Attentional Breadth Research Articles

Openness to experience predicts eye movement behavior during scene viewing

Individuals’ abilities to perform goal-directed spatial deployments of attention are distinguishable from their broader preferences for how they use spatial attention when circumstances do not compel a specific deployment strategy. Although these preferences are likely to play a major role in how we interact with the visual world during daily life, they remain relatively understudied. This exploratory study investigated two key questions about these preferences: firstly, are individuals consistent in their preferences for how they deploy their spatial attention when making shifts of attention versus adopting an attentional breadth? Secondly, which other factors are associated with these preferences? Across two experiments, we measured how participants preferred to deploy both attentional breadth (using an adapted Navon task) and eye movements (using a free-viewing task). We also measured participants’ working memory capacities (Experiment 1), and their personalities and world beliefs (Experiment 2). In both experiments, there were consistent individual differences in preference for attentional breadth and eye movement characteristics, but these two kinds of preference were unrelated to each other. Working memory capacity was not linked to these preferences. Conversely, the personality trait of Openness to Experience robustly predicted two aspects of eye movement behavior preference, such that higher levels of Openness predicted smaller saccades and shorter scan paths. This suggests that personality dimensions may predict preferences for more absorbed engagement with visual information. However, it appears that individuals’ preferences for shifts of attention during scene viewing do not necessarily relate to the breadth of attention they choose to adopt.

Different deployments of attentional breadth selectively predict UFOV task performance in older adults

The Useful Field of View task (UFOV) is a strong and reliable predictor of crash risk in older drivers. However, while the functional domain of attention is clearly implicated in UFOV performance, the potential role of one specific attentional process remains unclear: attentional breadth (the spatial extent of the attended region around the point of visual fixation). The goal of the present study was to systematically test the role of two distinct aspects of attentional breadth, maintaining a specific breadth of attention and resizing the attended region, in UFOV performance. To this end, 135 older adults completed the UFOV and modified Navon tasks to measure their efficiency in maintaining, contracting, and expanding the breadth of attention. We then examined individual-difference associations between these aspects of attentional breadth deployment and UFOV performance. We found that performance on UFOV Subtask 2 was associated with efficient contraction of attentional breadth (i.e., resizing the attended region to a smaller area), while Subtask 3 performance was associated with the efficiency of expanding attentional breadth (i.e., resizing the attended region to a larger area). The selectivity of these relationships appears to implicate these specific deployments of attentional breadth in how people complete the task, as it suggests that these relationships are not simply attributable to shared variance in a broader domain of cognitive functioning. The implications of these results for our understanding of UFOV, as well as future research directions that test the relative contributions of different cognitive processes in predicting task performance, are discussed.

Broad attention does not buffer the impact of emotionally salient stimuli on performance

ABSTRACT It has been claimed that a broad attentional breadth buffers the impact of negative stimuli on human perception and cognition. Here we identify issues with the research on which this claim is based, and then rigorously test the claim. To induce narrow versus broad attentional breadth participants attended to the local versus global elements of Navon stimuli, and to investigate the impact of emotionally salient stimuli on performance we measured the effect of task-irrelevant stimuli of varying emotional salience (negative, neutral, or positive) on task performance. Across a series of experiments, we found that the Navon stimuli were effective in inducing different attentional breadths, and that both negative and positive task-irrelevant stimuli slowed responses relative to neutral stimuli, but that the magnitude of this emotion-induced slowing was invariant to whether attentional breadth was broad or narrow. This indicates that a broad attentional breadth did not buffer against the effect of either negative or positive emotionally salient stimuli. These results challenge the claim the broadening attentional breadth protects against the impact of emotionally salient stimuli.

