Voluntary Control of Task Selection Does Not Eliminate the Impact of Selection History on Attention

Abstract

The human visual system can only process a fraction of the information present in a typical visual scene, and selection is historically framed as the outcome of bottom–up and top–down control processes. In this study, we evaluated how a third factor, an individual's selection history, interacts with top–down control mechanisms during visual search. Participants in our task were assigned to one of two groups in which they developed a history of either shape or color selection in one task, while searching for a shape singleton in a second task. A voluntary task selection procedure allowed participants to choose which task they would perform on each trial, thereby maximizing their top–down preparation. We recorded EEG throughout and extracted lateralized ERP components that index target selection (NT) and distractor suppression (PD). Our results showed that selection history continued to guide attention during visual search, even when top–down control mechanisms were maximized with voluntary task selection. For participants with a history of color selection, the NT component elicited by a shape target was attenuated when accompanied by a color distractor, and the distractor itself elicited a larger PD component. In addition, task-switching results revealed that participants in the color group had larger, asymmetric switch costs implying increased competition between task sets. Our results support the notion that selection history is a significant factor in attention guidance, orienting the visual system reflexively to objects that contradict an individual's current goals—even when these goals are intrinsically selected and prepared ahead of time.

Voluntary choice tasks increase control settings and reduce capture

“…The task-switching literature has shown that voluntary choice designs in which participants choose what they will respond to, allow for optimal task set preparation when compared to trial-by-trial cuing paradigms (Arrington & Logan, 2005;Chen & Hsieh, 2015). This was confirmed with a comparison of a cuing and a voluntary choice variant of matched attention capture tasks, using the pre-stimulus CNV component as an index of proactive task set preparation (Henare et al, 2020). In contrast to the cuing task, results showed more pre-stimulus activation in the voluntary task that was also unaffected by intertrial factors.…”

“…In the categorization task, they categorized either a colour or shape singleton depending on group assignment. In the voluntary version of the experiment (Henare et al, 2020) participants performed the exact same tasks except that prior to trial initiation, they made an un-speeded decision about whether they would do a search trial or categorization trial. These data provide two main avenues for analysis.…”

“…The voluntary choice task required a permanent comprehensive reinstatement of the relevant task set which includes stimulus-response mappings, specification of response hand, and an updating of search templates. These processes require the involvement of higher-level control and working memory processes as evidenced by the increased preparatory activity seen in the CNV (Henare et al, 2020).…”

Distracted by Previous Experience: Integrating Selection History, Current Task Demands and Saliency in an Algorithmic Model

“…One special form of selection history has been investigated in [1,6,7]. These studies combined an associative learning task with a visual search task.…”

“…In this paper we introduce an algorithmic-level model (in the sense of Marr [31]) to show how bottom-up, top-down and selection history compete against each other to guide visual attention toward a specific target. By selection history we mean the effect of learning from previous experience on the current task (see [1,6,7]). The model comprises priority maps to integrate goal-driven, saliency-based and history-related biases in a winner-take-all manner.…”