Spatial interference triggered by gaze and arrows. The role of target background on spatial interference

Recent research has found that eye gaze and arrows yield opposite congruency effects in a spatial interference paradigm, arrows eliciting faster responses when their direction is congruent with their position (standard congruency effect), and gaze producing faster reaction times for incongruent conditions (reversed congruency effect). In addition, we observed by serendipity in a previous study that the standard effect with arrows was reduced when the target appeared within a complex background, presumably because of hindered figure-ground segregation. Under the same conditions, the reversed effect with gaze became more negative. To explain our previous results, we proposed the coexistence of two opposite attentional effects with eye gaze: a standard spatial interference component being common to both arrows and gaze, and a larger social-specific dimension leading to the overall reversion of the effect for gaze. Both in Experiments 1 and 2, gaze or arrow targets were presented after or concurrently with an irrelevant background (asynchronous vs. synchronous conditions, respectively). Consistent with our preregistered hypotheses, the standard effect with arrows was present in the asynchronous condition (automatic figure-ground segregation) but reduced in the synchronous one (difficult figure-ground segregation). Correspondingly with the effect on arrows interference, eye gaze triggered a significant reversed effect in the synchronous condition that decreased in the asynchronous one. These results underline the importance of the figure-ground segregation processes as modulators of the spatial conflict triggered by peripheral targets, and support our two-effect model, according to which gaze shares with nonsocial stimuli a domain-general orienting mechanism, but also triggers distinctive processes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Recent studies employing the spatial interference paradigm reveal qualitative differences in congruency effects between gaze and arrow targets. Typically, arrows produce a standard congruency effect (SCE), with faster responses when target direction aligns with its location. Conversely, gaze targets often lead to a reversed congruency effect (RCE), where responses are slower in similar conditions. We explored this dissociation using the Conditional Accuracy Function (CAF) to assess accuracy across reaction time bins. Using a hierarchical linear mixed modelling approach to compare cropped eyes, and full faces as social stimuli, and arrows as non-social stimuli, we synthesized findings from 11 studies, which led to three distinct models. The results showed that with non-social targets, incongruent trials exhibited lower accuracy rates in the first bin than in subsequent bins, while congruent trials maintained stable accuracy throughout the distribution. Conversely, social targets revealed a dissociation within the fastest responses; alongside a general reduction in accuracy for both congruency conditions, congruent trials resulted in even lower accuracy rates than incongruent ones. These results suggest with gaze targets that additional information, perhaps social, in addition to the automatic capture by the irrelevant target location, is being processed during the earlier stages of processing.

IntroductionSpatial interference tasks have been recently used to investigate the supposed uniqueness of gaze processing and attention. For instance, it has been observed that gaze stimuli elicited faster responses when their direction was incongruent with their position (“reversed spatial congruency effect”, RCE), whereas arrows produced faster reaction times (RT) when it was congruent (“standard spatial congruency effect”, SCE). In the present study, we tested whether the RCE is unique to eye-gaze stimuli or can be observed in response to other important social stimuli such as pointing fingers.MethodTo this aim, congruency effects elicited by eye gaze, arrows, and pointing fingers were compared in a spatial interference task.ResultsThe RCE was only observed in response to eye-gaze stimuli while pointing fingers and arrows elicited the SCE.DiscussionThis suggests that the RCE reversed congruency effect is specific to gaze stimuli and cannot be generalized to finger-pointing stimuli.

