Showing papers on "Attentional blink published in 2010"
TL;DR: The early anterior N100 and posterior P1 amplitudes elicited by fearful faces were larger than those eliciting by happy or neutral faces, a finding which is consistent with the presence of a 'negativity bias.
417 citations
TL;DR: This review extracts the central questions and the main lessons learnt from the past, and subsequently provides important directions for future research on the prominence of the attentional blink.
304 citations
TL;DR: The magnitude and latency of attentional enhancement of firing rates in V1, V2, and V4 in the same animals performing the same task are compared to suggest that attentional mechanisms operate via feedback from higher-order areas to lower-order ones.
Abstract: The visual processing of behaviorally relevant stimuli is enhanced through top-down attentional feedback. One possibility is that feedback targets early visual areas first and the attentional enhancement builds up at progressively later stages of the visual hierarchy. An alternative possibility is that the feedback targets the higher-order areas first and the attentional effects are communicated “backward” to early visual areas. Here, we compared the magnitude and latency of attentional enhancement of firing rates in V1, V2, and V4 in the same animals performing the same task. We found a reverse order of attentional effects, such that attentional enhancement was larger and earlier in V4 and smaller and later in V1, with intermediate results in V2. These results suggest that attentional mechanisms operate via feedback from higher-order areas to lower-order ones.
273 citations
TL;DR: It is suggested that pre-attentive estimation mechanisms works at all ranges, but in the subitizing range, attentive mechanisms also come into play.
Abstract: The numerosity of small numbers of objects, up to about four, can be rapidly appraised without error, a phenomenon known as subitizing. Larger numbers can either be counted, accurately but slowly, or estimated, rapidly but with errors. There has been some debate as to whether subitizing uses the same or different mechanisms than those of higher numerical ranges and whether it requires attentional resources. We measure subjects' accuracy and precision in making rapid judgments of numerosity for target numbers spanning the subitizing and estimation ranges while manipulating the attentional load, both with a spatial dual task and the "attentional blink" dual-task paradigm. The results of both attentional manipulations were similar. In the high-load attentional condition, Weber fractions were similar in the subitizing (2-4) and estimation (5-7) ranges (10-15%). In the low-load and single-task condition, Weber fractions substantially improved in the subitizing range, becoming nearly error-free, while the estimation range was relatively unaffected. The results show that the mechanisms operating over the subitizing and estimation ranges are not identical. We suggest that pre-attentive estimation mechanisms works at all ranges, but in the subitizing range, attentive mechanisms also come into play.
187 citations
TL;DR: Findings reveal a potential facilitation of development of attentional skills in children who are avid players of action video games, and young girls are at risk of under-performing on such tests, calling for a careful control of video game usage when assessing gender differences in attentional tasks.
186 citations
TL;DR: The emotional attentional blink paradigm may provide a useful technique for studying individual differences, and state manipulations in the sensitivity to food cues, and suggest an attentional mechanism through which hunger heightens perception of food cues.
142 citations
TL;DR: This study introduces a new signal detection measure termed subjective discriminability of invisibility (SDI) that allows one to distinguish between subjective blindness due to reduction of sensory signals or to lack of attentional access to sensory signals.
115 citations
TL;DR: The present study used the additional singleton paradigm of Theeuwes (1992) and showed that capture was abolished when the size of the attentional window was reduced by focusing on RSVP stream in the center of the screen.
103 citations
TL;DR: A more integrative view is proposed in which early auditory deprivation does not result in better or worse visual attention, rather, selected aspects of visual attention are modified in various ways along the developmental trajectory as a result of early deafness.
