Patterns Of Attention Allocation Research Articles

The free-viewing matrix task: A reliable measure of attention allocation in psychopathology

Aberrant attention allocation has been implicated in the etiology and maintenance of a range of psychopathologies. However, three decades of research, relying primarily on manual response-time tasks, have been challenged on the grounds of poor reliability of its attention bias indices. Here, in a large, multisite, international study we provide reliability information for a new eye-tracking-based measure of attention allocation and its relation to psychopathology and age. Data from 1567 participants, across a wide range of psychiatric diagnoses and ages, were aggregated from nine sites around the world. Of these, 213 participants also provided retest data. Acceptable overall internal consistency and test-retest reliability were observed among adult participants (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.86 and r(213) = 0.89, respectively), as well as across all examined psychopathologies. Youth demonstrated lower internal consistency scores (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.65). Finally, the percent dwell time index derived from the task statistically differentiated between healthy participants and participants diagnosed with social anxiety disorder, major depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. These results potentially address a long-standing reliability crisis in this research field. Aberrant attention allocation patterns in a variety of psychiatric disorders may be targeted with the hope of affecting symptoms. The attention allocation index derived from the matrix task offers reliable means to measure such cognitive target engagement in clinical contexts.

Neural networks based on attention architecture are robust to data missingness for early predicting hospital mortality in intensive care unit patients.

Although the machine learning model developed on electronic health records has become a promising method for early predicting hospital mortality, few studies focus on the approaches for handling missing data in electronic health records and evaluate model robustness to data missingness. This study proposes an attention architecture that shows excellent predictive performance and is robust to data missingness. Two public intensive care unit databases were used for model training and external validation, respectively. Three neural networks (masked attention model, attention model with imputation, attention model with missing indicator) based on the attention architecture were developed, using masked attention mechanism, multiple imputation, and missing indicator to handle missing data, respectively. Model interpretability was analyzed by attention allocations. Extreme gradient boosting, logistic regression with multiple imputation and missing indicator (logistic regression with imputation, logistic regression with missing indicator) were used as baseline models. Model discrimination and calibration were evaluated by area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, area under precision-recall curve, and calibration curve. In addition, model robustness to data missingness in both model training and validation was evaluated by three analyses. In total, 65,623 and 150,753 intensive care unit stays were respectively included in the training set and the test set, with mortality of 10.1% and 8.5%, and overall missing rate of 10.3% and 19.7%. attention model with missing indicator had the highest area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (0.869; 95% CI: 0.865 to 0.873) in external validation; attention model with imputation had the highest area under precision-recall curve (0.497; 95% CI: 0.480-0.513). Masked attention model and attention model with imputation showed better calibration than other models. The three neural networks showed different patterns of attention allocation. In terms of robustness to data missingness, masked attention model and attention model with missing indicator are more robust to missing data in model training; while attention model with imputation is more robust to missing data in model validation. The attention architecture has the potential to become an excellent model architecture for clinical prediction task with data missingness.

Scan-based eye tracking measures are predictive of workload transition performance

Given there is no unifying theory or design guidance for workload transitions, this work investigated how visual attention allocation patterns could inform both topics, by understanding if scan-based eye tracking metrics could predict workload transition performance trends in a context-relevant domain. The eye movements of sixty Naval flight students were tracked as workload transitioned at a slow, medium, and fast pace in an unmanned aerial vehicle testbed. Four scan-based metrics were significant predictors across the different growth curve models of response time and accuracy. Stationary gaze entropy (a measure of how dispersed visual attention transitions are across tasks) was predictive across all three transition rates. The other three predictive scan-based metrics captured different aspects of visual attention, including its spread, directness, and duration. The findings specify several missing details in both theory and design guidance, which is unprecedented, and serves as a basis of future workload transition research.

