The role of spatial and nonspatial information in visual selection

Theeuwes, Jan; Burg, Erik Van der

doi:10.1037/e527352012-206

Cited by 11 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…Such an interpretation is in line with those of previous studies examining both feature-based (Moore & Egeth, 1998;Theeuwes & Van der Burg, 2007) and spatial (Dosher & Lu, 2000;Shiu & Pashler, 1994) attention, and we argue that information held in VWM can reduce uncertainty regarding a target's location during visual search without altering its perceptibility.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

The contents of visual working memory reduce uncertainty during visual search

Cosman

Vecera

2011

Atten Percept Psychophys

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Information held in visual working memory (VWM) influences the allocation of attention during visual search, with targets matching the contents of VWM receiving processing benefits over those that do not. Such an effect could arise from multiple mechanisms: First, it is possible that the contents of working memory enhance the perceptual representation of the target. Alternatively, it is possible that when a target is presented among distractor items, the contents of working memory operate postperceptually to reduce uncertainty about the location of the target. In both cases, a match between the contents of VWM and the target should lead to facilitated processing. However, each effect makes distinct predictions regarding set-size manipulations; whereas perceptual enhancement accounts predict processing benefits regardless of set size, uncertainty reduction accounts predict benefits only with set sizes larger than 1, when there is uncertainty regarding the target location. In the present study, in which briefly presented, masked targets were presented in isolation, there was a negligible effect of the information held in VWM on target discrimination. However, in displays containing multiple masked items, information held in VWM strongly affected target discrimination. These results argue that working memory representations act at a postperceptual level to reduce uncertainty during visual search.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

The contents of visual working memory reduce uncertainty during visual search

Cosman

Vecera

2011

Atten Percept Psychophys

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“…We specifically used a more abstract word cue, instead of a symbolic cue showing the actual color or onset, to make sure that the cue could not generate priming of any of the features of the upcoming target (see, e.g., Theeuwes & Van der Burg, 2007, who showed that a symbolic cue caused bottom-up priming). If, as is claimed by the contingent capture hypothesis, volitional top-down control determines attentional capture, there is no reason to assume that instantiating these settings at the beginning of each trial would render different results.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Importantly, previous studies have suggested that such intertrial effects are largely due to bottom-up priming (e.g., Kristjánsson, Wang, & Nakayama, 2002;Pinto, Olivers, & Theeuwes, 2005;Theeuwes et al, 2006;Theeuwes & Van der Burg, 2007. For example, Maljkovic and Nakayama (1994) investigated a mechanism referred to as priming of pop-out.…”

Section: The Role Of Intertrial Priming In Attentional Capturementioning

confidence: 99%

What is top-down about contingent capture?

Belopolsky

Schreij

Theeuwes

2010

Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics

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190

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In the present study, we explored the mechanisms involved in the contingent capture phenomenon, using a variant of the classic precuing paradigm of Folk, Remington, and Johnston (1992). Rather than keeping the target fixed over a whole block of trials (as has traditionally been done with contingent capture experiments), we encouraged participants to adopt a top-down set before each trial. If top-down attentional set determines which property captures attention, as is claimed by the contingent capture hypothesis, one would expect that only properties that match the top-down set would capture attention. We showed that even though participants knew what the target would be on the upcoming trial, both relevant and irrelevant properties captured attention (Experiment 1). An intertrial analysis (Experiments 1 and 2) showed that previous contingent capture findings may, to a large extent, be explained by intertrial priming. In addition, when participants were further forced into adopting the required top-down set (Experiments 3 and 4), irrelevant cues were suppressed, suggesting that top-down control might operate through disengagement of attention from the location of a property that does not match top-down goals. The present findings suggest that top-down control and intertrial priming make their own distinct contributions to the contingent capture phenomenon.