Broadening of attention dilates the pupil

Inconclusive evidence suggests that the pupil is more dilated when the breadth of attention is broad compared to narrow. To further investigate this relationship, we recorded pupil size from healthy volunteers while inducing trial-wise changes in breadth of attention using a shape-discrimination task where participants had to remember the location of a gap in a small or a large circle. A visual search task with targets presented at different distances from the centre of the screen was used to behaviourally assess the success of the manipulation of breadth of attention. Data were analysed using a generalised additive mixed model to test the experimental effects on pupil size after controlling for the effects of gaze location and eye vergence. The results showed that the pupil was more dilated in the broad-breadth-of-attention condition compared to the narrow-breadth-of-attention condition. However, the effect of attentional breadth on visual search performance was not mediated by pupil size, suggesting that more research is needed to understand the functional role of pupil dilation in relation to breadth of attention.

Failure to replicate an effect of affective state on attentional breadth and attentional blink

Failure to replicate an effect of affective state on attentional breadth and attentional blink

An updating-based working memory load alters the dynamics of eye movements but not their spatial extent during free viewing of natural scenes

The relationship between spatial deployments of attention and working memory load is an important topic of study, with clear implications for real-world tasks such as driving. Previous research has generally shown that attentional breadth broadens under higher load, while exploratory eye-movement behaviour also appears to change with increasing load. However, relatively little research has compared the effects of working memory load on different kinds of spatial deployment, especially in conditions that require updating of the contents of working memory rather than simple retrieval. The present study undertook such a comparison by measuring participants’ attentional breadth (via an undirected Navon task) and their exploratory eye-movement behaviour (a free-viewing recall task) under low and high updating working memory loads. While spatial aspects of task performance (attentional breadth, and peripheral extent of image exploration in the free-viewing task) were unaffected by the load manipulation, the exploratory dynamics of the free-viewing task (including fixation durations and scan-path lengths) changed under increasing load. These findings suggest that temporal dynamics, rather than the spatial extent of exploration, are the primary mechanism affected by working memory load during the spatial deployment of attention. Further, individual differences in exploratory behaviour were observed on the free-viewing task: all metrics were highly correlated across working memory load blocks. These findings suggest a need for further investigation of individual differences in eye-movement behaviour; potential factors associated with these individual differences, including working memory capacity and persistence versus flexibility orientations, are discussed.

Changes in attentional breadth scale with the demands of Kanizsa-figure object completion–evidence from pupillometry

The present study investigated whether the integration of separate parts into a whole-object representation varies with the amount of available attentional resources. To this end, two experiments were performed, which required observers to maintain central fixation while searching in peripheral vision for a target among various distractor configurations. The target could either be a “grouped” whole-object Kanizsa figure, or an “ungrouped” configuration of identical figural parts, but which do not support object completion processes to the same extent. In the experiments, accuracies and changes in pupil size were assessed, with the latter reflecting a marker of the covert allocation of attention in the periphery. Experiment 1 revealed a performance benefit for grouped (relative to ungrouped) targets, which increased with decreasing distance from fixation. By contrast, search for ungrouped targets was comparably poor in accuracy without revealing any eccentricity-dependent variation. Moreover, measures of pupillary dilation mirrored this eccentricity-dependent advantage in localizing grouped targets. Next, in Experiment 2, an additional attention-demanding foveal task was introduced in order to further reduce the availability of attentional resources for the peripheral detection task. This additional task hampered performance overall, alongside with corresponding pupil size changes. However, there was still a substantial benefit for grouped over ungrouped targets in both the behavioral and the pupillometric data. This shows that perceptual grouping scales with the allocation of attention even when only residual attentional resources are available to trigger the representation of a complete (target) object, thus illustrating that object completion operates in the “near absence” of attention.

