Contingent Attentional Capture Research Articles

Contingent attentional capture occurs by activated target congruence

Contingent attentional capture occurs when a stimulus property captures an observer's attention, usually related to the observer's top-down attentional set for target-defining properties. In this study, we examined whether contingent attentional capture occurs for a distractor that does not share the target-defining property at a physical level, but does share that property at an abstract level of representation. In a rapid serial visual presentation stream, we defined the target by color (e.g., a green-colored Japanese kanji character). Before the target onset, we presented a distractor that referred to the target-defining color (e.g., a white-colored character meaning "green"). We observed contingent attentional capture by the distractor, which was reflected by a deficit in identifying the subsequent target. This result suggests that because of the attentional set, stimuli were scanned on the basis of the target-defining property at an abstract semantic level of representation.

Contingent attentional capture by top-down control settings: Converging evidence from event-related potentials.

Theories of attentional control are divided over whether the capture of spatial attention depends primarily on stimulus salience or is contingent on attentional control settings induced by task demands. The authors addressed this issue using the N2-posterior- contralateral (N2pc) effect, a component of the event-related brain potential thought to reflect attentional allocation. They presented a cue display followed by a target display of 4 letters. Each display contained a green item and a red item. Some participants responded to the red letter and others to the green letter. Converging lines of evidence indicated that attention was captured by the cues with the same color as the target. First, these target-color cues produced a cuing validity effect on behavioral measures. Second, distractors appearing in the cued location produced larger compatibility effects. Third, the target-color cue produced a robust N2pc effect, similar in magnitude to the N2pc effect to the target itself. Furthermore, the target-color cue elicited a similar N2pc effect regardless of whether it competed with a simultaneous abrupt onset. The findings provide converging evidence for attentional capture contingent on top-down control settings.

Failure of the extended contingent attentional capture account in multimodal settings

Sudden changes in our environment like sound bursts or light flashes are thought to automatically attract our attention thereby affecting responses to subsequent targets, although an alternative view (the contingent attentional capture account) holds that stimuli only capture our attention when they match target features. In the current study, we examined whether an extended version of the latter view can explain exogenous cuing effects on speed and accuracy of performance to targets (uncued-cued) in multimodal settings, in which auditory and visual stimuli co-occur. To this end, we determined whether observed effects of visual and auditory cues, which were always intermixed, depend on top-down settings in “pure” blocks, in which only one target modality occurred, as compared to “mixed” blocks, in which targets were either visual or auditory. Results revealed that unimodal and crossmodal cuing effects depend on top-down settings. However, our findingswerenot in accordance with predictions derived from the extended contingent attentional capture account. Specifically, visualcues showed comparable effects for visual targets in pure and mixed blocks, but also a comparable effect for auditory targets in pure blocks, and most surprisingly, an opposite effect in mixed blocks. The latter result suggests that visual stimuli may distract attention from the auditory modality in case when the modality of the forthcoming target is unknown. The results additionally revealed that the Simon effect, the influence of correspondence or not between stimulus and response side, is modulated by exogenous cues in unimodal settings, but not in crossmodal settings. These findingsaccord with the view that attention plays an important role for the Simon effect, and additionally questions the directness of links between maps of visual and auditory space.

Coordination of Voluntary and Stimulus-Driven Attentional Control in Human Cortex

Visual attention may be voluntarily directed to particular locations or features (voluntary control), or it may be captured by salient stimuli, such as the abrupt appearance of a new perceptual object (stimulus-driven control). Most often, however, the deployment of attention is the result of a dynamic interplay between voluntary attentional control settings (e.g., based on prior knowledge about a target's location or color) and the degree to which stimuli in the visual scene match these voluntary control settings. Consequently, nontarget items in the scene that share a defining feature with the target of visual search can capture attention, a phenomenon termed contingent attentional capture. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to show that attentional capture by target-colored distractors is accompanied by increased cortical activity in corresponding regions of retinotopically organized visual cortex. Concurrent activation in the temporoparietal junction and ventral frontal cortex suggests that these regions coordinate voluntary and stimulus-driven attentional control settings to determine which stimuli effectively compete for attention.

Using hazard functions to assess changes in processing capacity in an attentional cuing paradigm.

Processing capacity--defined as the relative ability to perform mental work in a unit of time--is a critical construct in cognitive psychology and is central to theories of visual attention. The unambiguous use of the construct, experimentally and theoretically, has been hindered by both conceptual confusions and the use of measures that are at best only coarsely mapped to the construct. However, more than 25 years ago, J. T. Townsend and F. G. Ashby (1978) suggested that the hazard function on the response time (RT) distribution offered a number of conceptual advantages as a measure of capacity. The present study suggests that a set of statistical techniques, well-known outside the cognitive and perceptual literatures, offers the ability to perform hypothesis tests on RT-distribution hazard functions. These techniques are introduced, and their use is illustrated in application to data from the contingent attentional capture paradigm.

Contingent attentional capture or delayed allocation of attention?

Under certain circumstances, external stimuli will elicit an involuntary shift of spatial attention, referred to as attentional capture. According to the contingent involuntary orienting account (Folk, Remington, & Johnston, 1992), capture is conditioned by top-down factors that set attention to respond involuntarily to stimulus properties relevant to one's behavioral goals. Evidence for this comes from spatial cuing studies showing that a spatial cuing effect is observed only when cues have goal-relevant properties. Here, we examine alternative, decision-level explanations of the spatial cuing effect that attribute evidence of capture to postpresentation delays in the voluntary allocation of attention, rather than to on-line involuntary shifts in direct response to the cue. In three spatial cuing experiments, delayed-allocation accounts were tested by examining whether items at the cued location were preferentially processed. The experiments provide evidence that costs and benefits in spatial cuing experiments do reflect the on-line capture of attention. The implications of these results for models of attentional control are discussed.

The structure of attentional control: contingent attentional capture by apparent motion, abrupt onset, and color.

Five spatial cuing experiments tested 2 hypotheses regarding attentional capture: (a) Attentional capture is contingent on endogenous attentional control settings, and (b) attentional control settings are limited to the distinction between dynamic and static discontinuities (C. L. Folk, R. W. Remington, & J. C. Johnston, 1992). In Experiments 1 and 2, apparent-motion precues produced significant costs in performance for targets signaled by motion but not for targets signaled by color or abrupt onset. Experiment 3 established that this pattern is not due to differences in the difficulty of target discrimination. Experiments 4 and 5 revealed asymmetric capture effects between abrupt onset and apparent motion related to stimulus salience. The results support the hypotheses of Folk et al. (1992) and suggest that stimulus salience may also play a role in attentional capture.

The structure of attentional control: Contingent attentional capture by apparent motion, abrupt onset, and color.

The structure of attentional control: Contingent attentional capture by apparent motion, abrupt onset, and color.

Contingent attentional capture: A reply to Yantis (1993).

Folk, Remington, and Johnston (1992) recently proposed that involuntary shifts of spatial attention, even those elicited by abrupt visual onsets, are contingent on variable internal control settings. Yantis (1993) argues that the results of Jonides and Yantis (1988) significantly challenge this hypothesis and that the paradigm of Folk et al. (1992) is inappropriate for investigating stimulus-driven attentional capture. Yantis's concerns are addressed, and it is concluded that the contingent involuntary orienting hypothesis in fact provides a unified and parsimonious account of the data on attentional capture

Contingent attentional capture: A reply to Yantis (1993).

Contingent attentional capture: A reply to Yantis (1993).