Practice makes bimanual interference imperfect – On the way to the generation of bimanual motion primitives

Subtle to no attentional differences have been broadly observed when using gaze and arrows as orienting cues. However, recent studies have found opposite effects when they are used as targets in spatial interference tasks, with arrows eliciting faster responses when their position is congruent with the indicated direction and gaze producing faster responses in incongruent conditions. In two preregistered experiments aimed at exploring the mechanisms supporting these findings, we examined whether the congruency sequence effects (CSE) elicited by gaze and arrows generalized from one stimulus to another, using an intrablock design where the type of stimuli was manipulated on a trial-by-trial basis. Typical CSE were observed for arrows, with a decrease of congruency effects after incongruent trials, and reversed CSE for gaze, with an increased inversion of congruency effects after incongruent trials. Both patterns occurred independently of the preceding type of target, showing that congruency effects can decrease after positive outcomes (e.g., arrow trials following an incongruent gaze trial), and generalized across different nonsocial and social stimuli as shown in a third experiment. These results are consistent with the coexistence of a shared spatial interference component between gaze and arrow trials, potentially responsible for the CSE obtained in switching target trials, and an additional social dimension, exclusively engaged in gaze trials. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Directional judgments of an arrow became slower when the direction and location were incongruent in a spatial Stroop task (i.e., a standard congruency effect). In contrast, gaze judgments were slower when they were congruent (i.e., a reversed congruency effect). This study examined the reaction time (RT) distribution of interference effects in a spatial Stroop task to clarify the temporal characteristics of the standard congruency effect, which is known to be reversed for social targets, such as gaze direction. Participants responded to laterally presented targets (i.e., arrows, gaze, fish-only, and fish with mosaic) while ignoring their location. The standard congruency effect of arrows decreased as the overall RT increased, reflecting the temporal decay of automatically activated task-irrelevant codes (i.e., location). Critically, the reversed congruency effect of gaze increased as the overall RT increased. This result supports the dual-stage hypothesis and reflects the late-arriving selective inhibition of task-irrelevant codes. Similar results were replicated in Experiment 2, in which we manipulated the complexity of the backgrounds of nonsocial targets and in the reanalysis of existing data. These findings imply that the interplay between task-irrelevant activation and subsequent inhibition is modulated by specific stimulus characteristics, influencing spatial response selection.

In the spatial Stroop task, an arrow target produces a spatial Stroop effect, whereas a gaze target elicits a reversed congruency effect. The reversed congruency effect has been explained by the unique attentional mechanisms of eye gaze. However, recent studies have shown that not only gaze but arrow targets produced a reversed congruency effect when embedded in a complex background. The present study investigated whether non-gaze targets produce a reversed congruency effect. In Experiments 1 and 2, we used the tongue, which is not commonly used to indicate spatial directions in daily life, as a target in the spatial Stroop task, in addition to the conventional gaze and arrows. In Experiment 3, we used arrow stimuli embedded in a complex background as a target. Participants judged the left/right direction of the target presented in the left or right visual field. Although arrow and gaze targets replicated previous findings (spatial Stroop and reversed congruency effect, respectively), the tongue target produced a reversed congruency effect (Experiments 1 and 2). The spatial Stroop effect of arrow targets disappeared when they were in a complex background (Experiment 3). These results are inconsistent with previous accounts emphasising the unique status of eye gaze. We propose that temporal decay of the location code and response inhibition are responsible for the reversal of spatial interference.

At present there is little knowledge on whether and how multiple pieces of unconscious information can simultaneously affect a single conscious response. In the present study, we manipulated the congruency relation between a masked prime arrow and the target arrow, as well as that between masked flankers and the target arrow. The results demonstrated that the masked prime and flankers produced independent unconscious priming effects on the response to the target. In the process of studying the above phenomenon, two secondary findings were made. First, although the prime congruency effect was obtained, the flanker congruency effect was smaller when the flankers were displayed simultaneously with the target than when they were displayed sequentially before the target. This suggested that priming stimulation required enough time to be processed to a sufficient extent to produce an unconscious priming effect. Second, when the prime stimulus was removed, leaving only the flankers, the flanker priming effect increased, suggesting that the attention attracted to the prime and its conscious mask could also reduce the flanker congruency effect. These results observed across several experiments were replicated in one within-subjects experiment. We proposed an “independent unconscious influence hypothesis” for the phenomenon. This hypothesis was further integrated into a more comprehensive unconscious information processing model. The possible causes of the observed phenomena were discussed.