A Randomised Control Trial in High-Risk Children of Depressed and Anxious Individuals to Prevent Mood and Anxiety Problems in Youth

Background: A great burden is placed on patients by the increased rate of being anxious and mood abnormalities. In this group, there is a clear need to halt the prevention of psychopathology because their offspring are more likely to have these diseases themselves. Due to the substantial coexisting disorders, preventative programs should concentrate on both anxiety and depression. Furthermore, although increased sensations are frequently a sign of preventive actions, resilience-based prevention programs may also be advantageous for children with other high risk profiles. Method: A randomized control clinical trial is used in the current study. It is designed for high-risk people who are symptomless as well as those who have sub-syndrome symptoms. Two among the criteria of the High Risk are met by individuals who do not exhibit any symptoms (attempt). Among a previous study, this measure was created, and it correlates with a higher risk in children of depressed individuals. Children between the ages of 8 and 17 (n = 204) who exhibit sub threshold symptoms or who meet the requirements on the HRI are randomly assigned to either (a) 10 sessions every week for child with CBT (b) limited information.. The main result is when a child's anxiety or mood condition first manifests itself. Secondary end factors include the number of days spent feeling depressed or anxious, the severity of symptoms in children and parents, living quality and financial efficiency. Researchers has chosen coping, parent-child relationship, personal attachments , optimism/pessimism, therapies, and emotion processing as potential mediators of treatment outcome based on the etiology of mood and anxiety disorders as well as processes of change during therapies. Results: The happy and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) is a 20-item self-report scale used to assess both happy and negative affect. Positive and negative affect both reflect dispositional characteristics; high negative affect is characterised by unpleasant engagement and subjective distress, whereas low NA is characterised by the lack of these feelings. PA, on the other hand, is a measure of how much an adult enjoys engaging with their surroundings. The Attentional Breadth Task, a computer task that was preprogrammed in e-prime, was also used to measure mother-child attachment. The task is based on the supposition that persons with insecure attachment may process information differently when it comes to data that is pertinent to attachments, Practical Implication: Using a quick and focused intervention aimed at strengthening the family unit, the present intervention trial seeks to drastically lower the chance of passing mood and anxiety disorders down the generations and resiliency in youngsters who could be at risk. We intend to determine the mechanisms of change and assess the efficacy and the intervention's efficacy and cost. Conclusion: Positive and negative affect both reflect dispositional features, according to the study's findings. High negative affect is marked by subjective anguish and unpleasant engagement, whereas low negative affect is marked by the absence of these emotions. Keywords: Anxiety, Mood disorders, Depressed, Youth, teenagers, Pakistan

Emphasis on peripheral vision is accompanied by pupil dilation

People are best able to detect stimuli in peripheral vision when their pupils are large, and best able to discriminate stimuli in central vision when their pupils are small. However, it is unclear whether our visual system makes use of this by dilating the pupils when attention is directed towards peripheral vision. Therefore, throughout three experiments (N = 100), we tested whether pupil size adapts to the “breadth” of attention. We found that pupils dilate with increasing attentional breadth, both when attention is diffusely spread and when attention is directed at specific locations in peripheral vision. Based on our results and others, we propose that cognitively driven pupil dilation is not an epiphenomenal marker of locus coeruleus activity, as is often assumed, but rather is an adaptive response that reflects an emphasis on peripheral vision.

Always look on the bright side of life: Individual differences in visual attentional breadth for understanding temperament and emotion regulation in adolescents.

Cognitive-affective models of depression show that negative and positive emotionality differentially confer risk for depression through maladaptive and adaptive emotion regulation (ER) strategies respectively. Yet, no research has examined the mechanisms through which these temperament traits shape individual differences in ER. The current study explored the mediating role of attentional breadth for emotional information in the distinct pathways from temperament to ER strategies in adolescents. The hypotheses were tested in a selected sample of 71 adolescents (M = 14.15, SD = 1.90; 62% girls) using a previously validated measure of visuospatial attentional breadth. First, positive emotionality was positively associated with attentional breadth for positive stimuli and temperamental vulnerable adolescents showed deficits in the processing of positive stimuli when presented far from the center of the visual field. Second, attentional breadth towards neutral stimuli was positively related to adaptive ER strategies. Third, no evidence was found for the proposed mediation models. However, post-hoc analyses provided preliminary evidence for a reversed mediation model in which adaptive ER strategies mediate the relationship between temperament and attentional breadth towards neutral stimuli. The results underscore the apparent complexity of the relations between temperament, attentional breadth, and ER and point out the need for further research in order to inform early intervention.