Experiences of maltreatment in childhood and attention to facial emotions in healthy young women

Using reaction-time measures, research on the relationship between childhood maltreatment and biased attention to emotional stimuli in adults has obtained inconsistent results. To help clarify this issue, we conducted an eye-tracking study on the link between childhood maltreatment and allocation of attention to facial emotions analyzing gaze behavior in addition to manual reactions. In contrast to prior investigations, we excluded individuals with tendencies to minimize maltreatment experiences from analyses. Gaze behavior and manual response time of 58 healthy women were examined in a dot-probe task in which pairs of emotional (happy, sad, or disgusted) and neutral faces were presented. In our analyses, participants’ affectivity, level of alexithymia, and intelligence were controlled. Entry time and dwell time on facial expressions were used as indicators of attention allocation. Childhood maltreatment showed no effect on response latencies but was associated with shorter entry times on emotional faces and shorter dwell time on disgusted faces. Experiences of childhood maltreatment seem to be linked to an increased early vigilance to emotional social signals and to an attentional avoidance of hostile facial expressions at a later stage of perception. The present results suggest a vigilance-avoidance pattern of attention allocation associated with childhood maltreatment.

Video Features, Engagement, and Patterns of Collective Attention Allocation

Network analytics has the potential to examine new behaviour patterns that are often hidden by the complexity of online interactions. One of the varied network analytics approaches and methods, the model of collective attention, takes an ecological system perspective to exploring the dynamic process of participation patterns in online and flexible learning environments. This study selected “Fundamentals of C++ programming (Spring 2019)” on XuetangX as an example through which to observe the allocation patterns of attention within MOOC videos, as well as how video features and engagement correlate with the accumulation, circulation, and dissipation pattern of collective attention. The results showed that the types of instructions in videos predicted attention allocation patterns, but they did not predict the engagement of video watching. Instead, the length and whether the full screen was used in the videos had a strong impact on engagement. Learners were more likely to reach a high level of engagement in video watching when their attention had been circulated around the videos. The results imply that understanding the patterns and dynamics of attention flow and how learners engage with videos will allow us to design cost-effective learning resources to prevent learners from becoming overloaded.

Are professional fund managers less likely to sell winners? Evaluating how attention allocation impacts behavioural biases

Using monthly fund-level portfolio holdings data on Indian equity mutual funds, we explore the predictable patterns in the trading biases of fund managers induced by changing attention allocation patterns. In an emerging market setting, we investigate the tendency of fund managers to sell winners and increase their exposure to losing stocks. Their biases are examined during two states of economic cycles. We adjust for random choice probability while selecting funds for reasons unrelated to the disposition effect. Our research contributes to the relatively nascent psychology-based asset pricing literature by examining fund managers’ psychology concerning financial decision-making.

Effect of Repeated Exposure to the Visual Environment on Young Children's Attention.

Prior research suggests that visual features of the classroom environment (e.g., charts and posters) are potential sources of distraction hindering children's ability to maintain attention to instructional activities and reducing learning gains in a laboratory classroom. However, prior research only examined short-term exposure to elements of classroom décor, and it remains unknown whether children habituate to the visual environment with repeated exposure. In study 1, we explored experimentally the possibility that children may habituate to the visual environment if the visual displays are static. We measured kindergarten children's patterns of attention allocation in a decorated classroom environment over a 2-week period and compared the percentage of time children spent off-task to a baseline condition in which the classroom environment was streamlined (i.e., charts, posters, and manipulatives were removed). The findings indicate that with more prolonged exposure to a static visual environment, partial habitation effects were observed: Attention to the environment declined at the end of the exposure period compared to the beginning of the study; however, the environment remained a significant source of off-task behavior even after 2 weeks of exposure. In study 2, we extend this work by conducting a longitudinal observation of six primary classrooms in which we measured children's patterns of attention allocation in real classrooms for 15 weeks to investigate whether increasing familiarity with the classroom décor would influence attention toward the visual environment. No evidence of habituation was observed in genuine classrooms in study 2. Potential implications for classroom design and future directions are discussed.

