial attention in children with developmental coordination disorder

It is still unclear whether impairments in visuospatial processing in children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) are a consequence of their motor deficits or are independent of them. In two experiments, 20 children with DCD and 20 matched controls were tested on the covert orienting of a visuospatial attention task (COVAT). Experiment 1 used a COVAT with peripheral cues and an 80% probability that targets would appear at the cued location. While the results suggested a deficit in the disengage operation of orienting covert attention for the DCD group, they were difficult to reconcile with models of covert orienting and the results of past research. Experiment 2 tested subjects on two new versions of the COVAT: the first used peripheral cues and no probability information (exogenous mode), and the second used central cues and an 80% probability that targets would appear at the cued location (endogenous mode). The DCD group displayed attentional orienting deficits only for the endogenous mode. These results suggest that impairments in the endogenous control of visuospatial attention are independent of motor deficits in DCD.     

How attentional systems process conflicting cues. The superiority of social over symbolic orienting revisited.

We investigated orienting of attention by social and symbolic cues presented inside/outside the locus of attention. Participants responded to laterally presented targets preceded by simultaneously presented gaze and arrow cues. Participants’ attention was allocated to either of the cues and the other cue served as a distractor. In Experiments 1–4 nonpredictive cues were employed. The validity of the attended cue and distractor were varied orthogonally. Valid cues and distractors produced additive facilitation to reaction times when compared to invalid cues and distractors. The effects of gaze and arrow distractors were similar. When the cue was 100% valid and the distractor 50% valid (Experiment 5), distractor validity had no effect on reaction times. When realistic gaze and arrow cues were employed (Experiment 6), arrow but not gaze distractors influenced the reaction times. The results suggest that social and symbolic directional information can be integrated for attention orienting. The processing of social and symbolic directional information can be modulated by top-down control, but the efficiency of the control depends on the visual saliency of the cues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Audiovisual links in endogenous covert spatial attention.

In 7 experiments we investigated cross-modal links for endogenous covert spatial orienting in hearing and vision. Participants judged the elevation (up vs. down) of auditory or visual targets regardless of their laterality or modality. When participants were informed that targets were more likely on 1 side, elevation judgments were faster on that side, even if the modality of the target was uncertain. When participants expected a target on a particular side in Just 1 modality, corresponding shifts of covert attention also took place in the other modality, as evidenced by faster elevation judgments on that side. However, it was possible to "split" auditory and visual attention when targets in the 2 modalities were expected on constant but opposite sides throughout a block, although covert orienting effects were larger when targets were expected on the same side in both modalities. These results show that although endogenous covert attention does not operate exclusively within a supramodal system, there are strong spatial links between auditory and visual attention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Role of Stimulus-Driven and Goal-Driven Control in Saccadic Visual Selection.

Four experiments were conducted to investigate the role of stimulus-driven and goal-driven control in saccadic eye movements. Participants were required to make a speeded saccade toward a predefined target presented concurrently with multiple nontargets and possibly 1 distractor. Target and distractor were either equally salient (Experiments 1 and 2) or not (Experiments 3 and 4). The results uniformly demonstrated that fast eye movements were completely stimulus driven, whereas slower eye movements were goal driven. These results are in line with neither a bottom-up account nor a top-down notion of visual selection. Instead, they indicate that visual selection is the outcome of 2 independent processes, one stimulus driven and the other goal driven, operating in different time windows. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Working memory and the vividness of imagery.

The working memory framework was used to investigate the factors determining the phenomenological vividness of images. Participants rated the vividness of visual or auditory images under control conditions or while performing tasks that differentially disrupted the visuospatial sketchpad and phonological loop subsystems of working memory. In Experiments 1, 2, and 6, participants imaged recently presented novel visual patterns and sequences of tones; ratings of vividness showed the predicted interaction between stimulus modality and concurrent task. The images in experiments 3, 4, 5, and 6 were based on long-term memory (LTM). They also showed an image modality by task interaction, with a clear effect of LTM variables (meaningfulness, activity, bizarreness, and stimulus familiarity), implicating both working memory and LTM in the experience of vividness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Auditory and visual capture during focused visual attention.

It is well known that auditory and visual onsets presented at a particular location can capture a person’s visual attention. However, the question of whether such attentional capture disappears when attention is focused endogenously beforehand has not yet been answered. Moreover, previous studies have not differentiated between capture by onsets presented at a nontarget (invalid) location and possible performance benefits occurring when the target location is (validly) cued. In this study, the authors modulated the degree of attentional focus by presenting endogenous cues with varying reliability and by displaying placeholders indicating the precise areas where the target stimuli could occur. By using not only valid and invalid exogenous cues but also neutral cues that provide temporal but no spatial information, they found performance benefits as well as costs when attention is not strongly focused. The benefits disappear when the attentional focus is increased. These results indicate that there is bottom-up capture of visual attention by irrelevant auditory and visual stimuli that cannot be suppressed by top-down attentional control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Movement and visual attention: The spotlight metaphor breaks down": Correction to Driver and Baylis.