Abstract: The literature on visual attention in deaf individuals presents two competing views. On one hand, the deficit view proposes that auditory input is necessary for the development of visual attention; on the other hand, the compensation view holds that visual attention reorganizes to allow the individual to compensate for the lack of auditory input. While apparently contradictory, we suggest that these views shed complementary light on the cross-modal reorganization of visual attention after early deafness. First, these two fields of inquiry look at different aspects of attention. The deficit view is mostly supported by studies of allocation of attention in time, whereas the compensation view is backed by studies measuring the allocation of attention across space. Second, they focus on groups of different age and different background. Deficits have been documented mostly in children with mixed hearing loss aetiologies, whereas reorganization has been documented in a less representative, but more homogenous group of Deaf adults. We propose a more integrative view in which early auditory deprivation does not result in better or worse visual attention. Rather, selected aspects of visual attention are modified in various ways along the developmental trajectory as a result of early deafness.
81 citations
TL;DR: The separability of spatial selection and identification is interpreted as reflecting the independent operation of dorsal and ventral visual pathways, respectively, at least at the early stages of processing.
Abstract: Visual search involves deciding both where to look (spatial selection) and whether any given object is a target or a non-target (identification). The aim of the present study was to determine whether these two functions are separable in performance. Spatial selection was manipulated by an exogenous cue and identification was manipulated by whether a second target appeared after a short or long delay following a first target (the attentional blink, AB). Experiment 1 indicated an additive relation between non-informative spatial cueing and the AB, pointing to independent spatial and identification processes. Experiment 2 tested an informative spatial cue with similar results. Experiment 3 also showed an additive relationship, using a response measure that avoided possible floor effects. We interpret the separability of spatial selection and identification as reflecting the independent operation of dorsal and ventral visual pathways, respectively, at least at the early stages of processing.
78 citations
TL;DR: The findings suggest that task-irrelevant emotion information, particularly erotica, impairs intentional allocation of attention at early temporal stages, but at later temporal stages the effects of emotional stimuli can have an enhancing effect on directed attention.
Abstract: Background: Experimental research has shown that emotional stimuli can either enhance or impair attentional performance. However, the relative effects of specific emotional stimuli and the specific time course of these differential effects are unclear. Methodology/Principal Findings: In the present study, participants (n=50) searched for a single target within a rapid serial visual presentation of images. Irrelevant fear, disgust, erotic or neutral images preceded the target by two, four, six, or eight items. At lag 2, erotic images induced the greatest deficits in subsequent target processing compared to other images, consistent with a large emotional attentional blink. Fear and disgust images also produced a larger attentional blinks at lag 2 than neutral images. Erotic, fear, and disgust images continued to induce greater deficits than neutral images at lag 4 and 6. However, target processing deficits induced by erotic, fear, and disgust images at intermediate lags (lag 4 and 6) did not consistently differ from each other. In contrast to performance at lag 2, 4, and 6, enhancement in target processing for emotional stimuli was observed in comparison to neutral stimuli at lag 8. Conclusions/Significance: These findings suggest that task-irrelevant emotion information, particularly erotica, impairs intentional allocation of attention at early temporal stages, but at later temporal stages, emotional stimuli can have an enhancing effect on directed attention. These data suggest that the effects of emotional stimuli on attention can be both positive and negative depending upon temporal factors.
TL;DR: The results show that the time course of visual attention is dependent on emotional content of the stimuli and indicate that happy faces are associated with distributed attention or broad scope of attention and require fewer attentional resources than do sad faces.
Abstract: When a briefly presented and then masked visual object is identified, it impairs the identification of the second target for several hundred milliseconds. This phenomenon is known as attentional blink or attentional dwell time. The present study is an attempt to investigate the role of salient emotional information in shifts of covert visual attention over time. Two experiments were conducted using the dwell time paradigm, in which two successive targets are presented at different locations with a variable stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). In the first experiment, real emotional faces (happy/sad) were presented as the first target, and letters (L/T) were presented as the second target. The order of stimulus presentation was reversed in the second experiment. In the first experiment, identification of the letters preceded by happy faces showed better performance than did those preceded by sad faces at SOAs less than 200 msec. Similarly, happy faces were identified better than sad faces were at short SOAs in Experiment 2. The results show that the time course of visual attention is dependent on emotional content of the stimuli. The findings indicate that happy faces are associated with distributed attention or broad scope of attention and require fewer attentional resources than do sad faces.
