Invalid Cues Research Articles

Evidence that makeup is a false signal of sociosexuality

While the positive effect of makeup on attractiveness is well established, there has been less exploration into other possible functions of makeup use. Here we investigated whether one function of makeup is to signal sociosexuality. Using a large, well-controlled set of photographs, we found that faces with makeup were perceived to have more unrestricted sociosexuality than the same faces without makeup. Similarly, women wearing more makeup were perceived to have more unrestricted sociosexuality. The target women who were photographed also completed questionnaires about their makeup habits and the Sociosexual Orientation Inventory. Targets' self-reported sociosexuality was not associated with their makeup habits, with observer ratings of the amount of makeup they wore, or with observer ratings of their sociosexuality when attractiveness was controlled. Thus our study shows that people use makeup as a cue for perceiving sociosexuality but that it is an invalid cue.

Examining the durability of incidentally learned trust from gaze cues.

In everyday interactions we find our attention follows the eye gaze of faces around us. As this cueing is so powerful and difficult to inhibit, gaze can therefore be used to facilitate or disrupt visual processing of the environment, and when we experience this we infer information about the trustworthiness of the cueing face. However, to date no studies have investigated how long these impressions last. To explore this we used a gaze-cueing paradigm where faces consistently demonstrated either valid or invalid cueing behaviours. Previous experiments show that valid faces are subsequently rated as more trustworthy than invalid faces. We replicate this effect (Experiment 1) and then include a brief interference task in Experiment 2 between gaze cueing and trustworthiness rating, which weakens but does not completely eliminate the effect. In Experiment 3, we explore whether greater familiarity with the faces improves the durability of trust learning and find that the effect is more resilient with familiar faces. Finally, in Experiment 4, we push this further and show that evidence of trust learning can be seen up to an hour after cueing has ended. Taken together, our results suggest that incidentally learned trust can be durable, especially for faces that deceive.

Dissociating the capture of attention from saccade activation by subliminal abrupt onsets

Attentional capture and effects on saccade metrics by subliminal abrupt onset cues have been studied with peripheral cues at one out of several (two to four) display locations, swiftly followed by additional onsets at the other display locations. The lead time of the cue was too short to be seen. Here, we were interested in whether such subliminal onset cues influenced saccades primarily by way of attention or by way of direct saccade activation. In separate blocks, participants made speeded pro-saccades towards a black target or anti-saccades away from the target. Prior to the targets, an abrupt onset cue was presented either at the same side as the target (valid condition) or at the opposite side (invalid condition). If cues influenced performance by way of attentional capture, we expected facilitation of target processing in valid compared to invalid conditions (cueing effect) in the pro- as well as in the anti-saccade task. If the cues activated saccades in their direction, we expected the cueing effect to drop in the anti-saccade task compared to the pro-saccade task because in the anti-saccade task the invalid cue would activate the finally required response, whereas the valid cue would activate the alternative response, leading to interference. Results were in line with the former of these possibilities suggesting that subliminal abrupt onsets influenced saccades by way of attention with no or little direct activation of saccades.

Emotional cue validity effects: The role of neurocognitive responses to emotion.

The beneficial effect of valid compared to invalid cues on attention performance is a basic attentional mechanism, but the impact of emotional content on cue validity is poorly understood. We tested whether the effect of cue validity on attention performance differed when cues were angry, happy, or neutral faces. Moreover, we used scalp-recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) reflecting the capture of early visual attention (P1, N170) to test whether effects were strengthened when neurocognitive responses to angry or happy cues were enhanced (larger P1 and N170 amplitudes). Twenty-five participants completed a modified flanker task using emotional face cues to measure the effects of emotion on conflict interference. Attention performance was enhanced following valid versus invalid cues, but effects did not differ by emotion cue type. However, for participants showing relatively larger N170 amplitudes to angry face cues, attention performance was specifically disrupted on those trials. Conversely, participants with relatively larger N170 amplitudes to happy face cues showed facilitated performance across all valid trials. These findings suggest that individual neurocognitive sensitivities to emotion predict the impact of emotional content on the basic attentional phenomenon of cue validity.

