Attentional Window Research Articles

The minimal size of the attentional window is larger when measured via the pupillary light response

The minimal size of the attentional window is larger when measured via the pupillary light response

The size of the attentional window when measured by the pupillary response to light

This study measured the size of the attentional window when attention is narrowly focused, using attentional modulation of the pupillary light response – pupillary constriction when covertly attending a brighter than darker area. This allowed us to avoid confounds and biases involved in relying on observers’ response (e.g., RT), which contaminated previous measurements of this window. We presented letters to the right and left of fixation, each surrounded by task-irrelevant disks with varying distances. The disks were bright on one side and dark on the other. A central cue indicated which letter to attend. Luminance levels were identical across trials. We found that pupil size was modulated by the disks’ luminance when they were 1° away from the attended letter, but not when this distance was larger. This suggests that the diameter of the attentional window is at least 2°, which is twice as large as that established with behavioral measurements.

Focusing and orienting spatial attention differently modulate crowding in central and peripheral vision.

The allocation of attentional resources to a particular location or object in space involves two distinct processes: an orienting process and a focusing process. Indeed, it has been demonstrated that performance of different visual tasks can be improved when a cue, such as a dot, anticipates the position of the target (orienting), or when its dimensions (as in the case of a small square) inform about the size of the attentional window (focusing). Here, we examine the role of these two components of visuo-spatial attention (orienting and focusing) in modulating crowding in peripheral (Experiment 1 and Experiment 3a) and foveal (Experiment 2 and Experiment 3b) vision. The task required to discriminate the orientation of a target letter "T," close to acuity threshold, presented with left and right "H" flankers, as a function of target-flanker distance. Three cue types have been used: a red dot, a small square, and a big square. In peripheral vision (Experiment 1 and Experiment 3a), we found a significant improvement with the red dot and no advantage when a small square was used as a cue. In central vision (Experiment 2 and Experiment 3b), only the small square significantly improved participants' performance, reducing the critical distance needed to recover target identification. Taken together, the results indicate a behavioral dissociation of orienting and focusing attention in their capability of modulating crowding. In particular, we confirmed that orientation of attention can modulate crowding in visual periphery, while we found that focal attention can modulate foveal crowding.

Knowing how you are feeling depends on what's on my mind: Cognitive load and expression categorization.

The ability to correctly interpret facial expressions is key to effective social interactions. People are well rehearsed and generally very efficient at correctly categorizing expressions. However, does their ability to do so depend on how cognitively loaded they are at the time? Using repeated-measures designs, we assessed the sensitivity of facial expression categorization to cognitive resources availability by measuring people's expression categorization performance during concurrent low and high cognitive load situations. In Experiment1, participants categorized the 6 basic upright facial expressions in a 6-automated-facial-coding response paradigm while maintaining low or high loading information in working memory (N = 40; 60 observations per load condition). In Experiment 2, they did so for both upright and inverted faces (N = 46; 60 observations per load and inversion condition). In both experiments, expression categorization for upright faces was worse during high versus low load. Categorization rates actually improved with increased load for the inverted faces. The opposing effects of cognitive load on upright and inverted expressions are explained in terms of a cognitive load-related dispersion in the attentional window. Overall, the findings support that expression categorization is sensitive to cognitive resources availability and moreover suggest that, in this paradigm, it is the perceptual processing stage of expression categorization that is affected by cognitive load. (PsycINFO Database Record

Discursive construction of human rights violations: the case of the Chilean Rettig report

Abstract Drawing on discourse analysis and cognitive linguistics, this paper analyzes the discursive construction of human rights violations in the report of the Chilean Truth and Reconciliation Commission, also called Rettig Commission. We show that there is a strong contrast in how the victims and perpetrators are represented in the case descriptions. While the victims are clearly identified, the perpetrators are not identified individually. Moreover, through a variety of strategies, the agent of the human rights violations often remains vague or unexpressed. Furthermore, we show that different sources of information are included in the event description – entailing different windows of attention – save the perpetrator’s testimonies. By doing so, the report clearly privileges in its discursive construction of the events the non-attribution of responsibility over the completeness of information principle.