TL;DR: Individual differences in personality traits related to positive affect, negative affect, and cognitive flexibility were used to predict individual differences in AB magnitude, and greater extraversion and openness predicted smaller ABs and greater openness predicted higher overall target accuracy.
Abstract: Accuracy for a second target is reduced when it is presented within 500 msec of a first target. This phenomenon is called the attentional blink (AB). A diffused attentional state (via positive affect or an additional task) has been shown to reduce the AB, whereas a focused attentional state (via negative affect) has been shown to increase the AB, purportedly by influencing the amount of attentional investment and flexibility. In the present study, individual differences in personality traits related to positive affect, negative affect, and cognitive flexibility were used to predict individual differences in AB magnitude. As hypothesized, greater extraversion and openness predicted smaller ABs. Greater openness also predicted higher overall target accuracy. Greater neuroticism predicted larger ABs and lower overall target accuracy. Conscientiousness, associated with less cognitive flexibility, predicted lower overall target accuracy. Personality may modulate the AB by influencing overinvestment via dispositional tendencies toward more or less stringent or capable cognitive control.
TL;DR: It is concluded that capacity limitations in working memory strongly influence contingent attentional capture when multiple attentional sets guide selection.
Abstract: In the present study, we investigated whether involuntarily directing attention to a target-colored distractor causes the corresponding attentional set to enter a limited-capacity focus of attention, thereby facilitating the identification of a subsequent target whose color matches the same attentional set. As predicted, in Experiment 1, contingent attentional capture effects from a target-colored distractor were only one half to one third as large when subsequent target identification relied on the same (vs. a different) attentional set. In Experiment 2, this effect was eliminated when all of the target colors matched the same attentional set, arguing against bottomup perceptual priming of the distractor’s color as an alternative account of our findings. In Experiment 3, this effect was reversed when a target-colored distractor appeared after the target, ruling out a feature-based interference account of our findings. We conclude that capacity limitations in working memory strongly influence contingent attentional capture when multiple attentional sets guide selection.
TL;DR: Results show that attentional load modulates visual processing in the P1, but not in the C1 time range, regardless of the increased signal/noise ratio by bilateral presentation.
TL;DR: This amodal disorder was reported in a dyslexic participant with a phonological disorder, well in accordance with the hypothesis that sluggish auditory attention shifting contributes to difficulties in phoneme awareness and literacy acquisition.
TL;DR: The effect was not produced using DSM-–IV definition of ADHD-primarily inattentive type or DSM symptom counts, and ADHD-combined showed greater weakness in response inhibition, as manifest in the antisaccade task.
Abstract: An important research question is whether Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is related to early- or late-stage attentional control mechanisms and whether this differentiates a nonhyperactive subtype (ADD). This question was addressed in a sample of 145 ADD/ADHD and typically developing comparison adolescents (aged 13-17). Attentional blink and antisaccade tasks were used to assay early- and late-stage control, respectively. ADD was defined using normative cutoffs to ensure low activity level in children who otherwise met full criteria for ADHD. The ADD group had an attenuated attentional blink versus controls and ADHD-combined. The effect was not produced using DSM--IV definition of ADHD-primarily inattentive type or DSM symptom counts. ADHD-combined showed greater weakness in response inhibition, as manifest in the antisaccade task. Combining tasks yielded an interaction differentiating group performance on the two tasks.
TL;DR: It is shown that attentional modulation appears substantially earlier in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) than in an anatomically connected lower visual area, the middle temporal area, which satisfies a critical prediction of the hypothesis that LIP is a source of top-down attentional signals to early visual cortex.
Abstract: In the visual system, spatial attention enhances sensory responses to stimuli at attended locations relative to unattended locations. Which brain structures direct the locus of attention, and how is attentional modulation delivered to structures in the visual system? We trained monkeys on an attention-switch task designed to precisely measure the onset of attentional modulation during rapid shifts of spatial attention. Here we show that attentional modulation appears substantially earlier in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) than in an anatomically connected lower visual area, the middle temporal area. This temporal sequence of attentional latencies demonstrates that endogenous changes of state can occur in higher visual areas before lower visual areas and satisfies a critical prediction of the hypothesis that LIP is a source of top-down attentional signals to early visual cortex.