Cardiorespiratory Fitness Is Associated with Selective Attention in Healthy Male High-School Students.

Background: Previous studies have shown associations of physical fitness and cognition in children and in younger and older adults. However, knowledge about associations in high-school adolescents and young adults is sparse. Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate the association of physical fitness, measured as maximal oxygen uptake (), muscle mass, weekly training, and cognitive function in the executive domains of selective attention and inhibitory control, in healthy male high-school students.Methods: Fifty-four males (17.9 ± 0.9 years, 72 ± 11 kg and 182 ± 7 cm) completed a test, a body composition test and a visual cognitive task based on the Posner cue paradigm with three types of stimuli with different attentional demands (i.e., stimuli presentation following no cue, valid cue or invalid cue presentations). The task consisted of 336 target stimuli, where 56 (17%) of the target stimuli appeared without a cue (no cue), 224 (67%) appeared in the same rectangle as the cue (valid cue) and 56 (17%) appeared in the rectangle opposite to the cue (invalid cue). Mean reaction time (RT) and corresponding errors was calculated for each stimuli type. Total task duration was 9 min and 20 s In addition, relevant background information was obtained in a questionnaire.Results: Linear mixed model analyses showed that higher was associated with faster RT for stimuli following invalid cue (Estimate = −2.69, SE = 1.03, p = 0.011), and for stimuli following valid cue (Estimate = −2.08, SE = 1.03, p = 0.048). There was no association of muscle mass and stimuli (F = 1.01, p = 0.397) or of weekly training and stimuli (F = 0.99, p = 0.405).Conclusion: The results suggest that cardiorespiratory fitness is associated with cognitive performance in healthy male high-school students in the executive domains of selective attention.

Differences and Similarities for Spatial and Feature-Based Selective Attentional Orienting.

Using selective attention, we prioritize behaviorally relevant information out of all surrounding stimulation. Attention can be oriented intentionally to spatial and/or non-spatial properties (feature-based attention). When comparing spatial and feature-based attention, previous studies identified a common fronto-parietal network, although some reported specific activation for spatial attention and few found higher activation for feature-based attention. Most studies examining differences between attention types investigated the cueing epoch. We examined reorienting processing (after invalid cueing) and correctly focused attention (after valid cueing) for spatial and feature-based orienting using fMRI in two human samples with 40 participants overall and identical stimuli, stimulus probabilities, and timing for all conditions. A fronto-parietal network including parts of the ventral orienting network was activated for reorienting and focused attention for both attention types. Common activity over validities and attention types was located in bilateral IPL/SMG, bilateral IFG/insula, and the cerebellum. A network of mainly posterior areas showed higher activity for spatial compared to feature-based orienting. Conversely, no specialized areas for spatial focused attention or for feature-based attention (reorienting/focusing) was observed. The posterior clusters specialized for spatial reorienting showed overlapping activity with clusters involved in common spatial and feature-based reorienting as well as focused attention over attention types. Therefore, the results hint at a superordinate fronto-parietal network for both attention types during reorienting and focusing, with a spatial specialization of posterior sub-regions.

Modulation of attentional networks by food-related disinhibition

The risk of weight gain is especially related to disinhibition, which indicates the responsiveness to external food stimuli with associated disruptions in eating control. We adapted a food-related version of the attention network task and used functional magnetic resonance imaging to study the effects of disinhibition on attentional networks in 19 normal-weight participants. High disinhibition scores were associated with a rapid reorienting response to food pictures after invalid cueing and with an enhanced alerting effect of a warning cue signalizing the upcoming appearance of a food picture. Imaging data revealed activation of a right-lateralized ventral attention network during reorienting. The faster the reorienting and the higher the disinhibition score, the less activation of this network was observed. The alerting contrast showed activation in visual, temporo-parietal and anterior sites. These modulations of attentional networks by food-related disinhibition might be related to an attentional bias to energy dense and palatable food and increased intake of food in disinhibited individuals.

