Subliminal Cueing in Visual Attention: Top-down and Bottomup Processing

Abstract

Exogenous subliminal cues have been shown to have both top-down and bottom-up effects. There are many research studies have confirmed that the effect of top-down variables dependent on cue characteristics. In response, other studies have attempted to exhibit ‘purely’ stimulus-driven attention capture. The superiority of attention capture effects and the level of superiority in top-down cues have not been evidenced previously. The present study attempted to observe differential effects of cues with different levels of task relevancy, in both valid and invalid cues. As an addendum, conditions with valid cues and incorrect feature match allowed for the exploration of same-location costs in subliminal cues. The results indicated attentional capture effects of all valid cues irrespective of the level of task relevance in subliminal conditions. The cues with the highest task relevancy led to the most attention capture. There were no inhibitory effects of invalid cues on attention capture in subliminal cues. The study reiterates the possibility of attentional mechanisms in same-location costs implicating processing outside of memory. Further, facilitation and inhibition of attention capture in subliminal cues may have two independent mechanisms. The inhibitory mechanism may be contingent to conscious awareness of cues. The result of the study shows how attention can be exogenously oriented without conscious awareness and what kinds of cues might be most effective. These findings can be useful in educational and training settings and other settings where sustained attention is crucial.