TL;DR: Stress-enhanced T2 detection and high cortisol responses to stress reduced the AB, however, neither stress nor cortisol interacted with the emotionality of the target words.
Abstract: Individuals are often unable to identify the second target (T2) of two when it is presented within 500 ms after the first target (T1). This “attentional blink” (AB) is attenuated by an emotionally arousing T2. Stress is known to affect cognitive performance, in particular for emotional material. In the present study, we asked whether (a) an emotional T2 reduces the AB when preceded by an emotional T1 and (b) the emotional modulation of the AB is affected by stress. Participants were presented neutral and aversive words as T1 and T2 in rapid serial visual presentation after they were exposed to stress (socially evaluated cold pressor test) or a control condition in a crossover manner. Our results indicate that an aversive T1 extends the AB. Aversive T2 attenuated the AB in the presence of a neutral, but not an aversive, T1. Stress-enhanced T2 detection and high cortisol responses to stress reduced the AB. However, neither stress nor cortisol interacted with the emotionality of the target words. In summary, these findings point to a strong impact of emotional factors on early perceptual experiences.
TL;DR: It is argued that the medial pulvinar is well positioned to influence information processing in the brain according to a stimulus's biological significance, when weak and/or brief visual stimuli have affective significance and cortico-pulvino-cortical circuits may act to coordinate and amplify signals in a manner that enhances their behavioral impact.
Abstract: Research on emotion has considered the pulvinar to be an important component of a subcortical pathway conveying visual information to the amygdala in a largely “automatic” fashion. An older literature has focused on understanding the role of the pulvinar in visual attention. To address the inconsistency between these independent literatures, in the present study, we investigated how pulvinar responses are involved in the processing of affectively significant stimuli and how they are influenced by stimulus visibility during attentionally demanding conditions. Subjects performed an attentional blink task during fMRI scanning involving affectively significant (CS+ ) and neutral stimuli (CS−). Pulvinar responses were not influenced by affective significance (CS+ vs. CS−) per se. Instead, evoked responses were only modulated by affective significance during hit trials, but not during miss trials. Importantly, moment-to-moment fluctuations in response magnitude closely tracked trial-by-trial detection performance, and thereby visibility. This relationship was only reliably detected during the affective condition. Our results do not support a passive role of the pulvinar in affective processing, as invoked in the context of the subcortical-pathway hypothesis. Instead, the pulvinar appears to be involved in mechanisms that are closely linked to attention and awareness. As part of thalamocortical loops with diverse cortical territories, we argue that the medial pulvinar is well positioned to influence information processing in the brain according to a stimulus’s biological significance. In particular, when weak and/or brief visual stimuli have affective significance, cortico-pulvino-cortical circuits may act to coordinate and amplify signals in a manner that enhances their behavioral impact.
TL;DR: Stimulus familiarity may contribute to some aspects of attentional bias in regular nicotine users, but selective quick capture of attention by smoking cues may be nicotine-habit specific.
Abstract: Rationale
While it is well documented that substance users exhibit attentional bias toward addiction-related stimuli, the exact mechanism remains unclear.
TL;DR: It is concluded that the capture of stimulus-driven attention alone can limit explicit perception, and this powerful but short-lived deficit contrasts with a milder but more enduring form of attentional capture that accompanies singleton presentations in rapid serial visual presentations.
Abstract: The cost of attending to a visual event can be the failure to consciously detect other events. This processing limitation is well illustrated by the attentional blink paradigm, in which searching for and attending to a target presented in a rapid serial visual presentation stream of distractors can impair one's ability to detect a second target presented soon thereafter. The attentional blink critically depends on 'top-down' attentional settings, for it does not occur if participants are asked to ignore the first target. Here we show that 'bottom-up' attention can also lead to a profound but ephemeral deficit in conscious perception: Presentation of a novel, unexpected, and task-irrelevant stimulus virtually abolishes conscious detection of a target presented within half a second after the 'Surprise' stimulus, but only for its earliest occurrences (generally 1 to 2 presentations). This powerful but short-lived deficit contrasts with a milder but more enduring form of attentional capture that accompanies singleton presentations in rapid serial visual presentations. We conclude that the capture of stimulus-driven attention alone can limit explicit perception.
