Attentional set interacts with perceptual load in visual search

Theeuwes, Jan; Kramer, Arthur F.; Belopolsky, Artem V.

doi:10.3758/bf03196622

Cited by 88 publications

(155 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…However, this explanation is unlikely, because the AWB effect represents attentional allocation as part of the preparation for the initiation of the trial, and therefore should be affected by the expectations of the upcoming display's difficulty, even if those constraints are not currently encumbering. Indirect support for this claim can be found in the results reported by Theeuwes, Kramer, and Belopolsky (2004), who manipulated the ability to anticipate the level of perceptual load. They showed that when high-load and low-load displays appeared in blocked conditions, congruency effects were found in the low-load but not in the high-load conditions, because participants could anticipate the level of the upcoming load and focus their attention accordingly.…”

Section: Resilience Of the Awb Effectsupporting

confidence: 61%

White bear everywhere: Exploring the boundaries of the attentional white bear phenomenon

Lahav

Makovski

Tsal

2012

Atten Percept Psychophys

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Some failures of selective attention may be explained by the attentional white bear (AWB) phenomenon Tsal & Makovski (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 32: [351][352][353][354][355][356][357][358][359][360][361][362][363] 2006), which indicates that prior knowledge of a distractor location causes attention to be actively allocated to it. The AWB effect is demonstrated in a task that includes infrequent trials that involve two simultaneous dots embedded among flanker trials. The dot positioned at an expected distractor location is perceived as appearing before the dot at an expected empty location, indicating that attentional resources have initially been allocated to the expected distractor locations. The main goal of this study was to explore the boundaries of the AWB phenomenon by imposing perceptual, memory, and sensory constraints on the flanker task. The results showed that the AWB effect was obtained even when additional constraints severely taxed the information-processing system. We propose that a mandatory mechanism guides a fixed minimal amount of attention to expected distractor locations in a topdown manner.

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Section: Resilience Of the Awb Effectsupporting

confidence: 61%

White bear everywhere: Exploring the boundaries of the attentional white bear phenomenon

Lahav

Makovski

Tsal

2012

Atten Percept Psychophys

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“…Perhaps more important, our present results indicated that infrequently occurring onset flankers captured attention, even though participants were performing a high-load search. These results suggest that (Couperus, 2009;Theeuwes et al, 2004). For example, Theeuwes et al showed that intermixing high-and lowperceptual-load trials affected capture.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…Given the results of the present study, it would seem that perceptual load effects reflect the combination of higher level attentional control settings (e.g., Folk et al, 1992;Neo & Chua, 2006;Theeuwes, Kramer, & Belopolsky, 2004) and lower level perceptual effects, such as the competition between items in a search array (e.g., Torralbo & Beck, 2008). Thus, future conceptualizations of perceptual load theory must account for the effects of nonperceptual, top-down control mechanisms that appear to influence distractor interference.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, when the trial type was random with respect to load, such an effect was not observed. This effect was interpreted in the context of the results of Theeuwes et al (2004), and it was suggested that the anticipation of particular types of stimulus arrays (high vs. low load) can lead to changes in attentional scale and, thus, the extent of distractor processing.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Attentional capture under high perceptual load

Cosman

Vecera

2010

Psychon Bull Rev

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Attentional capture by abrupt onsets can be modulated by several factors, including the complexity, or perceptual load, of a scene. We have recently demonstrated that observers are less likely to be captured by abruptly appearing, task-irrelevant stimuli when they perform a search that is high, as opposed to low, in perceptual load (Cosman & Vecera, 2009), consistent with perceptual load theory. However, recent results indicate that onset frequency can influence stimulus-driven capture, with infrequent onsets capturing attention more often than did frequent onsets. Importantly, in our previous task, an abrupt onset was present on every trial, and consequently, attentional capture might have been affected by both onset frequency and perceptual load. In the present experiment, we examined whether onset frequency influences attentional capture under conditions of high perceptual load. When onsets were presented frequently, we replicated our earlier results; attentional capture by onsets was modulated under conditions of high perceptual load. Importantly, however, when onsets were presented infrequently, we observed robust capture effects. These results conflict with a strong form of load theory and, instead, suggest that exposure to the elements of a task (e.g., abrupt onsets) combines with high perceptual load to modulate attentional capture by task-irrelevant information.

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“…Recent evidence from our lab (Cosman & Vecera, in press) and others (Biggs & Gibson, 2010;Couperus, 2009;Theeuwes, Kramer, & Belopolsky, 2004) demonstrates that load effects are at least in part driven by top-down attentional control settings. For example, Theeuwes et al showed that intertrial expectancies play a role in perceptual load effects.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attentional capture by motion onsets is modulated by perceptual load

Cosman

Vecera

2010

Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics

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The onset of motion captures attention during visual search even if the motion is not task relevant, which suggests that motion onsets capture attention in a stimulus-driven manner. However, we have recently shown that stimulus-driven attentional capture by abruptly appearing objects is attenuated under conditions of high perceptual load. In the present study, we examined the influence of perceptual load on attentional capture by another type of dynamic stimulus: the onset of motion. Participants searched for a target letter through briefly presented low-and high-load displays. On each trial, two irrelevant flankers also appeared, one with a motion onset and one that was static. Flankers defined by a motion onset captured attention in the low-load but not in the high-load displays. This modulation of capture in high-load displays was not the result of overall lengthening of reaction times (RTs) in this condition, since search for a single low-contrast target lengthened RTs but did not influence capture. These results, together with those of previous studies, suggest that perceptual load can modulate attentional capture by dynamic stimuli.

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Attentional set interacts with perceptual load in visual search

Cited by 88 publications

References 20 publications

White bear everywhere: Exploring the boundaries of the attentional white bear phenomenon

White bear everywhere: Exploring the boundaries of the attentional white bear phenomenon

Attentional capture under high perceptual load

Attentional capture by motion onsets is modulated by perceptual load

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