Top management team faultlines and corporate industrial diversification: The mediating role of strategic attentional breadth.

Integrating faultline theory and the attention-based view, this paper explores the impact and process mechanisms of two types of faultlines (i.e., task-related faultlines and relationship-related faultlines) within top management teams (TMTs), specifically on corporate industrial diversification. Based on the unbalanced panel data of Chinese A-share non-financial listed firms from 2008-2021, this study uses the fixed-effects model for hypothesis testing. First, task-related TMT faultlines promote corporate industrial diversification, while conversely, relationship-related TMT faultlines inhibit corporate industrial diversification. Second, task-related TMT faultlines promote firms' strategic attentional breadth, while conversely, relationship-related TMT faultlines inhibit firms' strategic attentional breadth. Third, strategic attentional breadth plays a partially-mediating role in the relationship between both types of TMT faultlines and firms' industrial diversification. This study extends the research related to corporate industrial diversification based on micro-level explanatory mechanisms, and also provides implications and guidance for the rational allocation of TMT and firms' industrial diversification management practices.

The influence of valence and motivation dimensions of affective states on attentional breadth and the attentional blink.

Affective state has been shown to affect attention, but the affective dimension responsible for attentional effects remains under debate. Some studies suggest that attentional effects depend on the valence dimension of the affective state. Others have proposed that attentional effects depend on the motivational intensity of the affective state. We tested the effect of induced affective states on the attentional blink and attentional breadth. In separate conditions, we induced four affective states with different combinations of valence (positive vs. negative) and motivational intensity (low vs. high). We used an RSVP digit identification task to measure the attentional blink and used the local-global visual processing task to measure attentional breadth. For both tasks, affective pictures were presented before each trial to induce the intended affective state. In Experiment 1, the affective pictures were chosen to have similar average arousal across conditions, whereas in Experiment 2, arousal was allowed to covary with expected motivational intensity. Contrary to previous findings, we found no evidence that affective state influenced either the attentional blink or attention breadth. We found no detectable differences between conditions with positive or negative induced affect, nor between affective state conditions with low or high motivational intensity. For attentional blink, the size of the possible effects was at most a 2-3% change in detection rate. Our results suggest that either the affective induction method is not reliably effective, or there is not a direct relationship between the valence or motivational intensity of affective state and the distribution of attention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Increased motivational intensity leads to preference for distraction over reappraisal during emotion regulation: Mediated by attentional breadth.

Motivation is considered important in the study of emotion regulation. However, it remains unknown whether and how varied motivation may influence people's emotion regulation choice. To address this question, 51 participants first performed a global-local task that measures attentional breadth. Then, they were required to choose emotion regulation strategies, reappraisal, or distraction, to regulate their emotion in emotional contexts that varied in motivational direction and intensity. We found that distraction was chosen more often over reappraisal in high-intensity-motivated emotion, while the reverse pattern was observed in low-intensity motivated emotion. Besides, withdrawal-motivated emotion was associated with more reappraisal choices than approach-motivated emotion, an effect that, however, vanished when valence was controlled. Furthermore, participants made fewer global choices, which is indicative of narrowed attentional breadth, during high- relative to low-intensity motivated emotional contexts, and attentional breadth partially mediated the effect of motivational intensity on emotion regulation choice. These findings suggest that increased motivation promotes one's choice of distraction over reappraisal during emotion regulation, by narrowing attentional breadth. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Hallucinating visual structure: Individual differences in ‘scaffolded attention’

