Attentional Breadth Research Articles

Things Seen and Unseen: Investigating Experience-Based Qualities of Attention in a Dynamic Work Setting

While interest in the topic of attention has a long history in organizational studies, little research has investigated what qualities of attention are most pertinent to working professionals—and how these qualities may be attained. Through the study reported here, I elaborate theory concerning the qualities of attention in a dynamic work setting (trial law). Specifically, I identify the importance of two qualities of attention—attentional breadth and attentional integration—and examine how these qualities connect to the experiences individuals accrue within the focal context. My findings indicate that, through the acquisition of experience, individuals become attentive to a wide range of events surrounding them (via attentional breadth) and attuned to the opportunities that reside within these events (via attentional integration). Therefore, in achieving these two qualities of attention, individuals are able to see not only more events but also more possibilities.

Attentional breadth and proximity seeking in romantic attachment relationships

The present study provides first evidence that attentional breadth responses can be influenced by proximity-distance goals in adult attachment relationships. In a sample of young couples, we measured attachment differences in the breadth of attentional focus in response to attachment-related cues. Results showed that priming with a negative attachment scenario broadens attention when confronted with pictures of the attachment figure in highly avoidant men. In women, we found that attachment anxiety was associated with a more narrow attentional focus on the attachment figure, yet only at an early stage of information processing. We also found that women showed a broader attentional focus around the attachment figure when their partner was more avoidantly attached. This pattern of results reflects the underlying action of attachment strategies and provides insight into the complex and dynamic influence of attachment on attentional processing in a dyadic context.

Interactive effects of approach motivational intensity and alcohol cues on the scope of perceptual attention

Many theoretical perspectives suggest that alcohol-related stimuli bear on attentional processes. Building upon these ideas and recent advances regarding the attention-constricting impact of approach motivational states, we predicted that mere exposure to alcohol-related images would suffice to reduce the breadth of attention among individuals who possessed a strong motivation to consume alcohol. Two studies exposed participants to alcohol and neutral cues prior to assessing attention structure. In both studies, measures of alcohol use, negative alcohol expectancies, trait approach motivation and alcohol-related approach motivation were assessed. Study 1 comprised 102 undergraduates and study 2 comprised 161 undergraduates. Studies were conducted at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas. In both studies, participants were briefly exposed to pictures of various stimuli (alcohol versus neutral pictures). After each picture was displayed, participants completed a trial assessing attentional focus. After controlling for relevant covariates, both studies demonstrated that exposure to alcohol-related pictures led to a narrowing of attentional focus among individuals who possessed a strong motivation to use alcohol. Exposure to neutral pictures, however, did not interact with alcohol-related motivation to influence attentional focus. Alcohol cues narrow attentional breadth for individuals who are motivated to consume alcohol, suggesting a non-pharmacological means in which alcohol produces a narrow mindset. Alcohol cues may contribute to cognitive and behavioral deficits, as well as drinking behaviors, in part, because they lead to the inability to process a broad range of information in the environment.

Action video game players form more detailed representation of objects

Previous research has clearly demonstrated action video game improvements in visual and spatial attention. The present study investigated action video game related changes in the resolution of representations for both dynamic and stationary objects by comparing video game players (VGP) and non-video game players (NVGP). In a color wheel task (adapted from Zhang & Luck, 2008) where viewers were asked to freely recall the color of briefly presented objects, we found that VGPs were more accurate than NVGPs. Furthermore, in the Multiple Identity Tracking task (Horowitz et al., 2007), we found that VGPs were able to track not only more objects but also maintain identity of tracked objects better than NVGPs. Finally, we demonstrated that VGPs had greater attentional breadth and higher spatial representation resolution.

Do Irrelevant Emotional Stimuli Impair or Improve Executive Control?

Our behavior is constantly influenced by emotional stimuli. These stimuli can enhance (i.e., improve) or impair performance, depending on their specific interaction with situational demands (Dolcos et al., 2011). This paper examines factors that mediate the influence of task-irrelevant negative stimuli on executive control (EC). We demonstrate how similar results of emotion-cognition interactions might be interpreted according to opposing theories, following the use of different analysis methods. Executive control is responsible for monitoring, controlling, and regulating irrelevant information, in order to enable goal-directed behavior (Norman and Shallice, 1986). Recently, there is growing debate regarding the influence of negative stimuli on EC (Hu et al., 2012). Specifically, compared to neutral stimuli, negative stimuli were found to impair (i.e., elongated reaction times – RT), improve (i.e., facilitated RT), or have no influence (i.e., similar RT) on EC. Herein we will first suggest that descriptions of improved or impaired EC may be misleading, and then discuss three factors that modulate links between EC and emotion: available resources, attentional breadth, and top-down modulation.

Impaired Attentional Disengagement in Older Adults With Useful Field of View Decline

Typical measures of the useful field of view (UFOV) involve many components of attention. The objective of the current research was to examine the attentional operations that might underlie declines in the UFOV. We used 2 basic attention tasks to characterize the profile of visual attention in UFOV-impaired and -unimpaired observers. Our results suggested that declines in the UFOV result from a deficit in attentional disengagement, not a decrease in attentional breadth or scope. The results suggested that UFOV decline in normal aging can be associated with a specific attentional operation, namely attentional disengagement. These results suggest that the underlying cause of UFOV decline may not be a restriction in the breadth or scope of attention. Because the UFOV is a reliable predictor of driving safety, our results point to attentional components that are critical for the visual behavior of older adults.