Reports an error in "Movement and visual attention: The spotlight metaphor breaks down" by Jon Driver and Gordon C. Baylis (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 1989[Aug], Vol 15[3], 448-456). In this article, the display durations were incorrect and should be doubled to give the correct figures. The display durations are corrected in the erratum. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 1990-00258-001.) The interfering effects of distractor letters are known to diminish with increasing distance from the target letter (B. A. Eriksen and C. W. Eriksen, see record 1975-02247-001). This result is held to support spotlight models in which visual attention can only be assigned to contiguous regions of the visual field. However, the result is also consistent with the rival claim that attention is assigned to perceptual groups. Four experiments show that grouping of target and distractors by common motion can have more influence than their proximity. Distant distractor letters that move with a target letter produce more interference than static distractors that are nearer the target. Near distractors are equally ineffective if the target is static while they move. These results imply that attention is directed to perceptual groups whose components may be spatially dispersed. The spotlight metaphor seems inappropriate for visual attention in a dynamic environment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interactive Activation in Visual Word Recognition: Constraints Imposed by the Joint Effects of Spatial Attention and Semantics.

Two lexical-decision experiments investigated the effects of semantic priming and stimulus intensity when target location varied and was cued by an abrupt onset. In Experiment 1, the spatial cue was a good predictor of target location, and in Experiment 2 it was not. The results indicate that word recognition processes were postponed until spatial attention was focused on the target and that whether attention further affected word recognition depended on cue validity. The joint effects of cue validity and priming interacted when cue validity was high but were additive when cue validity was low. The joint effects of stimulus intensity and semantic priming also varied according to cue validity (i.e., interactive when high and additive when low). The results are discussed in terms of their implications for visual word recognition, the distinction between exogenous and endogenous spatial attention, and how attention is affected by visual word recognition processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Now you see it, now you don't: Evidence for age-dependent and age-independent cross-modal distraction.

Age-related deficits in selective attention have often been demonstrated in the visual modality and, to a lesser extent, in the auditory modality. In contrast, a mounting body of evidence has suggested that cross-modal selective attention is intact in aging, especially in visual tasks that require ignoring the auditory modality. Our goal in this study was to investigate age-related differences in the ability to ignore cross-modal auditory and visual distraction and to assess the role of cognitive control demands thereby. In a set of two experiments, 30 young (mean age = 23.3 years) and 30 older adults (mean age = 67.7 years) performed a visual and an auditory n-back task (0 ≤ n ≤ 2), with and without cross-modal distraction. The results show an asymmetry in cross-modal distraction as a function of sensory modality and age: Whereas auditory distraction did not disrupt performance on the visual task in either age group, visual distraction disrupted performance on the auditory task in both age groups. Most important, however, visual distraction was disproportionately larger in older adults. These results suggest that age-related distraction is modality dependent, such that suppression of cross-modal auditory distraction is preserved and suppression of cross-modal visual distraction is impaired in aging. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Capturing Attention When Attention "Blinks".

Four experiments addressed the question of whether attention may be captured when the visual system is in the midst of an attentional blink (AB). Participants identified 2 target letters embedded among distractor letters in a rapid serial visual presentation sequence. In some trials, a square frame was inserted between the targets; as the only geometric object in the sequence, it constituted a singleton. Capture effects obtained when the AB was most severe and when it was over were compared. There were 3 main results. First, capture occurred even when the AB was crippling, suggesting that a singleton exogenously engaged attention even when processing of a previous target was continuing apace. Second, when the singleton contained the key target feature, capture effects were clearly manifest. Third, even when the singleton did not possess the key target feature, it still succeeded in capturing attention, although the effects were both feeble and fleeting. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Working memory enhances visual perception: Evidence from signal detection analysis.

We show that perceptual sensitivity to visual stimuli can be modulated by matches between the contents of working memory (WM) and stimuli in the visual field. Observers were presented with an object cue (to hold in WM or to merely attend) and subsequently had to identify a brief target presented within a colored shape. The cue could be re-presented in the display, where it surrounded either the target (on valid trials) or a distractor (on invalid trials). Perceptual identification of the target, as indexed by A′, was enhanced on valid relative to invalid trials but only when the cue was kept in WM. There was minimal effect of the cue when it was merely attended and not kept in WM. Verbal cues were as effective as visual cues at modulating perceptual identification, and the effects were independent of the effects of target saliency. Matches to the contents of WM influenced perceptual sensitivity even under conditions that minimized competition for selecting the target. WM cues were also effective when targets were less likely to fall in a repeated WM stimulus than in other stimuli in the search display. There were no effects of WM on decisional criteria, in contrast to sensitivity. The findings suggest that reentrant feedback from WM can affect early stages of perceptual processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)