Punctuations and diversity: exploring dynamics of attention allocation in China’s E-government agenda

ABSTRACT Existing literature regarding punctuated equilibrium theories (PET) and agenda diversity has examined the patterns of cross-domain attention allocation based on western democracies; however, few studies have systematically discussed the situation within a specific policy domain in transitioning countries. To address this research gap, this study empirically explored the punctuations and diversity in attention allocation within China’s national e-government issue from 2001 to 2018. By employing the latent Dirichlet allocation topic model to analyse relevant articles on e-government in the People’s Daily, we derived 10 distinct dimensions hidden in the corpora and constructed an original dataset of the e-government agenda. The empirical findings revealed that the information processing in the domain of the e-government in China are leptokurtic, and a gradual decrease in the intensity of punctuations with the enhancement of central coordination and civic participation was also observed. We also found that the dynamics of attention diversity partially followed the theoretical expectations of classic scholarships. By examining patterns of attention allocation across multiple dimensions within a certain policy, our findings speak to literature on PET and agenda diversity and increases the externality of relevant theories derived from the cross-domain analysis.

Linguistic focus guides attention during the encoding and refreshing of Working Memory content

• Linguistic focus increases attention to the focused item during encoding in Working Memory. • The focused item receives more attention during retention if it remains relevant to the task. • When the task demands the sharing of attention, the above advantage disappears. • If prominence is marked non-conventionally, findings on attention allocation replicate. • Thus, focus marking is a grammatical device used to express prominence and guide attention. Focus is a linguistic device that marks a piece of information within an utterance as most relevant, as when emphasis is placed by the speaker on a word using phonological stress, special intonation, or prosodic prominence. The question addressed in the present study is whether the use of linguistic focus is best seen as a means of directing the listener’s attention. We investigated attention allocation on the part of the listener to linguistically focused elements in Working Memory in a series of eye-tracking experiments. We concentrated on two processes: the encoding of the focused element and its retention. Attentional load during encoding was measured by pupil dilation, and attention allocation during retention was estimated from fixations to locations of previously present visual stimuli on a blank screen. It was found that i) more attention was allocated during the processing of sentences with linguistic focus and ii) linguistically focused elements received more attention during memory retention. However, when the task demanded the sharing of attention, the advantage of the focused element during retention disappeared. Further experiments showed that when verbal stimuli whose prominence was not linguistically marked were presented, the patterns of attention allocation associated with linguistic focus during retention replicated. These results lend further support to the claim that linguistic focus is a grammaticalized means of expressing prominence, and as such, functions as an attention capturing device.

Using an Integrated Cognitive Architecture to Model the Effect of Environmental Complexity on Drivers’ Situation Awareness

The goal of this research is to computationally model and simulate drivers’ situation awareness (SA). In order to achieve this, we have developed a computational cognitive model in a cognitive architecture that can be connected to interact with a driving simulator, as means to infer quantitative predictions of drivers’ SA. We demonstrate the theory of modelling and predicting SA through the lens of human cognition utilizing the QN-ACTR (Queueing Network-Adaptive Control of Thought-Rational) framework as a foundation. We integrate a dynamic visual sampling model (SEEV) to create QN-ACTR-SA in order to allow the model to simulate realistic attention allocation patterns of human drivers. A driver model is also incorporated within QN-ACTR-SA architecture that can simulate human driving behavior by interacting with a driving simulator with the help of virtual modalities such as motor, visual and memory functions. A preliminary validation study is conducted to determine whether SA results of the model correspond to empirical data. The model is probed with SA queries similar to how a Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique (SAGAT) is conducted on human participants. A comparative assessment demonstrates the model’s ability to simulate drivers’ SA in both easy (with fewer traffic vehicles and signboards) and complex (with more traffic vehicles and signboards) driving conditions.

