Changes in the spatial spread of attention with ageing

Lawrence, Rebecca; Edwards, Mark; Goodhew, Stephanie Catherine

doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2018.06.009

Cited by 25 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 72 publications

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“…While the Posner paradigm was designed to measure the influence of shifts of attention, it has since been adapted to measure group differences in attentional spread (e.g. Wilson et al, 2016;Lawrence et al, 2018). In order to do so, the spread of attentional inhibition around a cued location is mapped by measuring response times for targets appearing at varying distances from the cue (Figure 4).…”

Section: Culture and Attention Distribution 13mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In contrast, spatial attention scaling is a measure of whether an observer distributes attention narrowly or broadly across a region when minimal task demands are imposed (e.g. Bennett & Pratt, 2001;LaBerge, 1983;Lawrence et al, 2018).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, Lawrence et al (2018) recently demonstrated that a reliable age difference in attentional spread exists, where older adults distributed attention narrowly compared to younger adults. In the current study, we were interested in understanding how another relatively stable factor, cultural background, influences spatial attentional distribution.…”

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Does cultural background predict the spatial distribution of attention?

et al. 2019

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The current study aimed to explore cultural differences in the covert spatial distribution of attention. In particular, we tested whether those born in an East Asian country adopted a different distribution of attention compared to individuals born in a Western country. Previous work suggests that Western individuals tend to distribute attention narrowly and that East Asian individuals distribute attention broadly. However, these studies have used indirect methods to infer spatial attention scale. In particular, they have not measured changes in attention across space, nor have they controlled for differences eye movements patterns, which can differ across cultures. To address this, in the current study, we used an inhibition of return (IOR) paradigm which directly measured changes in attention across space, while controlling for eye movements. The use of the IOR task was a significant advancement, as it allowed for a highly sensitive measure of attention distribution compared to past research. Critically, using this new measure, we failed to observe a cultural difference in the distribution of covert spatial attention. Instead, individuals from East Asian countries and Western countries adopted a similar attention spread. However, we did observe a cultural difference in response speed, whereby Western participants were relatively faster to detect targets in the IOR task. This relationship persisted, even after controlling for individual variation in attention slope, indicating that factors other than attention distribution might account for cultural differences in response speed. Therefore, this study provides robust, converging evidence that group differences in covert spatial attentional distribution do not necessarily drive cultural variation in response speed.

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Section: Culture and Attention Distribution 13mentioning

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Does cultural background predict the spatial distribution of attention?

et al. 2019

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“…Instead, it is likely that unfilled shapes provide spatial structure to a visual scene, which can alter the region over which attention is deployed (e.g. Egly & Homa, 1984;Jefferies and Di Lollo, 2015;Lawrence et al, 2018;Taylor et al, 2015). For example, Jefferies…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of scaling rather than shaping attention: Changes in the scale of attention using global motion inducers influence both spatial and temporal acuity.

Lawrence¹,

Edwards²,

Goodhew³

2020

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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Originally, the zoom lens model of attention scaling proposed that narrowing attention to a small area of the visual field improves visual perception (Eriksen & James, 1986). A large body of empirical evidence supports this model, showing that narrow attention enhances performance in spatial acuity tasks. Despite this, the zoom lens model does not explicitly consider how attention scaling influences different elements of vision, for example, temporal processing. More recent models of attention scaling suggests that attentional scaling has different effects on spatial and temporal acuity (Goodhew et al., 2017, 2016). However, the evidence to date supporting these models has had one major pitfall: different sized unfilled shapes are presented in an attempt to focus attention in or spread it out broadly. This method is problematic because participants may not spread their attention across the entire region defined by unfilled shapes, instead, attending to only the annulus region of the shape. To address this, we developed a new method to manipulate attention, one which requires the pooling of information across the entire stimulus, not just around the outer border. We then tested the influence of attention scaling on perception using spatial and temporal gap tasks. Across two experiments, we found that sustaining a narrow attention scale improved both spatial and temporal acuity. These findings challenge recent research suggesting that attention scaling has differential impacts on spatial and temporal processing, instead supporting the zoom lens model, proposed over 30 years ago.

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“…Inhibition of return is a process or mechanism by which processing of recently detected stimuli are suppressed, which thereby may make attentional resources available for processing novel stimuli. The increase in Page 19 of 21 position priming in older subjects can then be explained by a loss of inhibitory control with age (Lawrence, Edwards and Goodhew, 2018). This results in decreased inhibition of return, making it is easier to orient to a target repeated at the same position.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Implicit perceptual memory can increase or decrease with ageing

Zhivago

Shashidhara

Garani

et al. 2019

Preprint

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A decline in declarative or explicit memory has been extensively characterized in cognitive ageing and is a hallmark of cognitive impairments. However, whether and how implicit perceptual memory varies with ageing or cognitive impairment is unclear.Here, we compared implicit perceptual memory and explicit memory measures in three groups of subjects: (1) 59 healthy young volunteers (20-30 years); (2) 238 healthy old volunteers (50-90 years) and (3) 21 patients with mild cognitive impairment i.e. MCI (50-90 years). To measure explicit memory, subjects were tested on standard recognition and recall tasks. To measure implicit perceptual memory, we used a classic perceptual priming paradigm. Subjects had to report the shape of a visual search pop-out target. Implicit priming was measured as the speedup in response time for targets with the same vs different color/position on consecutive trials.Our main findings are as follows: (1) Explicit memory was weaker in old compared to young subjects, and in MCI compared to age-matched controls; (2) Surprisingly, implicit perceptual memory did not always decline with age: color priming was smaller in older subjects but position priming was larger; (3) Position priming was less frequent in the MCI group compared to age-matched controls; (4) Implicit and explicit memory measures were uncorrelated in all three groups. Thus, implicit memory can increase or decrease with age or cognitive impairment, but this decline does not covary with explicit memory. We propose that incorporating explicit and implicit measures can yield a richer characterization of memory.

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Changes in the spatial spread of attention with ageing

Cited by 25 publications

References 72 publications

Does cultural background predict the spatial distribution of attention?

Does cultural background predict the spatial distribution of attention?

The impact of scaling rather than shaping attention: Changes in the scale of attention using global motion inducers influence both spatial and temporal acuity.

Implicit perceptual memory can increase or decrease with ageing

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