Spatial distribution of visual attention: Perceptual sensitivity and response latency

Abstract

Studies of the spatial distribution of visual attention have shown that attentional facilitation monotonically decreases in a graded fashion with increasing distance from an attended location. However, reaction time (RT) measures have typically shown broader gradients than have signal detection (SD) measures of perceptual sensitivity. It is not clear whether these differences have arisen because the stages of information processing indexed by RT measures are different from those indexed by SD measures, or whether these differences are due to methodological confounds in the SD studies. In the present set of experiments, the spatial distribution of attention was studied by using a luminance detection task in an endogenous cuing paradigm that was designed to permit accurate calculations of SD and RT measures for targets at cued and uncued locations. Subjects made target-present/absent decisions at one of six possible cued or uncued upper visual hemifield locations on each trial. The results from three experiments suggest that the differences between broad and focal attentionaldistributions are not the result of different stages of information processing indexed by RT measures as opposed to SD measures. Rather, the differing distributions appear to reflect variations in attentional allocation strategies induced by the perceptual requirements typical of RT paradigms as opposed to SD paradigms. These findings support numerous prior studies showing that spatial attention affects perceptual sensitivity and that the strategic allocation of attention is a highly flexible process.It has been well established that precuing covert spatial attention to a specific location in the visual field facilitates response performance for stimuli appearing at the cued location. Many studies have shown, for example, that reaction time (RT) is faster for events occurring at an attended spatial region than for events occurring at an unattended spatial region (e.g., Posner, 1978Posner, , 1980Posner, Snyder, & Davidson, 1980;Shulman, Sheehy, & Wilson, 1986;Shulman, Wilson, & Sheehy, 1985; see Klein, Kingstone, & Pontefract, 1992, for a recent review). Spatial attention has also been shown to improve detection and discrimination accuracy for events at attended as The authors are grateful to Rob Egly, Ray Klein, Amishi Jha, and Mado Proverbio for helpful discussions on portions of this work, and to Mike Gazzaniga and Steve Hillyard for advice and support. We also thank Steve Luck, Jon Hansen, and ClifKussmaul for their assistance, and to Art Kramer, Hermann Miiller, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an early version of this manuscript. The data from Experiment I were originally presented at the inaugural meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, San Francisco, March, 1994. opposed to unattended locations (e.g., Bashinski & Bacharach, 1980;Downing, 1988;Hawkins et al., 1990;Heinze & Mangun, 1995;Luck et al., 1994;Mangun & Hillyard, 1988;Muller & Humphreys, 1991).How attention is distributed across the visual field when d...

Mapping the structure of perceptual and visual–motor abilities in healthy young adults

“…For example, both Depth Perception disparity thresholds and response times were correlated across the three viewing conditions; however, thresholds and response times did not cross-correlate with each other. This observation supports the notion that response speed and perceptual sensitivity are separable facets of performance (Handy, Kingstone, & Mangun, 1996;O'Connor & Burns, 2003), even when measured within the same task. In addition, the score of Near-Far Quickness correlated with the Depth Perception Reaction Times, but not the Depth Perception thresholds.…”

Direct neurophysiological evidence for spatial suppression surrounding the focus of attention in vision

“…In addition, shape matching between a cued and an uncued color singleton becomes degraded when the distance between them is reduced (28). Furthermore, single-cell recordings in monkeys (8,10,29) and event-related potential and functional MRI studies in humans (14,30,31) hint at the possibility that neural enhancement in the focus of attention may be accompanied by neural suppression of the immediate surround.In contrast, other behavioral and electrophysiological studies have found simple monotonic gradients of attention (18)(19)(20)(21)(22). However, these monotonic gradients may reflect an insufficiently dense sampling of the attentional gradient or the use of measures that conflate perceptual and postperceptual mechanisms of attention.…”

“…In contrast, other behavioral and electrophysiological studies have found simple monotonic gradients of attention (18)(19)(20)(21)(22). However, these monotonic gradients may reflect an insufficiently dense sampling of the attentional gradient or the use of measures that conflate perceptual and postperceptual mechanisms of attention.…”

“…Many behavioral and electrophysiological studies of attention have indicated that attending to a location produces a monotonic gradient of processing efficiency around the attended location (18)(19)(20)(21)(22). In contrast, computational models motivated by the known anatomy and physiology of the primate visual system have predicted that the spatial distribution of cortical activity around the focus of attention may be more complex than a simple gradient.…”

“…More recent data from functional MRI in humans indicate that enhancement and suppression may cooperate across the visual scene (14, 15), leading to an increase in selectivity in a push-pull-like manner (15). That is, a spatially organized combination of enhancement and suppression may effectively sharpen the demarcation of relevant from irrelevant inputs, particularly in cluttered visual scenes in which neural representations of relevant and irrelevant information may become mixed together (16, 17) .Many behavioral and electrophysiological studies of attention have indicated that attending to a location produces a monotonic gradient of processing efficiency around the attended location (18)(19)(20)(21)(22). In contrast, computational models motivated by the known anatomy and physiology of the primate visual system have predicted that the spatial distribution of cortical activity around the focus of attention may be more complex than a simple gradient.…”