BackgroundPrevious research has shown that participants at high‐risk for Alzheimer's disease, indexed by a ‘pathological’ CSF amyloid/tau ratio, exhibit alterations in attentional processing (Hung et al., 2022). We reasoned that if attentional mechanisms regulated implicit tasks, high risk participants would perform worse in implicit tasks, particularly under high attentional load.MethodWe addressed this question by recording EEG data during a response interference paradigm known as the Simon task. Participants are presented with an arrow and asked to report the direction of the arrow (left or right). In the Simon condition, the direction the arrow points is inconsistent with its placement on the screen. This increases attentional load by introducing a spatial discrepancy (high load). Conversely, in the non‐Simon condition, the arrow direction and placement is consistent (low load). Participants respond faster and more accurately when the stimulus and response features (location) are consistent versus inconsistent, referred to as the Simon Effect. In this experiment, prior to the arrow stimulus, participants are also primed with an implicit word in the center of the screen (“left” or ”right”). The implicit word prime is either congruent or incongruent with participants’ direction responses. We hypothesized that the effect of congruency (faster reaction times to primes congruent with responses and vice versa) would diminish in the high load condition of high risk participants.ResultWhile preliminary behavioral data show that both high and low risk groups display the Simon effect (p < .05), there was no significant effect of prime congruence between groups. When examining the EEG data, we found a significant difference in the mean amplitude of the P300 event related potential (ERP), typically indexing conscious decision making, for the low risk group only in the load manipulation (p < .05, Cohen's d = 0.49). We also see a significant effect of prime congruence in the low load condition only for both groups (p < .05); an earlier N200 ERP component, indexing attentional processes, showed this same prime congruence effect (p < .05).ConclusionThis differential neural response in high‐risk Alzheimer's participants can be interpreted as an early precursor of cognitive impairment.

Perceived gaze in faces is an important social cue that influences spatial orienting of attention. In three experiments, we examined whether the social relevance of gaze direction modulated spatial interference in response selection, using three different stimuli: faces, isolated eyes, and symbolic eyes (Experiments 1, 2, and 3, respectively). Each experiment employed a variant of the spatial Stroop paradigm in which face location and gaze direction were put into conflict. Results showed a reverse congruency effect between face location to the right or left of fixation and gaze direction only for stimuli with a social meaning to participants (Experiments 1 and 2). The opposite was observed for the nonsocial stimuli used in Experiment 3. Results are explained as facilitation in response to eye contact.

Previous studies have shown that emotion can have 2-fold effects on perception. At the object-level, emotional stimuli benefit from a stimulus-specific boost in visual attention at the relative expense of competing stimuli. At the visual feature-level, recent findings indicate that emotion may inhibit the processing of small visual details and facilitate the processing of coarse visual features. In the present study, we investigated whether emotion can boost the activation and inhibition of automatic motor responses that are generated prior to overt perception. To investigate this, we tested whether an emotional cue affects covert motor responses in a masked priming task. We used a masked priming paradigm in which participants responded to target arrows that were preceded by invisible congruent or incongruent prime arrows. In the standard paradigm, participants react faster, and commit fewer errors responding to the directionality of target arrows, when they are preceded by congruent vs. incongruent masked prime arrows (positive congruency effect, PCE). However, as prime-target SOAs increase, this effect reverses (negative congruency effect, NCE). These findings have been explained as evidence for an initial activation and a subsequent inhibition of a partial response elicited by the masked prime arrow. Our results show that the presentation of fearful face cues, compared to neutral face cues, increased the size of both the PCE and NCE, despite the fact that the primes were invisible. This is the first demonstration that emotion prepares an individual's visuomotor system for automatic activation and inhibition of motor responses in the absence of visual awareness.