Attention Orienting in Response to Non-conscious Hierarchical Arrows: Individuals with Higher Autistic Traits Differ in Their Global/Local Bias.

One aspect of the social communication impairments that characterize autism spectrum disorder (ASD) include reduced use of often subtle non-verbal social cues. People with ASD, and those with self-reported sub-threshold autistic traits, also show impairments in rapid visual processing of stimuli unrelated to social or emotional properties. Hence, this study sought to investigate whether perceptually non-conscious visual processing is related to autistic traits. A neurotypical sample of thirty young adults completed the Subthreshold Autism Trait Questionnaire and a Posner-like attention cueing task. Continuous Flash Suppression (CFS) was employed to render incongruous hierarchical arrow cues perceptually invisible prior to consciously presented targets. This was achieved via a 10 Hz masking stimulus presented to the dominant eye that suppressed information presented to the non-dominant eye. Non-conscious arrows consisted of local arrow elements pointing in one direction, and forming a global arrow shape pointing in the opposite direction. On each trial, the cue provided either a valid or invalid cue for the spatial location of the subsequent target, depending on which level (global or local) received privileged attention. A significant autism-trait group by global cue validity interaction indicated a difference in the extent of non-conscious local/global cueing between groups. Simple effect analyses revealed that whilst participants with lower autistic traits showed a global arrow cueing effect, those with higher autistic traits demonstrated a small local arrow cueing effect. These results suggest that non-conscious processing biases in local/global attention may be related to individual differences in autistic traits.

Fröhlich effect and delays of visual attention

In the Fröhlich effect, the initial position of an object that suddenly appears in motion is perceived as being shifted in the direction of its motion. Here we establish that this shift is not an obligatory consequence of motion, but it is driven by focused attention. In Experiment 1 using different cueing conditions, we found that invalid cues produced larger perceptual shifts, although the Fröhlich effect was still present for valid and neutral cues. These results support Müsseler and Aschersleben's (1998) proposal that the Fröhlich effect is the result of the time it takes to shift focal attention to the moving stimulus. In Experiment 2 we found that the Fröhlich effect increased when the valid cue arrived more than 100 ms after the start of motion, suggesting again that a delay in attention's arrival shifted the location of the perceived motion onset. In Experiment 3 we compare the motion-induced shifts when the subjects attended to a set of moving stimuli as a group and when they attended to an orientation singleton. We showed that Fröhlich effect was only present when the target was individuated and disappeared when the stimulus was perceived globally. We conclude that the Fröhlich effect is a predictive spatial shift produced and modulated by focal attention.

Joint attention enhances visual working memory.

Joint attention-the mutual focus of 2 individuals on an item-speeds detection and discrimination of target information. However, what happens to that information beyond the initial perceptual episode? To fully comprehend and engage with our immediate environment also requires working memory (WM), which integrates information from second to second to create a coherent and fluid picture of our world. Yet, no research exists at present that examines how joint attention directly impacts WM. To investigate this, we created a unique paradigm that combines gaze cues with a traditional visual WM task. A central, direct gaze 'cue' face looked left or right, followed 500 ms later by 4, 6, or 8 colored squares presented on one side of the face for encoding. Crucially, the cue face either looked at the squares (valid cue) or looked away from them (invalid cue). A no shift (direct gaze) condition served as a baseline. After a blank 1,000 ms maintenance interval, participants stated whether a single test square color was present or not in the preceding display. WM accuracy was significantly greater for colors encoded in the valid versus invalid and direct conditions. Further experiments showed that an arrow cue and a low-level motion cue-both shown to reliably orient attention-did not reliably modulate WM, indicating that social cues are more powerful. This study provides the first direct evidence that sharing the focus of another individual establishes a point of reference from which information is advantageously encoded into WM. (PsycINFO Database Record

Rebalancing Spatial Attention: Endogenous Orienting May Partially Overcome the Left Visual Field Bias in Rapid Serial Visual Presentation.