Coordinated Attention in Collaborative Innovation

Research and Science foundations worldwide encourage or require collaborative innovation projects involving multiple organizations with different institutional backgrounds, such as firms, universities, or users. These collaborations are supposed to stimulate knowledge flows across boundaries and generate innovative solutions to complex problems. However, we know comparatively little about how the project partners determine the priorities of their search for solutions in the first place and how institutional diversity influences priority setting. Drawing on the attention-based view of organizational behavior, we study attention coordination among partners and the emergence of priorities in joint research grant proposals. We apply content analysis to 227 grant proposals of innovation consortia that received funding in the EU’s Horizon 2020 program and identify distinct patterns of attention allocation. We relate these attention patterns to the institutional composition of the consortia. We find that increasingly diverse consortia shift attention away from technological novelty in grant proposals and towards attention to the innovation ecosystems. Involving SMEs increases a consortiums’ attention to increasingly novel technologies and innovation with large market scope.

All Roads Lead to Rome: Instructors’ Pointing and Depictive Gestures in Video Lectures Promote Learning Through Different Patterns of Attention Allocation

This study focused on how an instructor’s pointing gestures and depictive gestures differentially affected learners’ retention, transfer, and visual attention allocation. Eighty-five Chinese undergraduates were randomly assigned to view one of three video lectures in a laboratory. The videos varied in terms of the instructor’s use of gesture: pointing gestures, depictive gestures, or no gestures. As hypothesized, the results showed better learning performance after the videos that included either pointing gestures or depictive gestures relative to the no gestures video; interestingly, the effect of gestures in video lectures was greater for participants with low and medium prior knowledge. In addition, the type of gesture differentially affected learners’ visual attention allocation: pointing gestures directed attention to the relevant learning content of the PowerPoint slides, and depictive gestures drew learners’ attention to the instructor. The findings have practical implications: instructors are encouraged to use pointing gestures and depictive gestures in video lectures.

Alpha response reveals attention abnormalities in psychopathy.

Psychopathy is a personality disorder associated with callous, impulsive, and antisocial behaviors. Decades of research indicate that individuals higher on psychopathy exhibit abnormal allocation of attention during goal pursuit. However, the manner in which attention is allocated to goal-relevant information and the downstream neurocognitive consequences of this attention abnormality remain unclear. The present study addresses this gap by examining the relationship between psychopathy and the allocation of attention during an electroencephalogram (EEG)-based continuous performance task in a sample of 61 adolescents and young adults. Results indicate that individuals higher on psychopathy overallocate attention to visual cues during the task (i.e., enhanced parieto-occipital alpha suppression), and this overallocation of attention reduces the neural resources required for motor control (i.e., blunted central alpha activity during NoGo trials). Psychopathy appears related to a unique pattern of attention allocation that prioritizes neural resources for goal-relevant information, resulting in alterations in the neural response for downstream cognitive functions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Different attention bias patterns in anorexia nervosa restricting and binge/purge types.

Patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) have been shown to display both elevated anxiety and attentional biases in threat processing. In this study, we compared threat-related attention patterns of patients with AN restricting type (AN-R; n=32), AN binge/purge type (AN-B/P; n=23), and healthy controls (n=19). A dot-probe task with either eating disorder-related or general and social anxiety-related words was used to measure attention patterns. Severity of eating disorder symptoms, depression, anxiety, and stress were also assessed. Patients with AN-R showed vigilance to both types of threat words, whereas patients with AN-B/P showed avoidance of both threat types. Healthy control participants did not show any attention bias. Attention bias was not associated with any of the demographic, clinical, and psychometric parameters introduced. These findings suggest that there are differential patterns of attention allocation in patients with AN-R and AN-B/P. More research is needed to identify what causes/underlies these differential patterns.