Our percepts usually derive their structure from particular cues in the incoming sensory information, but this is not so in the phenomenon of scaffolded attention — where shifting patterns of attention give rise to ‘everyday hallucinations’ of visual structure even in the absence of sensory cues. When looking at a piece of graph paper, for example, the squares are all identical — yet many people see a shifting array of structured patterns such as lines, crosses, or even block-letters — something that doesn't occur when staring at a blank page. We have informally noted that scaffolded attention is a widely but not universally shared phenomenon — with some people spontaneously experiencing such percepts (even without instruction), others seeing such ‘phantom’ structures only when actively trying to so, and still others never having such experiences at all. Accordingly, the present study assessed the prevalence of scaffolded attention — both as an ability, and a spontaneous phenomenon. These results were then correlated with several measures of imagery and attention, in an attempt to explain the nature and origin of such individual differences. 40% of observers experienced scaffolded attention spontaneously, and 78% did so when trying — and these differences were uniquely modulated by certain measures of attention (such as attentional breadth, as measured by the ‘functional field of view’), but not by measures of the vividness or spontaneity of mental imagery. These results inspire an explanation for scaffolded attention based on spontaneous perceptual grouping.

The mystery remains: breadth of attention in Flanker and Navon tasks unaffected by affective states induced by an appraisal manipulation

ABSTRACT Affective effects on breadth of attention have been related to aspects of different components of affective states such as the arousal and valence of affective experience and the motivational intensity of action tendency. As none of these explanations fully aligns with existing evidence, we hypothesised that affective effects on breadth of attention may arise from the appraisal component of affective states. Based on this reconceptualisation, we tested the effects of conduciveness and power appraisals on two measures of breadth of attention. In two web-based experiments, we manipulated these appraisals in a 2 × 2 design using a game-like arithmetic task where participants could (1) gain or lose rewards (goal conducive vs. obstructive) based on (2) either their action or the actions of a “robot” (high vs. low power). Breadth of attention was assessed using the flanker task (Experiment 1; n = 236) and the Navon task (Experiment 2; n = 215). We found that appraisals did not directly influence breadth of attention even though high power appraisal significantly improved the overall performance in both experiments indicating successful appraisal manipulation. We discuss ways in which these findings inform future efforts to explain the origins of affective effects on attentional breadth.

Are Emotion Regulation Strategies Associated With Visual Attentional Breadth for Emotional Information in Youth?

Attentional deployment is currently considered as one of the most central mechanisms in emotion regulation (ER) as it is assumed to be a crucial first step in the selection of emotional information. According to the broaden-and-build theory, positive emotions are associated with attentional broadening and negative emotions with attentional narrowing toward emotional information. Given that ER strategies relying on attentional deployment (i.e., rumination, cognitive reappraisal and distraction) have the possibility to influence positive and negative emotions by (re)directing one’s attention, there could be an association with one’s attentional scope. The current study investigated the association between the general (trait) use of three specific ER strategies and visual attentional breadth for positive, negative, and neutral information in a selected sample of 56 adolescents (M = 12.54, SD = 1.72; 49% girls) at risk for developing psychopathology. First, participants self-reported on their overall use of different ER strategies. Next, the previously validated Attentional Breadth Task (ABT) was used to measure visual attention breadth toward emotional information. No evidence was found for the relationship between 2 specific ER strategies (i.e., cognitive reappraisal and rumination) and visual attentional breadth for neutral, positive and negative emotional information. Surprisingly, “distraction” was associated with visual attentional narrowing, which was unrelated to the valence of the emotion. These unexpected results indicate the multifaceted relationship between trait ER, distraction specifically, and visual attentional breadth for emotional information. Future research, especially in younger age groups, could further elaborate on this research domain.