In dynamically changing environments, spatial attention is not equally distributed across the visual field. For instance, when two streams of stimuli are presented left and right, the second target (T2) is better identified in the left visual field (LVF) than in the right visual field (RVF). Recently, it has been shown that this bias is related to weaker stimulus-driven orienting of attention toward the RVF: The RVF disadvantage was reduced with salient task-irrelevant valid cues and increased with invalid cues. Here we studied if also endogenous orienting of attention may compensate for this unequal distribution of stimulus-driven attention. Explicit information was provided about the location of T1 and T2. Effectiveness of the cue manipulation was confirmed by EEG measures: decreasing alpha power before stream onset with informative cues, earlier latencies of potentials evoked by T1-preceding distractors at the right than at the left hemisphere when T1 was cued left, and decreasing T1- and T2-evoked N2pc amplitudes with informative cues. Importantly, informative cues reduced (though did not completely abolish) the LVF advantage, indicated by improved identification of right T2, and reflected by earlier N2pc latency evoked by right T2 and larger decrease in alpha power after cues indicating right T2. Overall, these results suggest that endogenously driven attention facilitates stimulus-driven orienting of attention toward the RVF, thereby partially overcoming the basic LVF bias in spatial attention.

Perceptual and Motor Performance of Combat-Sport Athletes Differs According to Specific Demands of the Discipline.

The specific demands of a combat-sport discipline may be reflected in the perceptual-motor performance of its athletes. Taekwondo, which emphasizes kicking, might require faster perceptual processing to compensate for longer latencies to initiate lower-limb movements and to give rapid visual feedback for dynamic postural control, while Karate, which emphasizes both striking with the hands and kicking, might require exceptional eye-hand coordination and fast perceptual processing. In samples of 38 Taekwondo athletes (16 females, 22 males; mean age = 19.9 years, SD = 1.2), 24 Karate athletes (9 females, 15 males; mean age = 18.9 years, SD = 0.9), and 35 Nonathletes (20 females, 15 males; mean age = 20.6 years, SD = 1.5), we measured eye-hand coordination with the Finger-Nose-Finger task, and both perceptual-processing speed and attentional control with the Covert Orienting of Visual Attention (COVAT) task. Eye-hand coordination was significantly better for Karate athletes than for Taekwondo athletes and Nonathletes, but reaction times for the upper extremities in the COVAT task-indicative of perceptual-processing speed-were faster for Taekwondo athletes than for Karate athletes and Nonathletes. In addition, we found no significant difference among groups in attentional control, as indexed by the reaction-time cost of an invalid cue in the COVAT task. The results suggest that athletes in different combat sports exhibit distinct profiles of perceptual-motor performance.

Leftward bias in orienting to and disengaging attention from salient task-irrelevant events in rapid serial visual presentation

When embedded in the left or right stream of rapidly changing distractors, the second target (T2) is systematically better identified on the left than on the right. This left visual field advantage (LVFA) was recently attributed to better abilities of the right hemisphere in stimulus-driven orienting of attention: it was almost absent when salient uninformative cues were valid (presented in the T2 stream), and increased with invalid (different-stream) cues. However, cue-evoked negativity of event related potentials being earlier at the right than at the left hemisphere suggested that cues also are unequally processed, thereby possibly contributing to increased LVFA after invalid cues. This might occur through easier directing of attention toward left than right cues and/or through harder disengaging of attention from left than right cues. Alternatively, the increase in the LVFA could be caused by larger spatial distance between cues and T2 with invalid cues than with neutral cues presented at fixation. In order to test these hypotheses, an additional stream of stimuli at the vertical midline was used to separate the processing of lateral cues from the processing of lateral T2. If left cues increase the LVFA then this bias should be larger after invalid lateral than invalid midline cues and also midline T2 should be more impaired after left than right cues. These expectations were confirmed. Furthermore, increased negative amplitudes evoked by right cues suggest that orienting was more difficult toward right than left cues, and increased amplitudes of a following positivity suggest that disengaging attention was more difficult from left than right cues. Overall, these results suggest asymmetric abilities of the hemispheres in attentional processing of both task-relevant and salient task-irrelevant events.