A not-so-narrow spotlight: Infants can encode information about objects into VSTM that were not fixated

Background: While the early development of attentional orienting is well described, basic questions related to infants' attentional windows have not been explicitly investigated. Here we measure whether infants can encode information about objects that they did not fixate into their visual short-term memory (VSTM). Methods: Twenty-five 6-month-old infants (age range: 5;0-7;5, 10 females) participated in a free-viewing eye-tracking study. In each trial, infants were presented with a set of identically shaped, but differently colored items spaced symmetrically around central fixation (set size was varied between participants: 4 or 6). After a 1,000 ms exposure, a randomly chosen pair of neighboring items disappeared. Following a 500 ms delay, the two items reappeared for 2,000 ms, with one changed to a new color (target) and the other unchanged (foil). The sudden offset of the two items was the partial report post-cue, designed to trigger coding from iconic memory into more durable VSTM (Blaser & Kaldy, 2010, Psych Sci). We contrasted infants' performance (preference for the target) on trials where, during the initial exposure, they fixated the items that subsequently became the target and foil ('focal look'), versus trials where they did not ('peripheral look'). Results: Infants' overall (collapsed across set size) performance (59.2 ± 11.7% correct), and performance in 'focal look' trials, (62.9 ± 19.1%) were both significantly above chance (t24=3.93, p< 0.0006, d=0.78; t18=2.95, p< 0.008, d=0.68, respectively). In 'peripheral look' trials, performance was 57.1 ± 17.0%, and importantly, also significantly above chance (t24=2.09, p< 0.048, d=0.42). Conclusion: Infants were able to encode and use information about objects that they did not fixate in a change detection paradigm. To our knowledge, this study is the first to show that infants can extract useful information beyond their target of fixation. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2017

The size of the attentional window when measured by the pupillary response to light

This study measured the size of the attentional window when attention is narrowly focused, using attentional modulation of the pupillary light response – pupillary constriction when covertly attending a brighter than darker area. This allowed us to avoid confounds and biases involved in relying on observers’ response (e.g., RT), which contaminated previous measurements of this window. We presented letters to the right and left of fixation, each surrounded by task-irrelevant disks with varying distances. The disks were bright on one side and dark on the other. A central cue indicated which letter to attend. Luminance levels were identical across trials. We found that pupil size was modulated by the disks’ luminance when they were 1° away from the attended letter, but not when this distance was larger. This suggests that the diameter of the attentional window is at least 2°, which is twice as large as that established with behavioral measurements.

The precise role of surface structure in spatial attention

Visual attention operates on representations informed by surface structure (e.g., He & Nakayama, 1992). Surfaces can provide benefits that spatial information alone cannot. During search for a shape target among distractors, observers could not use spatial cues to prevent distraction from an additional color singleton outside the cued locations. They could, however, use surface cues to prevent distraction from color singletons on uncued surfaces (Vatterott & Vecera, 2015). This was a novel demonstration that surfaces can allow the attentional window to be configured to suppress noncontiguous locations, with significant implications for the processes that determine spatial selection and suppression. One concern about these displays, however, is displays with Surface structure contained more visual heterogeneity and differing contrast than those with Location cues. The differing levels of heterogeneity could produce the observed differing pattern of distraction for Location and Surface cues. In this set of experiments, we first replicated Vatterott & Vecera's findings. We then generated background stimuli that balanced the visual heterogeneity and clutter between Location and Surface conditions. The alignment or misalignment of components of these stimuli either formed or disrupted illusory object contours. Using these balanced displays produced a pattern of results different from those of Vatterott & Vecera. As such, the flexibility of spatial attentional control that is informed by surface structure remains an open question that our ongoing work examining covert and overt shifts of attention will answer. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2017

A category-specific top-down attentional set can affect the neural responses outside the current focus of attention.

A top-down set can guide attention to enhance the processing of task-relevant objects. Many studies have found that the top-down set can be tuned to a category level. However, it is unclear whether the category-specific top-down set involving a central search task can exist outside the current area of attentional focus. To directly probe the neural responses inside and outside the current focus of attention, we recorded continuous EEG to measure the contralateral ERP components for central targets and the steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) oscillations associated with a flickering checkerboard placed on the visual periphery. The relationship of color categories between targets and non-targets was manipulated to investigate the effect of category-specific top-down set. Results showed that when the color categories of targets and non-targets in the central search arrays were the same, larger SSVEP oscillations were evoked by target color peripheral checkerboards relative to the non-target color ones outside the current attentional focus. However, when the color categories of targets and non-targets were different, the peripheral checkerboards in two different colors of the same category evoked similar SSVEP oscillations, indicating the effects of category-specific top-down set. These results firstly demonstrate that the category-specific top-down set can affect the neural responses of peripheral distractors. The results could support the idea of a global selection account and challenge the attentional window account in selective attention.