TL;DR: This study examined whether natural (dispositional) individual differences in focus and diffusion of attention as assessed by the global/local task could predict performance on the attentional blink (AB) task, and found performance that was consistent with diffusion correlated negatively with AB size.
Abstract: When identifying two targets presented in a rapid serial visual presentation stream, one’s accuracy on the second target is reduced if it is presented shortly (within 500 msec) after the first target—an attentional blink (AB). Individuals differ greatly in the size of their AB. One way to learn about the AB is to understand what underlies these individual differences. Recent studies have suggested that when a broadened or diffused attentional state is induced, the AB deficit can be attenuated. The present study examined whether natural (dispositional) individual differences in focus and diffusion of attention as assessed by the global/local task could predict performance on the AB task. Performance that was consistent with diffusion correlated negatively with AB size, and performance that was consistent with focusing correlated positively with AB size, showing that dispositional focus and diffusion of attention can predict individual differences in the AB. These findings are consistent with the Olivers and Nieuwenhuis (2006) overinvestment hypothesis.
TL;DR: The results support the conclusion that a “working” executive component of WM predicts temporal limitations of selective attention beyond static STM capacity and general cognitive ability.
Abstract: When two masked, to-be-attended targets are presented within approximately half a second of each other, performance on the second target (T2) suffers, relative to when the targets are presented further apart in time or when the first target (T1) can be ignored. This phenomenon is known as the attentional blink (AB). Colzato et al. (Psychon Bull Rev 14:1051-1057, 2007) used an individual differences approach to examine whether individual AB magnitude was predicted by individual differences in working memory (WM), using the operation span paradigm (OSPAN). They found that OSPAN score was inversely related to AB magnitude even when a fluid intelligence measure (Raven's SPM) was partialled out. However, it is not clear from this study whether it was the executive control aspect of working memory, the capacity aspect of short-term memory, (or both), that related to AB magnitude. In the present study we used a variety of WM measures that required varying degrees of executive control. OSPAN was negatively related to AB magnitude with Raven's SPM, reading comprehension, reading rate, and digit forward and backward partialled out. Backward and forward digit span did not predict AB magnitude. These results support the conclusion that a "working" executive component of WM predicts temporal limitations of selective attention beyond static STM capacity and general cognitive ability.
TL;DR: In this paper, the attentional blink (AB) paradigm was used to investigate whether affect has a direct influence on memory functioning, and they found in 55 participants that positive affect increases but negative affect decreases the report of the second target.
TL;DR: The results support the idea that the AB might (at least partly) arise from an overinvestment of attentional resources or an overexertion of Attentional control, which is reduced when a distracting secondary task is carried out.
Abstract: Background: When a second target (T2) is presented in close succession of a first target (T1), people often fail to identify T2, a phenomenon known as the attentional blink (AB). However, the AB can be reduced substantially when participants are distracted during the task, for instance by a concurrent task, without a cost for T1 performance. The goal of the current study was to investigate the electrophysiological correlates of this paradoxical effect. Methodology/Principal Findings: Participants successively performed three tasks, while EEG was recorded. The first task (standard AB) consisted of identifying two target letters in a sequential stream of distractor digits. The second task (grey dots task) was similar to the first task with the addition of an irrelevant grey dot moving in the periphery, concurrent with the central stimulus stream. The third task (red dot task) was similar to the second task, except that detection of an occasional brief color change in the moving grey dot was required. AB magnitude in the latter task was significantly smaller, whereas behavioral performance in the standard and grey dots tasks did not differ. Using mixed effects models, electrophysiological activity was compared during trials in the grey dots and red dot tasks that differed in task instruction but not in perceptual input. In the red dot task, both target-related parietal brain activity associated with working memory updating (P3) as well as distractor-related occipital activity was significantly reduced. Conclusions/Significance: The results support the idea that the AB might (at least partly) arise from an overinvestment of attentional resources or an overexertion of attentional control, which is reduced when a distracting secondary task is carried out. The present findings bring us a step closer in understanding why and how an AB occurs, and how these temporal restrictions in selective attention can be overcome.