Broad attention to multiple individual objects may facilitate change detection with complex auditory scenes.

Attention and other processing constraints limit the perception of objects in complex scenes, which has been studied extensively in the visual sense. We used a change deafness paradigm to examine how attention to particular objects helps and hurts the ability to notice changes within complex auditory scenes. In a counterbalanced design, we examined how cueing attention to particular objects affected performance in an auditory change-detection task through the use of valid or invalid cues and trials without cues (Experiment 1). We further examined how successful encoding predicted change-detection performance using an object-encoding task and we addressed whether performing the object-encoding task along with the change-detection task affected performance overall (Experiment 2). Participants had more error for invalid compared to valid and uncued trials, but this effect was reduced in Experiment 2 compared to Experiment 1. When the object-encoding task was present, listeners who completed the uncued condition first had less overall error than those who completed the cued condition first. All participants showed less change deafness when they successfully encoded change-relevant compared to irrelevant objects during valid and uncued trials. However, only participants who completed the uncued condition first also showed this effect during invalid cue trials, suggesting a broader scope of attention. These findings provide converging evidence that attention to change-relevant objects is crucial for successful detection of acoustic changes and that encouraging broad attention to multiple objects is the best way to reduce change deafness. (PsycINFO Database Record

Attentional effects on orientation judgements are dependent on memory consolidation processes

Are the effects of memory and attention on perception synergistic, antagonistic, or independent? Tested separately, memory and attention have been shown to affect the accuracy of orientation judgements. When multiple stimuli are presented sequentially versus simultaneously, error variance is reduced. When a target is validly cued, precision is increased. What if they are manipulated together? We combined memory and attention manipulations in an orientation judgement task to answer this question. Two circular gratings were presented sequentially or simultaneously. On some trials a brief luminance cue preceded the stimuli. Participants were cued to report the orientation of one of the two gratings by rotating a response grating. We replicated the finding that error variance is reduced on sequential trials. Critically, we found interacting effects of memory and attention. Valid cueing reduced the median, absolute error only when two stimuli appeared together and improved it to the level of performance on uncued sequential trials, whereas invalid cueing always increased error. This effect was not mediated by cue predictiveness; however, predictive cues reduced the standard deviation of the error distribution, whereas nonpredictive cues reduced "guessing". Our results suggest that, when the demand on memory is greater than a single stimulus, attention is a bottom-up process that prioritizes stimuli for consolidation. Thus attention and memory are synergistic.

A longitudinal analysis of the attention networks in 6- to 11-year-old children

ABSTRACTAttention is critical for everyday functioning. Posner and Petersen’s model of attention describes three neural networks involved in attention control—the alerting network for arousal, the orienting network for selecting sensory input and reorienting attention, and the executive network for the regulatory control of attention. No longitudinal research has examined relative change in these networks in children. A modified version of the attention network task (ANT) was used to examine changes in the three attention networks, three times over 12 months, in 114 6-, 8- and 10-year-olds. Findings showed that the alerting network continued to develop over this period, the orienting network had stabilized by 6 years, and the conflict network had largely stabilized by 7 years. The reorienting of attention was also assessed using invalid cues, which showed a similar developmental trajectory to the orienting attention network and had stabilized by 6 years. The results confirm that age 6 to 7 years is a critical period in the development of attention, in particular executive attention. The largest improvement over the evaluation period was between 6 and 7 years; however, subtle changes were found in attention beyond 8 years of age.