Off-task behavior in elementary school children

This paper reports results from a large-scale observational study investigating attention allocation during instructional activities in elementary school students (kindergarten through fourth-grade). In Study 1, 22 classrooms participated while a more diverse sample of 30 classrooms participated in Study 2. This work investigated temporal patterns in children's attention allocation by collecting observational data on children's on- and off-task behaviors at three different time points (i.e., beginning, middle, and end of the school year) [Study 1]. We also investigated whether patterns of attention allocation changed as a function of student characteristics (gender, grade-level, SES), teachers' instructional design choices (instructional format and duration of an instructional activity), and school type (private, parochial, public charter schools) [Studies 1 & 2]. Children's patterns of attention allocation fluctuated over the course of the school year. Female students were found to be more on-task compared to male students. On-task behavior tended to decline as the instructional duration increased. The lowest rates of on-task behavior were observed while children were engaged in whole-group instructional formats. An effect of school type was found with higher proportions of on-task behavior observed in parochial schools. However, the effect of grade-level was equivocal across studies. These findings can begin to form a foundation for the development of research-based guidelines for instructional design aimed to support engagement among students in elementary classrooms.

Attention Allocation in ASD: a Review and Meta-analysis of Eye-Tracking Studies

Research on attention allocation to social and non-social stimuli in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has produced mixed results, with some studies suggesting that attention allocation is atypical in ASD (e.g., Klin, Jones, Schultz, Vokmar, & Cohen, 2002) and others finding no significant differences in attention allocation patterns when comparing individuals with ASD to typically developing (TD) controls (e.g., Parish-Morris et al. 2013). This meta-analysis aggregates results from 68 articles that compared individuals with ASD with TD controls, using eye-tracking measures of attention. As an index of attention allocation, mean effect sizes for looking time to six areas of interest (AOIs) are computed in this meta-analysis: eyes, mouth, face, body, non-social elements, and the whole screen. The results suggest the presence of atypical attention allocation in ASD, indicated by small but significant effect sizes: overall reduced attention to the eyes (d = 0.33), mouth (d = 0.25), and face (d = 0.4); increased attention to the body (d = −0.48) and non-social elements (d = −0.34); and reduced attention to the screen (d = 0.53). This pattern of findings suggests less accessing of social information by individuals with ASD. The results are discussed in light of future research directions.

Attending to Emotional Faces: Interpersonal Connections and Depression History

Although cognitive and interpersonal theories of depression vulnerability have long implicated selective attention, rumination, and ineffective interpersonal behavior (e.g., Beck, 1976; Coyne, 1976), relationships among these factors are still poorly understood. The present cross-sectional study examined such relationships in formerly depressed and never depressed participants presumably at increased or decreased risk for depression, respectively. Participants completed a dot-probe task assessing attention toward sad, happy, and neutral facial expressions, as well as measures of reassurance-seeking, negative feedback-seeking, fear of negative evaluation, interpersonal competence, and rumination. Regression models examined associations between these factors and attention allocation. Between-group differences in attention allocation were not found, but regression model factors accounted for significant variance in attention in the full sample and in the formerly depressed subsample. In particular, attention to sad faces correlated with negative feedback-seeking, depressive symptoms, and interpersonal competence. Attention to happy faces correlated negatively with rumination. Although these data cannot speak to cause or directionality, they implicate theory-consistent connections between directing attention toward facial emotion and patterns of behavior and thought relevant to interpersonal functioning and feedback about the self. These findings may facilitate increased understanding of relations between interpersonal behaviors related to depression and patterns of attention allocation.

Effects of perceived school well-being and negative emotionality on students' attentional bias for academic stressors.

