Abstract
Previous work suggests that, when attended, pictures may be processed more readily than words. The current study extends this research to assess potential differences in processing between these stimulus types when they are actively ignored. In a dual-task paradigm, facilitated recognition for previously ignored words was found provided that they appeared frequently with an attended target. When adapting the same paradigm here, previously unattended pictures were recognized at high rates regardless of how they were paired with items during the primary task, whereas unattended words were later recognized at higher rates only if they had previously been aligned with primary task targets. Implicit learning effects obtained by aligning unattended items with attended task-targets may apply only to conceptually abstract stimulus types, such as words. Pictures, on the other hand, may maintain direct access to semantic information, and are therefore processed more readily than words, even when being actively ignored.
Highlights
The successful completion of a complex activity, such as driving a car, often depends on the ability to ignore task-irrelevant information
The higher rate of false alarms (FAs) among those attending to word repetitions may be due to greater similarities between visual features among individual words compared to pictures, given the very low false alarm rates it is difficult to draw a precise conclusion
Earlier research suggests that the extent to which unattended words are processed, and recognized later, may be facilitated when they are frequently and simultaneously paired with targets during a previously presented attention-demanding task [8,9,10,11]
Summary
The successful completion of a complex activity, such as driving a car, often depends on the ability to ignore task-irrelevant information. Empirical evidence in support of facilitated processing for ignored information can be seen in research conducted by Watanabe and colleagues ([7] see [2]). In these examples, researchers paired irrelevant, subthreshold motion directions (i.e., dynamic dot displays that moved in a coherent motion direction below the threshold of conscious perception) with a target during an attended letter identification task. Participants were asked to hit a button when they saw a target grey letter that was displayed amongst a series of distractor black letters in a PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0170520 January 25, 2017
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