Target-nontarget similarity decreases search efficiency and increases stimulus-driven control in visual search.

Some points of criticism against the idea that attentional selection is controlled by bottom-up processing were dispelled by the attentional window account. The attentional window account claims that saliency computations during visual search are only performed for stimuli inside the attentional window. Therefore, a small attentional window may avoid attentional capture by salient distractors because it is likely that the salient distractor is located outside the window. In contrast, a large attentional window increases the chances of attentional capture by a salient distractor. Large and small attentional windows have been associated with efficient (parallel) and inefficient (serial) search, respectively. We compared the effect of a salient color singleton on visual search for a shape singleton during efficient and inefficient search. To vary search efficiency, the nontarget shapes were either similar or dissimilar with respect to the shape singleton. We found that interference from the color singleton was larger with inefficient than efficient search, which contradicts the attentional window account. While inconsistent with the attentional window account, our results are predicted by computational models of visual search. Because of target-nontarget similarity, the target was less salient with inefficient than efficient search. Consequently, the relative saliency of the color distractor was higher with inefficient than with efficient search. Accordingly, stronger attentional capture resulted. Overall, the present results show that bottom-up control by stimulus saliency is stronger when search is difficult, which is inconsistent with the attentional window account.

Cognitive functioning is more closely related to real-life mobility than to laboratory-based mobility parameters.

Increasing evidence indicates that mobility depends on cognitive resources, but the exact relationships between various cognitive functions and different mobility parameters still need to be investigated. This study examines the hypothesis that cognitive functioning is more closely related to real-life mobility performance than to mobility capacity as measured with standardized laboratory tests. The final sample used for analysis consisted of 66 older adults (72.3±5.6years). Cognition was assessed by measures of planning (HOTAP test), spatial working memory (Grid-Span test) and visuospatial attention (Attention Window test). Mobility capacity was assessed by an instrumented version of the Timed Up-and-Go test (iTUG). Mobility performance was assessed with smartphones which collected accelerometer and GPS data over one week to determine the spatial extent and temporal duration of real-life activities. Data analyses involved an exploratory factor analysis and correlation analyses. Mobility measures were reduced to four orthogonal factors: the factor 'real-life mobility' correlated significantly with most cognitive measures (between r=.229 and r=.396); factors representing 'sit-to-stand transition' and 'turn' correlated with fewer cognitive measures (between r=.271 and r=.315 and between r=.210 and r=.316, respectively), and the factor representing straight gait correlated with only one cognitive measure (r=.237). Among the cognitive functions tested, visuospatial attention was associated with most mobility measures, executive functions with fewer and spatial working memory with only one mobility measure. Capacity and real-life performance represent different aspects of mobility. Real-life mobility is more closely associated with cognition than mobility capacity, and in our data this association is most pronounced for visuospatial attention. The close link between real-life mobility and visuospatial attention should be considered by interventions targeting mobility in old age.

The role of attention in subliminal semantic processing: A mouse tracking study.

Recent evidence suggests that top-down attention facilitates unconscious semantic processing. To clarify the role of attention in unconscious semantic processing, we traced trajectories of the computer mouse in a semantic priming task and scrutinized the extent to which top-down attention enhances unconscious semantic processing in four different stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA: 50, 200, 500, or 1000ms) conditions. Participants judged whether a target digit (e.g., “6”) was larger or smaller than five, preceded by a masked priming digit (e.g., “9”). The pre-prime duration changed randomly from trial to trial to disrupt participants’ top-down attention in an uncued condition (in a cued condition, a green square cue was presented to facilitate participants’ top-down attention). The results show that top-down attention modifies the time course of subliminal semantic processing, and the temporal attention window lasts more than 1000ms; attention facilitated by the cue may amplify semantic priming to some extent, yet the amplification effect of attention is relatively minor.

