A meta-analysis of contingent-capture effects

Büsel, Christian; Voracek, Martin; Ansorge, Ulrich

doi:10.1007/s00426-018-1087-3

Cited by 43 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 104 publications

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“…However, this effect is difficult to replicate (Eimer & Kiss, 2010;Irons et al 2012) and, recently, Schoeberl, Goller and Ansorge (2019) failed to find evidence that feature priming could explain contingent capture. Additionally, in a metaanalysis, Büsel, Voracek, and Ansorge (2018;see also Lamy & Kristjánsson, 2013) found no evidence that contingent capture could be explained through intertrial priming. As such, it is unlikely the results from the present experiments were due to intertrial priming.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Evidence for early top-down modulation of attention to salient visual cues through probe detection

Burnham

2019

Atten Percept Psychophys

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The influence of top-down attentional control on the selection of salient visual stimuli has been examined extensively. Some accounts suggest all salient stimuli capture attention in a stimulus-driven manner, while others suggest salient stimuli capture attention contingent on top-down relevance. Evidence consistently shows target templates allow only salient stimuli sharing a target's features to capture attention, while salient stimuli not sharing a target's features do not. A number of hypotheses (e.g., contingent orienting, disengagement, signal suppression) from both sides of this debate have been proposed; however, most predict similar performance in the visual search and spatial cuing tasks. The present study combined a cuing task, in which subjects identified a target defined by its having a unique feature, with a probe identification task developed by Gaspelin, Leonard, and Luck (Psychological Science, 26, 1740-1750, 2015), in which subjects identified letters appearing in potential target locations just after the appearance of a salient cue that matched or did not match the target-defining feature. The probe task provided a measure of where attention was focused just after the cue's appearance. In six experiments, we observed top-down modulation of spatial cuing effects in response times and probe identification: Probes in the cued location were identified more often, but more when preceded by a cue that shared the target-defining feature. Though not unequivocal, the results are explained in terms of the ongoing debate over whether top-down attentional control can prevent bottom-up capture by salient, taskirrelevant stimuli.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Evidence for early top-down modulation of attention to salient visual cues through probe detection

Burnham

2019

Atten Percept Psychophys

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“…When the cues do not have the searched-for target feature (i.e., in the case of a nonmatching cue), the cues do not lead to a validity effect. This pattern of results is labeled the contingent-capture effect and has been replicated many times under various conditions (e.g., Carmel & Lamy, 2014;Eimer, Kiss, Press, & Sauter, 2009;Goller & Ansorge, 2015; for a review, see Büsel, Voracek, & Ansorge, 2018). It is regarded as evidence that people are able to attend to certain nonspatial features in a top-down way, because cues that have the target's critical searched-for feature capture attention as if the observers were willingly attending to the corresponding features.…”

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confidence: 91%

Testing a priming account of the contingent-capture effect

Schoeberl

Goller

Ansorge

2019

Atten Percept Psychophys

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In the contingent-capture protocol, singleton cues that have a target's searched-for feature capture attention, but cues that do not have the target's searched-for feature do not, a result labeled the contingent-capture effect. The contingent-capture effect is usually regarded as evidence for the observers' ability to establish search settings for certain nonspatial features in a top-down manner. However, in recent years it has become increasingly clear that selection history is also a powerful mediator of attentional capture. In this vein, it has been suggested that contingent-capture effects could emerge as a result of (intertrial) priming: The idea is that features that have been encountered previously in the target are primed, so that cues that have these features automatically capture attention in a subsequent encounter. Here we tested a strong version of the priming account of the contingent-capture effect. We wanted to know whether cues that had target features would capture attention when the corresponding features were not part of the instructions (i.e., when the corresponding features were task-irrelevant). The results suggested that a strong version of the priming account of contingent capture is not supported. In five experiments, we found little evidence that the contingentcapture effect could be explained by (intertrial) priming of task-irrelevant features alone. These results show that processes beyond priming through task-irrelevant features are critical for contingent-capture effects.

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“…Stimuli can draw our attention in two different ways ( Egeth and Yantis, 1997 ; Wolfe et al, 2003 ; Connor et al, 2004 ; Weichselbaum et al, 2018 ): in an intentional, goal-directed way (top–down/endogenous) or in an automatic, stimulus-driven way (bottom–up/exogenous). In top–down capture, only a stimulus matching the goals and/or search intentions of the observer will capture attention; for example, when looking for a tomato in the supermarket, only red and round objects will be selected for further processing (e.g., Duncan and Humphreys, 1989 ; Folk et al, 1992 ; Büsel et al, 2018 ). Irrelevant stimuli, however, are suppressed and ignored (e.g., inattentional blindness; Mack and Rock, 1998 ; Eitam et al, 2013 ; Horstmann and Ansorge, 2016 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Awareness and Stimulus-Driven Spatial Attention as Independent Processes

Baier

Goller

Ansorge

2020

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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To investigate the relation between attention and awareness, we manipulated visibility/awareness and stimulus-driven attention capture among metacontrast-masked visual stimuli. By varying the time interval between target and mask, we manipulated target visibility measured as target discrimination accuracies (ACCs; Experiments 1 and 2) and as subjective awareness ratings (Experiment 3). To modulate stimulus-driven attention capture, we presented the masked target either as a color-singleton (the target stands out by its unique color among homogeneously colored non-singletons), as a non-singleton together with a distractor singleton elsewhere (an irrelevant distractor has a unique color, whereas the target is colored like the other stimuli) or without a singleton (no stimulus stands out; only in Experiment 1). As color singletons capture attention in a stimulus-driven way, we expected target visibility/discrimination performance to be best for target singletons and worst with distractor singletons. In Experiments 1 and 2, we confirmed that the masking interval and the singleton manipulation influenced ACCs in an independent way and that attention capture by the singletons, with facilitated performance in target-singleton compared to distractor-singleton conditions, was found regardless of the interval-induced (in-)visibility of the targets. In Experiment 1, we also confirmed that attention capture was the same among participants with worse and better visibility/discrimination performance. In Experiment 2, we confirmed attention capture by color singletons with better discrimination performance for probes presented at singleton position, compared to other positions. Finally, in Experiment 3, we found that attention capture by target singletons also increased target awareness and that this capture effect on subjective awareness was independent of the effect of the masking interval, too. Together, results provide new evidence that stimulus-driven attention and awareness operate independently from one another and that stimulus-driven attention capture can precede awareness.

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A meta-analysis of contingent-capture effects

Cited by 43 publications

References 104 publications

Evidence for early top-down modulation of attention to salient visual cues through probe detection

Evidence for early top-down modulation of attention to salient visual cues through probe detection

Testing a priming account of the contingent-capture effect

Awareness and Stimulus-Driven Spatial Attention as Independent Processes

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