The size of an attentional window modulates attentional capture by color singletons

Belopolsky, Artem V.; Zwaan, Laura; Theeuwes, Jan; Kramer, Arthur F.

doi:10.3758/bf03194124

Cited by 173 publications

(220 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…For example, attentional capture from peripheral singletons is greater when the task requirements solicit diffuse rather than focused attention (Belopolsky & Theeuwes, 2010;Belopolsky, Zwaan, Theeuwes, & Kramer, 2007; for data slightly incompatible with this explanation, see also Santangelo, Botta, Lupiáñez, & Spence, 2011). Moreover attentional capture from irrelevant colour singletons is greater when the concurrent WM load is high (vs. low; Lavie & de Fockert, 2005).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 81%

Working memory load can both improve and impair selective attention: Evidence from the Navon paradigm

Ahmed

Fockert

2012

Atten Percept Psychophys

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Selective attention to relevant targets has been shown to depend on the availability of working memory (WM). Under conditions of high WM load, processing of irrelevant distractors is enhanced. Here we showed that this detrimental effect of WM load on selective attention efficiency is reversed when the task requires global-rather than locallevel processing. Participants were asked to attend to either the local or the global level of a hierarchical Navon stimulus while keeping either a low or a high load in WM. In line with previous findings, during attention to the local level, distractors at the global level produced more interference under high than under low WM load. By contrast, loading WM had the opposite effect of improving selective attention during attention to the global level. The findings demonstrate that the impact of WM load on selective attention is not invariant, but rather is dependent on the level of the to-be-attended information. Keywords Selective attention . Working memory . Cognitive and attentional controlIt is well established that the availability of cognitive resources affects the efficiency of visual selective attention. Previous research has demonstrated that temporarily limiting the availability of cognitive resources by imposing concurrent external load (e.g., Lavie, Hirst, de Fockert, & Viding, 2004) impedes the success with which the distracting influence of irrelevant information is overcome. As a result, interference effects from irrelevant distractors are greater when working memory (WM) load is high (as compared to low).Typically, this detrimental influence of cognitive load on the ability to prevent distraction has been shown in tasks requiring selective attention to local information and the avoidance of peripheral irrelevant information. For example, Lavie et al. (2004) found that the distracting influence of a peripheral irrelevant letter, when attending to a centrally presented target letter, is greater when WM load is high than when it is low (see also de Fockert & Wu, 2009). However, visual information often comprises local-level information that is subsumed within a larger holistic pattern, such as a face or scene. Whilst the impact of WM load on locally attended selection is well established, the impact of WM load on the capacity to selectively attend to information at a more global level, whilst ignoring local-level information, is not known. Here we used hierarchical Navon-type stimuli (Navon, 1977) to investigate the impact of WM load on selective attention to different levels of the same stimulus.Hierarchical stimuli consist of a large global shape made up of smaller local shapes. When attention is directed to one of the levels, the degree to which relevant information is successfully attended to is quantified by the performance difference (congruency effect) between trials when the information at the unattended level is the same as (congruent trials) or different from (incongruent trials) the attended information. Measuring congruency effects as a functio...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 81%

Working memory load can both improve and impair selective attention: Evidence from the Navon paradigm

Ahmed

Fockert

2012

Atten Percept Psychophys

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“…This window account has been supported by several studies. Belopolsky, Zwaan, Theeuwes, and Kramer (2007) showed that an irrelevant color singleton was more likely to attract attention in the diffuse-attention condition than in the focused-attention condition. Furthermore, Proulx and Egeth (2006) showed that as target-nontarget similarity was increased, the salient irrelevant singleton had less impact on search.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attentional capture is contingent on the interaction between task demand and stimulus salience

Han

2009

Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics

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The aim of this research was to investigate the potential impacts of task demand and stimulus salience on the stimulus-driven attentional capture effect. The participants performed an inefficient visual search task while an irrelevant luminance singleton was present. In Experiment 1, the task demand was manipulated while the stimulus salience of the irrelevant singleton was fixed. With the same salient singleton, the attentional capture effect was observed in the low-difficulty condition but disappeared in the high-difficulty condition. In Experiment 2, the stimulus salience was manipulated while the task demand was fixed. With the same task, the highly salient singleton captured attention, whereas the relatively lowly salient singleton could not. In Experiment 3, both task demand and stimulus salience were manipulated simultaneously. The stimulus-driven attentional capture effect by the irrelevant singleton increased not only as the task demand decreased but also as the stimulus salience increased. The present study might provide a way to reconcile conflicting findings in the attentional capture literature; the underlying neural mechanism is discussed.

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“…Based on the present findings, we considered that the results were best explained by the attentional window hypothesis (Belopolsky, Zwaan, Theeuwes, & Kramer, 2007;Theeuwes, 1994Theeuwes, , 2004, which has been discussed in the Yang et al (2014) to relate attention to the decision making process. Yang et al (2014) manipulated the validity of the exogenous cue in a redundant-target detection task.…”

Section: Decision Processes In Detecting Redundant Targetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Selective attention modulates the effect of target location probability on redundant signal processing

Chang

Little

Yang

2016

Atten Percept Psychophys

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We investigated the decision process underlying the detection of targets at multiple locations. In three experiments using the same observers, target location probability and attentional instructions were manipulated. A redundanttarget detection task was conducted in which participants were required to detect a dot presented at one of two locations. When the dot appeared at the two locations with equal frequency (Experiment 1), those participants who were found to have limited to unlimited capacity were shown to adopt a parallel, self-terminating strategy. By contrast, those participants who had supercapacity were shown to process redundant targets in a coactive manner. When targets were presented with unequal probability, two participants adopted a parallel, self-terminating strategy regardless of whether they were informed the target location probability (Experiment 3) or not (Experiment 2). For the remaining two participants, the strategy changed from parallel, self-terminating to serial, selfterminating as a result of the probability instructions. In Experiments 2 and 3, all the participants were of unlimited to limited capacity. Taken together, these results suggest that target location probability differently affects the selection of a decision strategy and highlight the role of controlled attention in selecting a decision strategy.

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The size of an attentional window modulates attentional capture by color singletons

Cited by 173 publications

References 21 publications

Working memory load can both improve and impair selective attention: Evidence from the Navon paradigm

Working memory load can both improve and impair selective attention: Evidence from the Navon paradigm

Attentional capture is contingent on the interaction between task demand and stimulus salience

Selective attention modulates the effect of target location probability on redundant signal processing

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