Adjustment to Subtle Time Constraints and Power Law Learning in Rapid Serial Visual Presentation

Abstract

We investigated whether attention could be modulated through the implicit learning of temporal information in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task. Participants identified two target letters among numeral distractors. The stimulus-onset asynchrony immediately following the first target (SOA1) varied at three levels (70, 98, and 126 ms) randomly between trials or fixed within blocks of trials. Practice over 3 consecutive days resulted in a continuous improvement in the identification rate for both targets and attenuation of the attentional blink (AB), a decrement in target (T2) identification when presented 200–400 ms after another target (T1). Blocked SOA1s led to a faster rate of improvement in RSVP performance and more target order reversals relative to random SOA1s, suggesting that the implicit learning of SOA1 positively affected performance. The results also reveal “power law” learning curves for individual target identification as well as the reduction in the AB decrement. These learning curves reflect the spontaneous emergence of skill through subtle attentional modulations rather than general attentional distribution. Together, the results indicate that implicit temporal learning could improve high level and rapid cognitive processing and highlights the sensitivity and adaptability of the attentional system to subtle constraints in stimulus timing.

Age differences in emotion-induced blindness: Positivity effects in early attention.

“…The main difference between the two experiments was the insertion of digits or symbols in Experiment 4 that mimicked a “countdown” to the start of the RSVP trial, and restricted possible lags for the target items. Previous studies have noted that participants can tune their attention to the temporal patterns within rapid serial visual presentations (e.g., Ambinder & Lleras, 2009; Shin, Chang, & Cho, 2015). Thus, it is possible that the experimental conditions of Experiment 4 yielded more accurate and tuned expectations of targets in the rapid stream.…”

Adaptive Changes in the Dynamics of Visual Attention With Extended Practice

“…The enhanced deployment of selective visual attention can be inferred from the enhancement of target report in an RSVP paradigm that reflects improved perceptual and working memory processes. With practice, target identification rates for a second target in an attentional blink paradigm increase signifying a change in the way in which visual attention is distributed over the course of an RSVP trial ( Choi et al, 2012 ; Shin et al, 2015 ; Willems et al, 2015 ). The current research extends this improvement in target identification over the course of up to three experimental sessions and over 1,500 RSVP trials in a single target RSVP task.…”

“…Recent work on temporal attention focuses on the skill that develops through repeating temporal patterns using the rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm ( Tang et al, 2014 ; Shin et al, 2015 ). In an RSVP task, visual stimuli are presented at the rate of 10–20 Hz.…”

“…Several recent studies revealed that AB could also be reduced with practice ( Choi et al, 2012 ; Tang et al, 2014 ; Shin et al, 2015 ; Willems et al, 2015 ), underlining the malleability of AB with learning and challenging the initial construal of AB as reflecting a rigid bottleneck inherent in the attentional system ( Chun and Potter, 1995 ; Jolicœur and Dell’Acqua, 1998 ; Dell’Acqua et al, 2012 ; Dux et al, 2014 ). In particular, a fixed temporal position of T2 relative to T1 leads to enhanced T2 identification, showing that attentional dynamics can adapt to temporal patterns ( Martens and Johnson, 2005 ; Tang et al, 2014 ; Shin et al, 2015 ; Willems et al, 2015 ). Similarly, the reduction of AB when a periodic rhythm is presented concurrently with an RSVP stream ( Ronconi et al, 2016a , b ) suggests that periodicity is one such temporal pattern that attentional dynamics can adapt to.…”

“…However, the implicit or explicit nature of attentional attunement is by no means obvious given the wide range of task demands in RSVP studies demonstrating attentional attunement. While AB could be reduced under implicit learning conditions where explicit knowledge of the predictable time constraints was minimized, this was only evidenced with a very large number of trials (around 1500) ( Shin et al, 2015 ). In contrast, AB reduction was reliably observed in multiple studies with relatively small or medium amounts of practice under explicit learning conditions ( Martens and Johnson, 2005 ; Tang et al, 2014 ).…”