Both negative and positive task-irrelevant stimuli contract attentional breadth in individuals with high levels of negative affect

ABSTRACT Emotionally-salient stimuli can capture attention to their spatial location, even when they are not relevant to a prescribed task. Here we tested whether they can influence the spatial breadth of attention. Experiment 1 tested whether small task-irrelevant emotionally-salient stimuli contracted attentional breadth when the task required a broad focus, while Experiment 2 tested whether large task-irrelevant emotionally-salient stimuli expanded attentional breadth when the task required a narrow focus. Both experiments compared the effect of negative and positive emotionally-salient images against neutral, and examined the role of participants’ self-reported experiences of negative affect. Both experiments revealed slower responses following large emotionally-salient images, an effect unrelated to attentional breadth. Experiment 1 demonstrated an interaction between accuracy and negative affect, such that individuals with high levels of negative affect were less accurate at identifying global targets following both negative and positive small images, but not following neutral small images. This suggests that these small task-irrelevant emotionally-salient images contracted attentional breadth. Experiment 2 suggested that large task-irrelevant emotionally-salient images did not expand attentional breadth. We discuss how these results cannot be explained by existing models of emotion-based effects on attention and cognition, and the important implications they have for the practicalities of model-testing.

Rumination Derails Reinforcement Learning with Possible Implications for Ineffective Behavior.

How does rumination affect reinforcement learning-the ubiquitous process by which we adjust behavior after error in order to behave more effectively in the future? In a within-subject design (n=49), we tested whether experimentally manipulated rumination disrupts reinforcement learning in a multidimensional learning task previously shown to rely on selective attention. Rumination impaired performance, yet unexpectedly this impairment could not be attributed to decreased attentional breadth (quantified using a "decay" parameter in a computational model). Instead, trait rumination (between subjects) was associated with higher decay rates (implying narrower attention), yet not with impaired performance. Our task-performance results accord with the possibility that state rumination promotes stress-generating behavior in part by disrupting reinforcement learning. The trait-rumination finding accords with the predictions of a prominent model of trait rumination (the attentional-scope model). More work is needed to understand the specific mechanisms by which state rumination disrupts reinforcement learning.

That's me in the spotlight: Self-relevance modulates attentional breadth.

A core prediction of models of social-cognitive functioning is that attention is preferentially tuned to self-relevant material. Surprisingly, however, evidence in support of this viewpoint is scant. Remedying this situation, here we demonstrated that self-relevance influences the distribution of attentional resources during decisional processing. In a flanker task (N = 60), participants reported if to-be-judged stimuli either denoted, or were owned by, the self or a friend. A consistent pattern of results emerged across both judgment tasks. Whereas the identification of friend-related targets was speeded when the items were flanked by compatible compared with incompatible flankers, responses to self-related targets were resistant to flanker interference. Probing the origin of these effects, a further computational analysis (i.e., Shrinking Spotlight Diffusion Model analysis) confirmed that self-relevance impacted the focusing of attention during decision-making. These findings highlight how self-relevance modulates attentional processing.

Individual Differences in Attentional Breadth Changes Over Time: An Event-Related Potential Investigation.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) to hierarchical stimuli have been compared for global/local target trials, but the pattern of results across studies is mixed with respect to understanding how ERPs differ with local and global bias. There are reliable interindividual differences in attentional breadth biases. This study addresses two questions. Can these interindividual differences in attentional breadth be predicted by interindividual ERP differences to hierarchical stimuli? Can attentional breadth changes over time within participants (i.e., intraindividual differences) be predicted by ERPs changes over time when viewing hierarchical stimuli? Here, we estimated attentional breadth and isolated ERPs in response to Navon letter stimuli presented at two time points. We found that interindividual differences in ERPs at Time 1 did not predict attentional breadth differences across individuals at Time 1. However, individual differences in changes to P1, N1, and P3 ERPs to hierarchical stimuli from Time 1 to Time 2 were associated with individual differences in changes in attentional breadth from Time 1 to Time 2. These results suggest that attentional breadth changes within individuals over time are reflected in changes in ERP responses to hierarchical stimuli such that smaller N1s and larger P3s accompany a shift to processing the newly prioritized level, suggesting that the preferred level required less perceptual processing and elicited more attention.