TL;DR: This article investigated whether dispositional affect could modulate temporal attentional diffusion using the attentional blink (AB) paradigm and found that greater positive affect was associated with smaller AB magnitude, whereas greater negative affect is associated with larger AB magnitude.
Abstract: Theories suggest that positive affect broadens attention, whereas negative affect focuses attention. This position has been supported by studies showing that positive affect leads to more diffuse spatial attention while negative affect leads to more focused spatial attention. Recently, researchers have used the attentional blink (AB) paradigm to show that induced positive affect may also lead to more diffuse temporal attention, allowing greater accuracy for targets presented within a short time interval. The present study investigated whether dispositional affect could modulate temporal attentional diffusion using the AB paradigm. Consistent with the diffusion hypothesis, greater positive affect was associated with smaller AB magnitude, whereas greater negative affect was associated with larger AB magnitude. Thus, dispositional affect can modulate the costs of attentional selection over brief time intervals.
TL;DR: Irrespective of social anxiety, the attentional blink was relatively large when angry faces were presented as T1, and apparent prioritized processing of angry faces is consistent with evolutionary models, stressing the importance of being especially attentive to potential signals of social threat.
Abstract: There is considerable evidence indicating that people are primed to monitor social signals of disapproval. Thus far, studies on selective attention have concentrated predominantly on the spatial domain, whereas the temporal consequences of identifying socially threatening information have received only scant attention. Therefore, this study focused on temporal attention costs and examined how the presentation of emotional expressions affects subsequent identification of task-relevant information. High (n = 30) and low (n = 31) socially anxious women were exposed to a dual-target rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm. Emotional faces (neutral, happy, angry) were presented as the first target (T1) and neutral letter stimuli (p, q, d, b) as the second target (T2). Irrespective of social anxiety, the attentional blink was relatively large when angry faces were presented as T1. This apparent prioritized processing of angry faces is consistent with evolutionary models, stressing the importance of being especially attentive to potential signals of social threat.
TL;DR: Visual working memory capacity was positively related to filtering efficiency, but did not predict AB magnitude, and the degree to which irrelevant stimuli were admitted into visual working memory was positively correlated with AB magnitude over and above visualWorking memory capacity.
Abstract: Participants have difficulty in reporting the second of two masked targets if the second target is presented within 500 ms of the first target—an attentional blink (AB). Individual participants differ in the magnitude of their AB. The present study employed an individual differences design and two visual working memory tasks to examine whether visual working memory capacity and/or the ability to exclude irrelevant information from visual working memory (working memory filtering efficiency) could predict individual differences in the AB. Visual working memory capacity was positively related to filtering efficiency, but did not predict AB magnitude. However, the degree to which irrelevant stimuli were admitted into visual working memory (i.e., poor filtering efficiency) was positively correlated with AB magnitude over and above visual working memory capacity. Good filtering efficiency may benefit the AB by not allowing irrelevant RSVP distractors to gain access to working memory.
TL;DR: Results of Experiment 1 showed that the AB effect was smaller for both upright and inverted positive face icons than other face icons of corresponding orientations, confirming and extending the results of the earlier study by Mack, Pappas, Silverman, and Gay (2002).
Abstract: This study investigated the influence of positive affect on attentional blink (AB) with schematic faces. Results of Experiment 1 showed that the AB effect was smaller for both upright and inverted positive face icons than other face icons (neutral and angry faces) of corresponding orientations, confirming and extending the results of the earlier study by Mack, Pappas, Silverman, and Gay (2002). Results of Experiment 2 demonstrated that this attenuation of AB was unlikely to be attributable to attentional capture by the happy face. Perceptual saliency is suggested as a likely cause of the effect.