Attentional and oculomotor capture with static singletons

Theeuwes, Jan; Vries, Giel-Jan de; Godijn, Richard

doi:10.3758/bf03194810

Cited by 134 publications

(110 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…At the same time, stimulus-driven attention also seems not to apply, as previous research has shown that expected, repeated, or familiar color singletons do not capture attention in the context of a visual search task (e.g., Eimer & Kiss, 2008;Horstmann & Ansorge, 2006;Yantis & Egeth, 1999), except when participants actively search for a singleton on another dimension (Bacon & Egeth, 1994) that changes from trial to trial (Theeuwes, deVries, & Godijn, 2003). Theorists of singleton-driven attention (for an overview, see Theeuwes, 2010) also predict effects of singletons to be early, in the time range of 60-150 ms (Kim & Cave, 1999) in covert attention tasks, and on the first eye movement in overt attention tasks (Theeuwes et al, 2003). In contrast, with novel singletons attention capture occurred later, after around 400 ms, which has been shown for covert shifts (Horstmann, 2006;Horstmann & Becker, 2008), as well as for overt shifts (Horstmann & Herwig, 2015) of attention.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Novelty biases attention and gaze in a surprise trial

Horstmann

Herwig

2015

Atten Percept Psychophys

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While the classical distinction between taskdriven and stimulus-driven biasing of attention appears to be a dichotomy at first sight, there seems to be a third category that depends on the contrast or discrepancy between active representations and the upcoming stimulus, and may be termed novelty, surprise, or prediction failure. For previous demonstrations of the discrepancy-attention link, stimulus-driven components (saliency) may have played a decisive role. The present study was conducted to evaluate the discrepancy-attention link in a display where novel and familiar stimuli are equated for saliency. Eye tracking was used to determine fixations on novel and familiar stimuli as a proxy for attention. Results show a prioritization of attention by the novel color, and a deprioritization of the familiar color, which is clearly present at the second fixation, and spans over the next couple of fixations. Saliency, on the other hand, did not prioritize items in the display. The results thus reinforce the notion that novelty captures and binds attention.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Novelty biases attention and gaze in a surprise trial

Horstmann

Herwig

2015

Atten Percept Psychophys

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“…First, visual neurons in FEF signal the location of a singleton under conditions that have been shown to automatically attract attention (26,27). This selection emerges even when gaze remains fixed or shifts to a location out of the response field (20-23).…”

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confidence: 99%

Dissociation of spatial attention and saccade preparation

Juan

Shorter-Jacobi

Schall

2004

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

235

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The goal of this experiment was to determine whether the allocation of attention necessarily requires saccade preparation. To dissociate the focus of attention from the endpoint of a saccade, macaque monkeys were trained to perform visual search for a uniquely colored rectangle and shift gaze either toward or opposite this color singleton according to its orientation. A vertical singleton cued a prosaccade, a horizontal singleton, an antisaccade. Saccade preparation was probed by measuring the direction of saccades evoked by intracortical microstimulation of the frontal eye fields at variable times after presentation of the search array. Eye movements evoked on prosaccade trials deviated progressively toward the singleton that was also the endpoint of the correct eye movement. However, eye movements evoked on antisaccade trials never deviated toward the singleton but only progressively toward the location opposite the singleton. This occurred even though previous work showed that on antisaccade trials most neurons in frontal eye fields initially select the singleton while attention is allocated to distinguish its shape. Thus, sensorimotor structures can covertly orient attention without preparing a saccade.frontal eye fields ͉ microstimulation ͉ target selection H umans can orient to an interesting object or region of the visual scene covertly by allocating attention and overtly by executing an eye movement. A longstanding issue has been whether the shift of attention and the shift of gaze are independent (1). The premotor theory of attention (2, 3) posits that the allocation of spatial attention is equivalent to planning but not executing a saccade. Evidence for this theory includes the coupling of spatial attention and saccade preparation (4-6), observations that neurons in sensorimotor structures such as frontal eye fields (FEF) are modulated when attention is allocated (7-11), that the trajectories of saccades can be influenced by the allocation of attention (12), and that electrical stimulation of FEF and superior colliculus can influence the allocation of attention (13,14).However, other evidence suggests a functional distinction between covert and overt orienting (15). It is possible to shift attention without shifting gaze (5, 6). Also, the selective activity of visually responsive neurons in sensorimotor structures corresponds to the allocation of attention distinct from saccade preparation (16)(17)(18)(19). In particular, neurons in FEF select the location of a salient object in an array when monkeys maintain fixation or shift gaze away from that object (7,(20)(21)(22)(23). Furthermore, in a stop signal task, visual neurons in FEF and superior colliculus do not produce signals sufficient to contribute to the control of saccade generation (24,25).The properties of neurons in the FEF of monkeys performing visual search requiring explicit stimulus-response mapping based on the shape of a color singleton provide an opportunity to investigate whether orienting to a visual stimulus necessarily requires prepa...

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“…However, in those trials in which a new object was added to the display, in about 30%-40% of the trials the eye went in the direction of the abrupt onset. Moreover, in a subsequent eye movement study, Theeuwes, de Vries, and Godijn (2003) showed that under the very same circumstances, irrelevant salient static singletons (such as a uniquely colored element) only captured attention, not the eyes. Therefore, transient singletons seem to have a different effect than static singletons, confirming the special role of abrupt onsets.…”

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confidence: 99%