Affective Expectations Influence Neural Responses to Stressful Images in Soldiers

In the present study, we examined how expectations about the affective valence of an event influence immediate neurocognitive responses to the event. Both neutral images and negative images displaying war photos were shown to active duty military personnel undergoing predeployment training. Expectations regarding the affective content of upcoming images were manipulated by means of abstract visual cues that were valid only 75% of the time. Besides providing greater ecological validity, inclusion of invalid cues enabled us to examine separately, effects of the expected and actual valence of the images. Neurocognitive responses within the first second after image presentation were examined using the late positive potential (LPP), a noninvasive measure of brain electrical activity known to index affective processes. Negative images evoked an enhanced LPP relative to neutral images over central-parietal and right anterior electrode sites. Both the central-parietal and anterior LPP were found, likewise, to be modulated by expected valence. Expectation of negative versus neutral images led to an enhanced central-parietal LPP and an attenuated anterior LPP over both hemispheres independent of image valence. These findings are interpreted in terms of the allocation of attention to motivationally salient events, affective interpretation of those events, and induced affective/motivational states. By helping to characterize affective responses to acute stress and the regulation of those responses by psychological context, our study contributes to a basic understanding of how such regulation may become disordered and may aid in the development of targets for therapeutic interventions.

Haloperidol 2mg impairs inhibition but not visuospatial attention.

The dopaminergic system has been implicated in visuospatial attention and inhibition, but the exact role has yet to be elucidated. Scarce literature suggests that attenuation of dopaminergic neurotransmission negatively affects attentional focusing and inhibition. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that evaluated the effect of dopaminergic antagonism on stopping performance. Dopaminergic neurotransmission was attenuated in 28 healthy male participants by using 2mg haloperidol. A repeated-measures placebo-controlled crossover design was implemented, and performance indices of attention and inhibition were assessed in the visual spatial cueing task (VSC) and stop signal task (SST). Additionally, the effect of haloperidol on motoric parameters was assessed. It was expected that haloperidol as contrasted to placebo would result in a reduction of the "validity effect," the benefit of valid cueing as opposed to invalid cueing of a target in terms of reaction time. Furthermore, an increase in stop signal reaction time (SSRT) in the SST was expected. Results partially confirmed the hypothesis. Haloperidol negatively affected inhibitory motor control in the SST as indexed by SSRT, but there were no indications that haloperidol affected bias or disengagement in the VSC task as indicated by a lack of an effect on RTs. Pertaining to secondary parameters, motor activity increased significantly under haloperidol. Haloperidol negatively affected reaction time variability and errors in both tasks, as well as omissions in the SST, indicating a decreased sustained attention, an increase in premature responses, and an increase in lapses of attention, respectively.

Recognition judgments under risk: Low confidence when certainty is low

Prior research has shown that misleading information about memory probes impairs accuracy in recognition memory tests. Such misleading information also impairs confidence in recognition responses, but for correct rejections only, not for hits. It is unknown whether such effects are preserved when participants face different outcomes according to performance. In the current study, after studying a series of words, participants performed a recognition memory task in which each memory probe could be preceded by a cue forecasting probabilistically the probe’s study status (“Likely old” or “Likely new”). Seventy five percent of the cues forecasted accurately the study status of the probes (i.e., valid cues), and 25% inaccurately (i.e., invalid cues). In addition, participants gained or lost points according to whether they made correct or incorrect memory judgments, and received a comestible reward after accumulating 10 of such points. This accumulation scheme was administered in half the study-test blocks. The accuracy/confidence dissociation demonstrated in prior experiments is replicated here. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the decrease in confidence for novel items preceded by invalid cues is accentuated when response accuracy can yield gains or losses. We interpret this confidence decrease for invalidly-cued/rewarded correct rejections as reflecting a combination of loss aversion, as postulated by Prospect theory, and absence of recollection, as postulated by dual process models of recognition.

Effect of Ovarian Hormone Therapy on Cognition in the Aged Female Rhesus Macaque.

Hormone therapy after menopause is controversial. We tested the effects of hormone replacement in aged rhesus macaques, soon after surgically-induced menopause [ovariectomy (OVX)], on tests of memory and attention. Untreated ovarian-intact and OVX animals were compared with OVX animals receiving estradiol (E) alone or E with progesterone (P). E was administered in a continuous fashion via subcutaneous implant, whereas P was administered orally in a cyclic fashion. On both tests, E-treated animals performed better than the other 3 experimental groups across 1 year of treatment. Thus, in this monkey model, chronic E administered soon after the loss of ovarian hormones had long-term benefits for cognitive function.