The impact of task rules on distracter processing: automatic categorization of irrelevant stimuli

Abstract

The goal of the study was to investigate whether task rules are automatically applied to irrelevant distracters. In three experiments, subjects categorized target words which were superimposed on distracter pictures. The categorization rule was arbitrary and the distracters were not relevant at any point during the experiment. We found congruency effects for distracters that belonged to the task-relevant categories, but were never presented as target words. Responses were faster when target and distracter belonged to the same category, i.e., were mapped to the same response, than when they were mapped to different responses. Since the distracters were never responded to in the course of the experiment, interference caused by retrieval of S-R episodes cannot explain the results. Instead, we propose that even arbitrary categorization rules are applied to all suitable stimuli, including distracters. Results are taken as evidence that a currently relevant task rule enhances processing of target-related information thereby increasing interference by task related, but currently irrelevant information.

Now hear this: Inattentional deafness depends on task relatedness

“…Therefore, when participants searched for X or N in a centrally presented visual array, those letters were taskrelevant if they occurred anywhere in the visual scene, and as Tellinghuisen and Nowak (2003) demonstrated, even if they occurred in the auditory modality. Reisenauer and Dreisbach (2013) directly tested how task performance rules and subsequent response activations influenced the processing of to-be-ignored picture distractors in a two-alternative forced choice visual-word categorization task. Participants responded to trials in which a single word was superimposed over a picture (e.g., the word flag superimposed on a picture of a spinning top), in which words were the targets, while the pictures were to be ignored.…”

“…In addition, such congruency effects were found even for picture stimuli that were not part of the target set (i.e., pictures of objects that never appeared as target words). Reisenauer and Dreisbach (2013) concluded that in the task rule condition, response interference occurred because the implementation of a relevant task rule increased processing of all task-related stimulus features, even if the features occurred in a to-be-ignored picture. The categorization rules set by the task instructions were the critical variable determining which word-picture combinations influenced the speed of processing.…”

“…In Experiments 2 and 3 of the present study, we explored the degree to which to-be-ignored auditory stimuli may be processed by manipulating categorization rules in a way similar to Reisenauer and Dreisbach's (2013) formulation, and also as a function of perceptual load. We expected auditory stimuli to have a greater impact on processing during a visual search task when the auditory information mapped onto the response categories of the visual search task, particularly when perceptual load was high.…”

“…Such experiments should help explain the discrepancy between the findings of Lavie and colleagues (Macdonald & Lavie, 2011;Raveh & Lavie, 2015) and those of both Tellinghuisen and Nowak (2003) and Experiment 1 of this study. If the requirements of a task inherently activate rules for that task, as Dreisbach (2012; see also Reisenauer & Dreisbach, 2013 argued, we hypothesized that auditory stimuli that most directly map onto the categorization rules for responding to visual targets should have a greater influence on target processing than those that are less directly related to the categorization rules. In Tellinghuisen and Nowak's study, the auditory stimuli were task-related, but participants were instructed that they were not task relevant; that is, participants were told that they should be ignored.…”

“…In Tellinghuisen and Nowak's study, the auditory stimuli were task-related, but participants were instructed that they were not task relevant; that is, participants were told that they should be ignored. As Reisenauer and Dreisbach (2013) showed, the currently active task rules, which are set by a participant acquiescing to follow the instructions of a task, will influence control settings and direct attention to any response-discriminative stimulus feature that fits that task rule, so such stimuli should act as foils (Lleras et al, 2013). We predicted that stimuli that map onto the goals of a visual search task should be processed such that incompatible stimuli will result in longer RTs than compatible stimuli, particularly under high-perceptual-load conditions, as had been found by Tellinghuisen and Nowak and our Experiment 1.…”