Even frequent and expected words are not identified without spatial attention

Abstract

Can visual objects be identified without spatial attention? For example, could a driver attending to another car interpret a passing road sign? This question has generated a large literature, in large part because it is central to how we characterize human visual attention (e.g., whether visual information processing is serial or parallel). The present study examined how spatial attention affects the semantic activation of words. In particular, we examined whether increasing the expectation for specific words within a given context, by repeating a small set of target words, would enable word processing in the absence of spatial attention. The computations involved in word recognition could potentially become much simpler when the set of possible words is greatly reduced, so it is plausible that word recognition would become more automatic and not require spatial attention. Spatial Attention in Word ProcessingThe role of spatial attention in word processing has long been a contentious issue (see Neely & Kahan, 2001, for a review). Most studies have used some variant of a priming paradigm. In a typical paradigm, a word (which we will refer to as the prime) that requires no response is presented simultaneously with, or immediately preceding, a target word to which a speeded response is made. In such studies it is well documented that, when the prime is attended, participants respond faster to related targets than to unrelated targets. In the lexical decision task (word vs. nonword), for instance, participants are faster to indicate that the target is a word (e.g., butter) when an attended prime is a related word (e.g., bread ) rather than an unrelated word (e.g., nurse; e.g., Meyer & Schvaneveldt, 1971; see Neely, 1991, for a review of associative priming effects). Similarly, people are slower to name the color of a bar if the name of a different color is printed nearby (the Stroop effect; e.g., Stroop, 1935; see MacLeod, 1991, for a review).In most of the studies described above, the prime was presented in an attended location, even though the prime itself did not require a response. Priming effects have proven to be less consistent when attention is not directed to the prime. Some studies have suggested that spatial attention plays little or no role in semantic activation during word processing (e.g., Brown, Gore, & Carr, 973© 2010 The Psychonomic Society, Inc. Previous studies have disagreed about the extent to which people extract meaning from words presented outside the focus of spatial attention. The present study examined a possible explanation for such discrepancies inspired by attenuation theory: Unattended words can be read more automatically when they are expected within a given context (e.g., due to frequent repetition). We presented a brief prime word in lowercase, followed by a target word in uppercase. Participants indicated whether the target word belonged to a particular category (e.g., "sports"). When we used a visual cue to draw attention to the location of the prime word, it produced substantia...

Modeling the length effect for words in lexical decision: The role of visual attention

“…The capacity of BRAID to account for word length effect in LD primarily relies on a Gaussian distribution of attention, thus modulating attention across letters within the input word. Our account of visual attention as modulating letter processing within single words is strongly supported by experimental findings that show an impact of visual attention in single word processing (Besner et al, 2016;Lien et al, 2010) and lexical decision (McCann et al, 1992), that support early prelexical involvement of visual attention (Risko et al, 2010;Stolz and Stevanovski, 2004) and that assume modulation through visual attention of the rate of feature uptake (Stolz and Stevanovski, 2004;Carrasco, 2011). In BRAID, a fully defined visual attention device is for the first time implemented in a word recognition model, showing how attention modulates sensory processing and what is the impact of this modulation on word processing.…”

Viewing-position effects in the Stroop task: Initial fixation position modulates Stroop effects in fully colored words

“…This view is supported by many studies indicating that Stroop effects persist in experimental conditions that should help participants ignore the meaning of the word (see, e.g., Lachter, Ruthruff, Lien, & McCann, 2008; see also Lien, Ruthruff, Kouchi, & Lachter, 2010, for a discussion). Participants thus seem to process printed words in the same way, regardless of whether they are informative for the task at hand.…”

Spatial and Temporal Attention Modulate the Early Stages of Face Processing: Behavioural Evidence from a Reaching Paradigm

“…In Expt 1A, we adapted a spatial cueing procedure introduced by Lachter and colleagues [25] in which an exogenous cue localised subjects’ transient spatial attention at either the prime or target location (upper or lower panel – see Figure 1). Variants of this paradigm, widespread in the masked priming literature [16], [23], [24], [42], [43], typically yield robust spatial cueing effects. Importantly, Lachter et al have highlighted that this paradigm actively prevents ‘slips’ of spatial attention, and, by extension, the possibility that experimental effects observed outside the locus of spatial attention “might actually be due to slippage of attention to the supposedly unattended [stimuli]” [43].…”

“…Variants of this paradigm, widespread in the masked priming literature [16], [23], [24], [42], [43], typically yield robust spatial cueing effects. Importantly, Lachter et al have highlighted that this paradigm actively prevents ‘slips’ of spatial attention, and, by extension, the possibility that experimental effects observed outside the locus of spatial attention “might actually be due to slippage of attention to the supposedly unattended [stimuli]” [43]. We have adhered to the steps recommended by Lachter to prevent attentional slippage by (1) presenting targets in a fixed location, thereby encouraging subjects to direct endogenous attention to the target location; (2) using a sudden onset spatial cue to capture spatial attention exogenously; and (3) presenting prime items briefly (50 ms) to prevent shifts of attention to them before being backward masked [25].…”