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“…Capture by the same motion cue when it was presented on only a small number of trials is strong evidence that the salient transient of the motion cue per se was not instrumental in capturing attention, as has previously been maintained (Abrams & Christ, 2003;Abrams & Christ, 2006;Lamy & Egeth, 2003;Belopolsky et al, 2010;Franconeri, Simons & Junge, 2004;Theeuwes & Van der Burg, 2007). Evidence supporting theories of stimulus-driven capture by salient onsets or motion come largely from visual search or irrelevant singletons (Theeuwes, 1991;Theeuwes, 1994;Schreij, Owens & Theeuwes, 2008) in which both targets and distractors are presented simultaneously.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 76%

“…More specifically, there has been considerable debate regarding the extent to which exogenous shifts of attention are modulated by top-down processes that reflect the goals and intentions of an observer (e.g., looking for 'red'). Indeed, implicit in most models of the visual attention -if not stated explicitly -is the notion that highly salient and irrelevant stimuli can guide selection (Duncan & Humphreys, 1989;Itti & Koch, 2000;Theeuwes, 2007;Wolfe, 1994), however, the conditions under which this can be the case have been debated. Resolving this issue is central to understanding how visual input is treated by early visual processes prior to attentional selection.…”

Section: Attentional Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attentional control: the role of task-expectations in determining attentional selection

Retell¹

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The human cognitive system is severely capacity limited. As such, only a select subset of visual input to the retina is fully processed by the cognitive system at any one point in time. To compensate, mechanisms of visual attention allow us to distribute these limited resources throughout the visual field according to properties of the visual input and our goals and intentions. Establishing the exact criteria by which visual input is selected to undergo further processing is central to understanding the processes that determine visual selection; processes that ultimately contribute to our conscious experience of the world. In this thesis, I focus on stimulus novelty and the role that task-expectancies play in determining visual selection. It is well documented that that which is new and unexpected often appears to standout in the environment and can attract visual attention (Horstmann, 2005; Meyer, Niepel, Rudolph & Schűtzwohl, 1991;Ranganath & Rainer, 2003;Yantis & Jonides 1990). However, the conditions under which this is the case and the mechanism by which we come to be sensitive to novel stimuli require some elucidation.Here I present 3 empirical chapters that explore the conditions under which novel and unexpected stimuli attract visual attention. In Chapter 2, I investigated whether attentional capture by unexpected stimuli reflects a form of stimulus driven capture and occurs contrary to the immediate goals on an observer. Across a series of experiments I found that an infrequent (~3-6% of trials) and irrelevant motion cue captured attention when observers had an active set for a specific target color.Critically, this effect was not observed when the same motion stimulus was presented frequently. Thus, task goals appear to modulate capture by stimuli that broadly conform to contextual expectations, while stimuli that violate these expectations appear to guide visual attention involuntarily.In chapter 3, I examined what it means for a stimulus to be 'unexpected'. The first presentation of an unexpected stimulus during visual search has been associated with large RT cost. In chapter 3, I independently varied prior exposure to an unexpected and irrelevant motion distractor and explicit knowledge of its occurrence to assess the contributions of each of these factors in determining the unexpectedness of the stimulus. Neither prior exposure, nor knowledge of occurrence served to attenuate the response to the unexpected motion distractor.ii These results suggest that the task expectations, which deviant stimuli are evaluated against, are highly context specific and derived from a process of implicit learning about stimulus relevance, and are a not shaped by explicit top-down knowledge about the likelihood of occurrence.In Chapter 4, I examined the time-course of attention shifts to unexpected stimuli. Previous authors (e.g., Horstmann, 2005;2006) have made the claim that shifts of attention to unexpected stimuli are delayed relative to expected stimuli and that this may suggest a dedicated orienting sy...

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The role of spatial and nonspatial information in visual selection

Cited by 11 publications

References 59 publications

The contents of visual working memory reduce uncertainty during visual search

The contents of visual working memory reduce uncertainty during visual search

What is top-down about contingent capture?

Attentional control: the role of task-expectations in determining attentional selection

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