Smile to see the forest: Facially expressed positive emotions broaden cognition

The broaden hypothesis, part of Fredrickson's (1998, 2001) broaden-and-build theory, proposes that positive emotions lead to broadened cognitive states. Here, we present evidence that cognitive broadening can be produced by frequent facial expressions of positive emotion. Additionally, we present a novel method of using facial electromyography (EMG) to discriminate between Duchenne (genuine) and non-Duchenne (non-genuine) smiles. Across experiments, Duchenne smiles occurred more frequently during positive emotion inductions than neutral or negative inductions. Across experiments, Duchenne smiles correlated with self-reports of specific positive emotions. In Experiment 1, high frequencies of Duchenne smiles predicted increased attentional breadth on a global–local visual processing task. In Experiment 2, high frequencies of Duchenne smiles predicted increased attentional flexibility on a covert attentional orienting task. These data underscore the value of using multiple methods to measure emotional experience in studies of emotion and cognition.

Attachment Security and Attentional Breadth toward the Attachment Figure in Middle Childhood

To increase our understanding of the cognitive processes involved in internal working models of attachment, this study investigated the relationship between secure attachment and attentional breadth to mother using a dual task design. The content of the cues (mother vs. unfamiliar women) and the duration of the presentation of the cues (34 msec, 100 msec, and 250 msec) were varied. The test was administered to 40 elementary school children between 9 and 12 years of age. As predicted, less securely attached children had a more narrow attentional field around mother at 34 msec. Lower levels of maternal autonomy support were similarly linked with a more narrow attentional field. In conformity with attachment theory, this effect was fully mediated by the child's level of trust toward mother.

The relationship between visual attention and expertise in sports

Objectives Given the prevalence of misperception and failed perception, particularly in attention-demanding team sports, surprisingly few studies have explored whether experts in team sports differ from other athletes and from non-athletes in their basic attention abilities. Method In this study, we examined group differences between experts in team handball ( n = 40), athletes from non-team sports ( n = 40), and novice athletes ( n = 40) using a battery of three attention tasks: a functional field of view task, a multiple-object tracking task, and an inattentional blindness task. Results Performance on the three attention tasks was largely independent, with no significant correlations among the tasks. Team sports experts showed no better performance on the basic attention tasks than did athletes from non-teams sports or novice athletes. Conclusions The finding that all basic attention tasks are largely independent provides preliminary support for the idea that attentional breadth, tracking performance, and inattentional blindness are distinct attentional processes. Our results demonstrate that sports expertise effects are unrelated to basic differences in attention—expertise does not appear to produce differences in basic attention and basic differences in attention do not appear to predict eventual expertise. Further experiments could focus on the ways in which more specific attentional strategies and processes contribute to sports performance.

Positive mood broadens visual attention to positive stimuli

In an attempt to investigate the impact of positive emotions on visual attention within the context of Fredrickson's (1998) broaden-and-build model, eye tracking was used in two studies to measure visual attentional preferences of college students (n=58, n=26) to emotional pictures. Half of each sample experienced induced positive mood immediately before viewing slides of three similarly-valenced images, in varying central-peripheral arrays. Attentional breadth was determined by measuring the percentage viewing time to peripheral images as well as by the number of visual saccades participants made per slide. Consistent with Fredrickson's theory, the first study showed that individuals induced into positive mood fixated more on peripheral stimuli than did control participants; however, this only held true for highly-valenced positive stimuli. Participants under induced positive mood also made more frequent saccades for slides of neutral and positive valence. A second study showed that these effects were not simply due to differences in emotional arousal between stimuli. Selective attentional broadening to positive stimuli may act both to facilitate later building of resources as well as to maintain current positive affective states.

Head-Up vs. Head-Down: Effects of Precision on Cue Effectiveness and Display Signaling

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the attentional effects in the presentation of cueing symbology with the use of a helmet-mounted display (HMD) relative to a handheld display, and how reduced cue precision (experiment 1) and increased clutter (experiment 2) might modulate these effects. Participants were asked to detect, identify, and give azimuth information for targets hidden in terrain presented in the far domain (i.e., the world) while performing a monitoring task in the near domain (i.e., the display) using either a HMD or hand-held display. The results revealed overall cueing benefits in target detection performance, with slight decrements when cue imprecision was greater than 7.5°. More importantly, undertrust of the cueing data, induced by decreased precision, widened attentional breadth on trials after the automation unexpectedly failed.

The role of attentional breadth in perceptual change detection.

Previous research has shown that changes to scenes are often surprisingly hard to detect. The research reported here investigated the relationship between individual differences in attention and change detection. We did this by assessing participants' breadth of attention in a functional field of view task (FFOV) and relating this measure to the speed with which individuals detected changes in scenes. We also examined how the salience, meaningfulness, and eccentricity of the scene changes affected perceptual change performance. In order to broaden the range of individual differences in attentional breadth, both young and old adults participated in the study. A strong negative relationship was obtained between attentional breadth and the latency with which perceptual changes were detected; observers with broader attentional windows detected changes faster. Salience and eccentricity had large effects on change detection, but meaning aided the performance of young adults only and only when changes also had low salience.