The Attention Window: A Narrative Review of Limitations and Opportunities Influencing the Focus of Attention

ABSTRACTPurpose: Visual attention is essential in many areas ranging from everyday life situations to the workplace. Different circumstances such as driving in traffic or participating in sports require immediate adaptation to constantly changing situations and frequently the conscious perception of 2 objects or scenes at the same time. Method: The attention window task, a measure of attentional breadth, in which people must attend to 2 equally attention-demanding stimuli simultaneously, was introduced. This article provides a narrative review of studies using this task and outlines different factors that might influence the attention window. Results: Differences in the spatial distribution of attention result, for example, from effects of age or physical activities as well as from emotional processes and those affected by current motivation, while gender does not have any influence. The window is represented as an ellipse with greater attentional breadth along the horizontal axis than the vertical axis, and it is about 5 to 6 times smaller than the human visual field. Conclusion: Not only everyday occurrences but also situations in sport games—for example, having an overview of the opponent, teammates, and the ball—require the ability to pay visual attention to 2 peripheral objects and continuously changing situations. Therefore, the application or avoidance of different strategies and factors is discussed to improve and adjust behavior in those situations.

Temporal dissociation between the focal and orientation components of spatial attention in central and peripheral vision

Selective attention, i.e. the ability to concentrate one's limited processing resources on one aspect of the environment, is a multifaceted concept that includes different processes like spatial attention and its subcomponents of orienting and focusing. Several studies, indeed, have shown that visual tasks performance is positively influenced not only by attracting attention to the target location (orientation component), but also by the adjustment of the size of the attentional window according to task demands (focal component). Nevertheless, the relative weight of the two components in central and peripheral vision has never been studied.We conducted two experiments to explore whether different components of spatial attention have different effects in central and peripheral vision. In order to do so, participants underwent either a detection (Experiment 1) or a discrimination (Experiment 2) task where different types of cues elicited different components of spatial attention: a red dot, a small square and a big square (an optimal stimulus for the orientation component, an optimal and a sub-optimal stimulus for the focal component respectively). Response times and cue-size effects indicated a stronger effect of the small square or of the dot in different conditions, suggesting the existence of a dissociation in terms of mechanisms between the focal and the orientation components of spatial attention. Specifically, we found that the orientation component was stronger in periphery, while the focal component was noticeable only in central vision and characterized by an exogenous nature.

Predictive cues narrow the window of spatial attention in crowded visual displays: Evidence from ERPs

Predictive cues narrow the window of spatial attention in crowded visual displays: Evidence from ERPs

Hyperdeactivation of the Default Mode Network in People With Schizophrenia When Focusing Attention in Space.

When studying selective attention in people with schizophrenia (PSZ), a counterintuitive but replicated finding has been that PSZ display larger performance benefits than healthy control subjects (HCS) by cues that predicts the location of a target stimulus relative to non-predictive cues. Possible explanations are that PSZ hyperfocus attention in response to predictive cues, or that an inability to maintain a broad attentional window impairs performance when the cue is non-predictive. Over-recruitment of regions involved in top-down focusing of spatial attention in response to predictive cues would support the former possibility, and an inappropriate recruitment of these regions in response to non-predictive cues the latter. We probed regions of the dorsal attention network while PSZ (N = 20) and HCS (N = 20) performed a visuospatial attention task. A central cue either predicted at which of 4 peripheral locations a target signal would appear, or it gave no information about the target location. As observed previously, PSZ displayed a larger reaction time difference between predictive and non-predictive cue trials than HCS. Activity in frontoparietal and occipital regions was greater for predictive than non-predictive cues. This effect was almost identical between PSZ and HCS. There was no sign of over-recruitment when the cue was predictive, or of inappropriate recruitment when the cue was non-predictive. However, PSZ differed from HCS in their cue-dependent deactivation of the default mode network. Unexpectedly, PSZ displayed significantly greater deactivation than HCS in predictive cue trials, which may reflect a tendency to expend more processing resources when focusing attention in space.

Enhanced frontal activation underlies sparing from the attentional blink: Evidence from human electrophysiology.