Previous research indicates that children can display different attention allocation patterns in response to threat. However, data are lacking on the possible existence of an attentional bias in response to academic stressors, and whether variables related to school well-being (SWB) and students' individual characteristics may influence such attentional patterns. We aimed to investigate whether students show an attentional bias for school-related stressors. We sought to identify groups of students who differ in their perceived SWB, and to test whether they display different attention allocation patterns. We also examined whether negative emotionality moderates the expected association between students' SWB and attentional bias. Eighth-grade students completed a dot-probe detection task to register attentional patterns towards or away from an academic threatening word. SWB in terms of school anxiety, school-based stress, and perceived class climate was also assessed via self-reports. In addition, participants reported on their negative emotionality. The results indicated that students showed an attentional bias towards words describing academic stressors. Cluster analyses allowed the identification of two groups of students with high versus low SWB. Regression analysis indicated that those with low SWB were more likely to show a greater bias and that negative emotionality moderated this relationship. Specifically, within the context of low SWB, students with high negative emotionality were more prone to biased attention towards school-related stressors compared with students with low negative emotionality. The present data indicate a perceptual bias for the detection of academic threats. Within the school practice, teachers should promote SWB and devote specific attention to students with high negative emotionality to reduce a biased allocation of attention in response to school-related stressors.

Driving Along the Road or Heading for the Village? Conceptual Differences Underlying Motion Event Encoding in French, German, and French–German L2 Users

ABSTRACTThe typological contrast between verb‐ and satellite‐framed languages (Talmy, 1985) has set the basis for many empirical studies on L2 acquisition. The current analysis goes beyond this typology by looking in detail at the conceptualization of the path of motion in a motion event. We take as a starting point the cognitive salience of specific elements of motion events that are relevant when conceptualizing space. When expressing direction in French, specific spatial relations involving the entity in motion (its alignment and its distance toward a [potential] endpoint) are relevant, given a variety of path verbs in the lexicon expressing this information (e.g., se diriger vers, avancer ‘to direct oneself toward,’ ‘to advance’). This is not the case in German (manner verbs in the lexicon mainly). In German, spatial information is packaged in adjuncts and particles and the path of motion is typically structured via features of the ground (entlanglaufen/fahren ‘to walk/drive along’) or endpoints (‘to walk/drive to/toward’). We investigate those fundamental differences in spatial conceptualization in French and German, as reflected in pre‐articulatory patterns of attention allocation (measured with eye tracking) to moving entities and endpoints in motion scenes in an event description task. Our focus is on spatial conceptualization in an L2 (French L2 users of German), analyzing the extent to which these L2 users display target‐like patterns or traces of L1 conceptualization transfer.Findings show that, in line with directional concepts expressed in verbs, L1 French speakers allocate more attention to entities in motion and endpoints, before utterance onset, than L1 German speakers do. The L2 German speakers pattern with L1 German speakers in the use of manner verbs, but they have not fully acquired the spatial concepts and means that structure the path of motion in the L2. This is reflected in pre‐articulatory attention allocation patterns, according to which the L2 speakers pattern with native speakers of their L1 (French). The findings show a continued deep entrenchment of L1‐based processing patterns and spatial frames of reference when speakers prepare for speech in an L2.

A motivational determinant of facial emotion recognition: regulatory focus affects recognition of emotions in faces.

Two studies examined an unexplored motivational determinant of facial emotion recognition: observer regulatory focus. It was predicted that a promotion focus would enhance facial emotion recognition relative to a prevention focus because the attentional strategies associated with promotion focus enhance performance on well-learned or innate tasks - such as facial emotion recognition. In Study 1, a promotion or a prevention focus was experimentally induced and better facial emotion recognition was observed in a promotion focus compared to a prevention focus. In Study 2, individual differences in chronic regulatory focus were assessed and attention allocation was measured using eye tracking during the facial emotion recognition task. Results indicated that the positive relation between a promotion focus and facial emotion recognition is mediated by shorter fixation duration on the face which reflects a pattern of attention allocation matched to the eager strategy in a promotion focus (i.e., striving to make hits). A prevention focus did not have an impact neither on perceptual processing nor on facial emotion recognition. Taken together, these findings demonstrate important mechanisms and consequences of observer motivational orientation for facial emotion recognition.