Explicit goal-driven attention, unlike implicitly learned attention, spreads to secondary tasks.

Abstract

To what degree does spatial attention for one task spread to all stimuli in the attended region, regardless of task relevance? Most models imply that spatial attention acts through a unitary priority map in a task-general manner. We show that implicit learning, unlike endogenous spatial cuing, can bias spatial attention within one task without biasing attention to a spatially overlapping secondary task. Participants completed a visual search task superimposed on a background containing scenes, which they were told to encode for a later memory task. Experiments 1 and 2 used explicit instructions to bias spatial attention to one region for visual search; Experiment 3 used location probability cuing to implicitly bias spatial attention. In location probability cuing, a target appeared in one region more than others despite participants not being told of this. In all experiments, search performance was better in the cued region than in uncued regions. However, scene memory was better in the cued region only following endogenous guidance, not after implicit biasing of attention. These data support a dual-system view of top-down attention that dissociates goal-driven and implicitly learned attention. Goal-driven attention is task general, amplifying processing of a cued region across tasks, whereas implicit statistical learning is task-specific. (PsycINFO Database Record

Implicit location probability learning does not induce baseline shifts of visuospatial attention

“…Stimuli Our paradigm was adapted from Addleman et al (2018). Throughout the experiment, a red fixation dot subtending 0.15°visual angle remained in the display's center.…”

“…For example, LPL acquired in letter search transfers to a similar search task for a small arrow superimposed on natural scenes (Salovich, Remington, & Jiang, 2017). Conversely, no transfer was observed from letter search to a letter foraging task that required selection of any one of many target letters to receive a reward (Jiang, Swallow, Won, Cistera, & Rosenbaum, 2015), or from letter search to scene memory (Addleman, Tao, Remington, & Jiang, 2018). Unfortunately, these studies' two-phase designs, in which participants trained on one task and then completed a second task, prevent conclusions about whether LPL yields baseline shifts of attention; because participants knew the upcoming task, they could adjust their attentional set for each task.…”

Implicit location probability learning does not induce baseline shifts of visuospatial attention

“…Moreover, the higher frequency of letter trials than scene trials may have further incentivized the deployment of attention in anticipation of letter trials, but we found no evidence of this effect. LPL benefitted only letter search, indicating that it results in an on-line search habit initiated after stimuli appear (Addleman et al, 2018;Jiang, 2018).…”

“…Our paradigm was adapted from Addleman et al (2018). Throughout the experiment, a red fixation dot subtending 0.15° visual angle remained in the display's center.…”

Spontaneous task structure formation results in a cost to incidental memory of task stimuli

“…Such conflict between long-term encoding of pair-response contingencies and the response rule currently in working memory suggests that there may be a cost to memory incurred with the cognitive flexibility provided by structure building. One question that arises from these data is whether this cost to memory is observed only for the type of structure building assessed in our study or generalizes to scenarios when selective attention more readily biases control processing (e.g., Addleman, Tao, Remington, & Jiang, 2018).…”