Using the ERP method, we examined the processing operations elicited by stimuli that appear within the same temporal attention window. Forty subjects searched for letter targets among digit distractors displayed in rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP). ERPs were examined under conditions where a single target was embedded among distractors and compared to those recorded when two consecutive targets were embedded among distractors. Standard and independent component analyses revealed two temporally and topographically distinct ERP responses, a midfrontal P3a component peaking at about 300 ms followed by a midparietal P3b component peaking at about 450 ms. With minimal latency variations, the frontal P3a was amplified when elicited by two consecutive targets relative to a single target. The parietal P3b response was also amplified when elicited by two consecutive targets compared to a single target but, in contrast to P3a, it was also associated with a substantially longer time course. These results provide evidence for the involvement of frontal brain regions in the close-to-concurrent selection of two consecutive targets displayed in RSVP, and of posterior brain regions in the serial encoding of targets in visual working memory. The present findings are discussed in relation to current models of temporal gating of attention and the attentional blink effect.

Feature-based attention is functionally distinct from relation-based attention: The double dissociation between color-based capture and color-relation-based capture of attention.

The present study used a spatial blink task and a cuing task to examine the boundary between feature-based capture and relation-based capture. Feature-based capture occurs when distractors match the target feature such as target color. The occurrence of relation-based capture is contingent upon the feature relation between target and distractor (e.g., color relation). The results show that color distractors that match the target-nontarget color relation do not consistently capture attention when they appear outside of the attentional window, but distractors appearing outside the attentional window that match the target color consistently capture attention. In contrast, color distractors that best match the target-nontarget color relation but not the target color, are more likely to capture attention when they appear within the attentional window. Consistently, color cues that match the target-nontarget color relation produce a cuing effect when they appear within the attentional window, while target-color matched cues do not. Such a double dissociation between color-based capture and color-relation-based capture indicates functionally distinct mechanisms for these 2 types of attentional selection. This also indicates that the spatial blink task and the uninformative cuing task are measuring distinctive aspects of involuntary attention. (PsycINFO Database Record

Motor preparation and attentional benefits: dependencies on the number of possible saccade targets

Growing evidence suggests movements are prepared through widespread and complex modulation in multiple brain centers, where inhibitory components assure execution is not triggered prematurely (Cohen, Sherman, Zinger, Perlmutter & Prut, 2010). It has been suggested that preparing an eye movement towards few possible targets, compared to many, results in longer latencies because of the activation of these inhibitory components (Lawrence, John, Abrams & Snyder, 2008). In contrast, Belopolsky & Theeuwes (2009) suggest that attending to a location that has a high probability of being a saccade target, because of only few available options, results in the activation of the oculomotor system and facilitation. Our goal was to clarify this discrepancy and to measure attention at object locations when saccade target alternatives were few or many. While the total number of presented stimuli was kept constant (twelve circles), the saccade target could be at only two possible circle locations in the few alternatives condition, while the many alternatives condition featured six options. We employed a dual-task paradigm, primarily requiring the rapid execution of saccades to the only circle that became the target colour. The secondary task was to discriminate an asymmetric cross flashed at one of the circles. Our results show that slower saccade initiation is found when the possible saccade targets are two, indeed suggesting inhibitory motor components may be at play. However, the discrimination scores show that perception at the saccade target and the (never fixated) alternative saccade target were both facilitated compared to an attended control location. This suggests motor suppression may not necessarily affect perception. Recently Dhawan, Deubel & Jonikaitis (2013) showed that inhibition of saccades led to perceptual suppression, while in our study perception appeared unaffected. We put forward attention-based interpretations focusing on attentional window size and fuzzy loci leading to more stimulus-driven eye movements. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015. Language: en

The attentional window configures to object and surface boundaries

Attention can select items based on location or features. Belopolsky and colleagues posited the attentional window hypothesis, which theorized that spatial and featural selection interact such that featural selection occurs within a “window” of spatial selection. Kerzel and colleagues recently found that the attentional window can take complex shapes, but cannot configure around non-contiguous locations. The current experiments investigated whether perceptual grouping cues, which produce perceptual objects or surfaces, enable the attentional window to configure around non-contiguous locations. Using the additional singleton paradigm, we reasoned that observers (1) would be slowed by a colour singleton distractor that appears within the observers’ attentional window and (2) would be unaffected by distractors that do not appear within the attentional window. In separate blocks of trials, a target appeared upon one of two objects. Observers were cued to the relevant surface, and we asked if responses were affected by distractors on the cued task-relevant surface, and on the uncued irrelevant surface. Colour singleton distractors slowed responses when they appeared on the cued surface, even when those locations were non-contiguous locations. Distractors on the irrelevant surface did not affect responses. The results support a highly adaptable attentional window that is configurable to the surfaces and boundaries established by intermediate-level vision.