Spatial proximity as a determinant of context-specific attentional settings.

Abstract

People implicitly encode the history of conflict associated with particular contexts and use this information to modulate attention to distractors. This manifests as a reduction in the compatibility effect in mostly incompatible locations compared to mostly compatible locations, a difference termed the context-specific proportion compatibility (CSPC) effect. CSPC effects are explained by an episodic retrieval account positing that abstract attentional settings bind to contextual cues-allowing rapid, context-driven modulation of attention. The current study interrogated this binding process by testing the influence of relative spatial proximity on the association of attentional settings with particular locations. In Experiment 1, like typical CSPC paradigms, biased locations appeared near top (e.g., mostly compatible) and bottom (e.g., mostly incompatible) edges of the screen. A novel feature was the addition of two mostly compatible (above fixation) and two mostly incompatible (below fixation) locations placed within close proximity at the middle of the screen. A CSPC effect was found for outer but not middle mostly compatible and mostly incompatible locations, suggesting the attentional setting bound to the middle locations reflected the average history of conflict (i.e., 50% compatible) for the group of middle locations. In Experiment 2, distance between middle locations was increased, allowing middle locations to group with outer locations. The CSPC effect was found for outer and middle mostly compatible and mostly incompatible locations. Results support the relative proximity hypothesis, positing that attentional settings bound to a particular location are influenced by experience within a location and relatively close neighboring locations.