Arrows and gaze stimuli lead to opposite spatial congruency effects. While standard congruency effects are observed for arrows (faster responses for congruent conditions), responses are faster when eye-gaze stimuli are presented on the opposite side of the gazed-at location (incongruent trials), leading to a reversed congruency effect (RCE). Here, we explored the effects of implicit vs. explicit processing of arrows and eye-gaze direction. Participants were required to identify the direction (explicit task) or the colour (implicit task) of left or right looking/pointing gaze or arrows, presented to either the left or right of the fixation point. When participants responded to the direction of stimuli, standard congruency effects for arrows and RCE for eye-gaze stimuli were observed. However, when participants responded to the colour of stimuli, no congruency effects were observed. These results suggest that it is necessary to explicitly pay attention to the direction of eye-gaze and arrows for the congruency effect to occur. The same pattern of data was observed when participants responded either manually or verbally, demonstrating that manual motor components are not responsible for the results observed. These findings are not consistent with some hypotheses previously proposed to explain the RCE observed with eye-gaze stimuli and, therefore, call for an alternative plausible hypothesis.

Control mechanisms in aphasia

Background and Aim: Age related changes in cognitive functioning have been shown to vary depending on the task used. Thus, the study aimed to compare the responses of young and older adults to an auditory Stroop test that asse­ssed spatial (responses to location of the stimuli) and semantic (responses to meaning of the sti­muli) localization. Methods: The “Auditory spatial and semantic localization Stroop test”, developed as a part of the study was administered on 30 young adults aged 18 to 30 years and 30 older adults aged 58 to 70 years having normal hearing. The res­ponse accuracy and reaction time of the parti­cipants were determined for the words “right”, “left”, “front”, and “back.” Results: The older adults had significantly poo­rer response accuracy and reaction time than the young adults for both spatial and semantic loca­lization tasks. Within each participant group, semantic localization had better response accu­racy than spatial localization, while such diffe­rences in reaction time were found only in the older adults. In both groups, a congruency effect was seen for spatial but not for semantic loca­lization when response accuracy was calculated, whereas it was observed only for semantic and not for spatial localization when reaction time was measured. Conclusion: The auditory Stroop test, which measures stimulus interference and cognitive skills, could be used as a simple tool to assess the same for stimuli presented through the audi­tory modality. This would be especially helpful in older adults who may demonstrate cognitive decline with ageing to auditory stimuli. Keywords: Spatial localization; semantic localization; auditory Stroop test; age related changes

Explicit tests of social cognition have revealed pervasive deficits in schizophrenia. Less is known of automatic social cognition in schizophrenia. We used a spatial orienting task to investigate automatic shifts of attention cued by another person's eye gaze in 29 patients and 28 controls. Central photographic images of a face with eyes shifted left or right, or looking straight ahead, preceded targets that appeared left or right of the cue. To examine automatic effects, cue direction was non-predictive of target location. Cue-target intervals were 100, 300, and 800 ms. In non-social control trials, arrows replaced eye-gaze cues. Both groups showed automatic attentional orienting indexed by faster reaction times (RTs) when arrows were congruent with target location across all cue-target intervals. Similar congruency effects were seen for eye-shift cues at 300 and 800 ms intervals, but patients showed significantly larger congruency effects at 800 ms, which were driven by delayed responses to incongruent target locations. At short 100-ms cue-target intervals, neither group showed faster RTs for congruent than for incongruent eye-shift cues, but patients were significantly slower to detect targets after direct-gaze cues. These findings conflict with previous studies using schematic line drawings of eye-shifts that have found automatic attentional orienting to be reduced in schizophrenia. Instead, our data indicate that patients display abnormalities in responding to gaze direction at various stages of gaze processing-reflected by a stronger preferential capture of attention by another person's direct eye contact at initial stages of gaze processing and difficulties disengaging from a gazed-at location once shared attention is established.