Examining the Role of Attention and Sensory Stimulation in the Attentional Repulsion Effect.

Anna M Petersson,Jay Pratt,Matthew D Hilchey

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00238

Anna M Petersson, Jay Pratt + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00238

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Abstract

It has been suggested that visual attention warps space, such that stimuli appearing near its locus are perceived as farther away than they actually are. This is known as the attentional repulsion effect (ARE). Recent data challenge the role of attention as the sole factor responsible for the ARE, suggesting instead that the ARE is, at least in part, a product of low level sensory interactions between a peripheral orienting cue and the Vernier target stimulus used to measure the effect. Here, we directly test whether attentional orienting, without a cue in peripheral vision to guide attention, is sufficient for generating an ARE. In Experiment 1, attention was guided to the visual periphery by a central symbolic cue that reliably indicated the locations of to-be-identified targets in peripheral vision. On a subset of trials, we probed for an ARE with Vernier targets. Reaction time (RT) data revealed that the cue guided attention but there was no trace of an ARE. In Experiment 2, we ensured that the Vernier targets were sensitive to the ARE by using the standard spatially uninformative peripheral cue to guide attention instead of the central symbolic cue. RT data again revealed that the cue guided attention, while the Vernier targets revealed an ARE. Collectively, these data suggest that attentional orienting without peripheral sensory stimulation is not sufficient for generating an ARE.

Highlights

Attentional orienting is inferred from chronometric measurements in basic cueing studies (e.g., Posner et al, 1980; Posner and Cohen, 1984)
This voluntary, or associative, form of attention results in Reaction time (RT) that are fast to targets appearing at predicted relative to Abbreviations: attentional repulsion effect (ARE), Attentional Repulsion Effect; CTOA, cue-target onset asynchrony; ms, milliseconds; RT, reaction time; SNARC, spatial-numerical association of response codes; V1, primary visual cortex; V2, secondary visual cortex/visual area V2
These exclusions were not the result of inordinately large AREs, which would yield chance performance; these participants were instead at, or below, chance levels even when the ARE would have improved performance

Summary

Introduction

Attentional orienting is inferred from chronometric measurements in basic cueing studies (e.g., Posner et al, 1980; Posner and Cohen, 1984) Over the years, these methods have been refined to show that relatively salient properties of visual stimuli (e.g., motion onset, color singletons, looming, abrupt visual onsets and offsets, and relatively high or low contrast differences) generally improve the efficiency of signal detection in their vicinity (e.g., Takeuchi, 1997; Reynolds et al, 2000; Pratt and McAuliffe, 2001; Abrams and Christ, 2003; White et al, 2014). The major difference between these forms is that involuntary orienting is pulled directly to the location of a task-irrelevant but salient sensory event whereas voluntary orienting is pushed to the location of a prospectively meaningful event

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