Targets In Rapid Serial Visual Presentation Research Articles

Evidence that proactive distractor suppression does not require attentional resources.

Does the suppression of irrelevant visual features require attentional resources? McDonald et al. (2023, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 30, 224-234) proposed that suppression processes are unavailable while a person is busy performing another task. They reported the absence of the PD (believed to index suppression) when two tasks were presented close together in time. We looked for converging evidence using established behavior measures of suppression. Following McDonald et al., our participants performed a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task followed by a search task. For the RSVP task, participants determined whether the target digit 4 or 6 appeared within a string of other digits. The search display appeared at a lag of 2 or 8 digits after the RSVP target. Participants searched for a yellow target circle amongst nine background circles, which included a uniquely colored distractor for some trials. The main question was whether distractor suppression would occur at Lag 2, while attentional resources were still processing the RSVP target. Suppression was assessed using the capture-probe paradigm. On 30% of trials, probe letters appeared inside the colored circles and participants reported those letters. Probe recall accuracy was lower at locations with distractor colors than those with neutral colors (the baseline), suggesting proactive suppression. Critically, this difference in probe recall accuracy was similar at Lag 2 and Lag 8, suggesting that the ability to proactively suppress distractors remains intact while dual-tasking. We argue that although reactive suppression likely requires attentional resources, proactive suppression-an implicit process-does not.

The attentional boost effect overcomes dual-task interference in choice-response tasks.

Dual-task interference often arises when people respond to an incoming stimulus according to an arbitrary rule, such as choosing between the gas pedal and the brake when driving. Severe interference from response selection yields a brief "Psychological Refractory Period," during which a concurrent task is put on hold. Here, we show that response selection in one task does not always hamper the processing of a secondary task. Responding to a target may paradoxically enhance the processing of secondary tasks, even when the target requires complex response selection. In three experiments, participants encoded pictures of common objects to memory while simultaneously monitoring a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) of characters or colours. Some of the RSVP stimuli were targets, requiring participants to press one of the two buttons to report their identity; others were distractors that participants ignored. Despite the increased response selection demands on target trials, pictures encoded with the RSVP targets were better remembered than those encoded with the RSVP distractors. Contrary to previous reports and predictions from dual-task interference, the attentional boost from target detection overcomes increased interference from response selection.

The attentional boost effect facilitates visual category learning.

Increasing evidence has shown that summary visual statistics, such as the mean size or centroid of locations, can be perceived without focal attention. Here, we tested the role of attention in visual category learning - rapid learning of visual similarities among paintings of the same artist. Participants encoded paintings from two famous artists into memory while simultaneously monitoring a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream of colored squares, pressing the spacebar for target colors and making no response to distractor colors. Paintings encoded with the RSVP targets were better remembered than those encoded with the RSVP distractors, demonstrating an Attentional Boost Effect. Importantly, pairing one artist's paintings with the RSVP targets led to better visual category learning - participants were more accurate at recognizing novel paintings from this artist, relative to another artist whose paintings were presented with the RSVP distractors. Thus, visual category learning is subjected to the same constraint of attention as exemplar memory, demonstrating common mechanisms for exemplar and category learning.

Visual field inhomogeneous in brain–computer interfaces based on rapid serial visual presentation

Objective. Visual attention is not homogeneous across the visual field, while how to mine the effective electroencephalogram (EEG) characteristics that are sensitive to the inhomogeneous of visual attention and further explore applications such as the performance of brain–computer interface (BCI) are still distressing explorative scientists. Approach. Images were encoded into a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm, and were presented in three visuospatial patterns (central, left/right, upper/lower) at the stimulation frequencies of 10, 15 and 20 Hz. The comparisons among different visual fields were conducted in the dimensions of subjective behavioral and EEG characteristics. Furthermore, the effective features (e.g. steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP), N2-posterior-contralateral (N2pc) and P300) that sensitive to visual-field asymmetry were also explored. Main results. The visual fields had significant influences on the performance of RSVP target detection, in which the performance of central was better than that of peripheral visual field, the performance of horizontal meridian was better than that of vertical meridian, the performance of left visual field was better than that of right visual field, and the performance of upper visual field was better than that of lower visual field. Furthermore, stimuli of different visual fields had significant effects on the spatial distributions of EEG, in which N2pc and P300 showed left–right asymmetry in occipital and frontal regions, respectively. In addition, the evidences of SSVEP characteristics indicated that there was obvious overlap of visual fields on the horizontal meridian, but not on the vertical meridian. Significance. The conclusions of this study provide insights into the relationship between visual field inhomogeneous and EEG characteristics. In addition, this study has the potential to achieve precise positioning of the target’s spatial orientation in RSVP-BCIs.

Response, rather than target detection, triggers the attentional boost effect in visual search.

Detecting a target in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream is more attentionally demanding than rejecting a distractor. However, background scenes coinciding with RSVP targets are better remembered than those coinciding with RSVP distractors, a paradoxical finding known as the attentional boost effect. But does the effect originate from the detection of the RSVP target or from the need to respond to it? To dissociate target detection from response, we investigated the attentional boost effect using a visual search task. Participants searched for a target among distractors while memorizing concurrently presented background objects. The search target could be present or absent. In different experiments, participants pressed a button on target-present trials only, target-absent trials only, or made a two-choice present/absent response. Results showed that objects paired with a Go response were better remembered than objects paired with a No-Go response, regardless of whether responses were associated with target-present or target-absent trials. This finding was replicated in experiments that required covert counting rather than an immediate button press response. These findings are the first to extend the attentional boost effect to visual search and demonstrate that the need to respond, not the detection of a search target, drives the effect for concurrently presented stimuli. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Modeling EEG Data Distribution With a Wasserstein Generative Adversarial Network to Predict RSVP Events.

Electroencephalography (EEG) data are difficult to obtain due to complex experimental setups and reduced comfort with prolonged wearing. This poses challenges to train powerful deep learning model with the limited EEG data. Being able to generate EEG data computationally could address this limitation. We propose a novel Wasserstein Generative Adversarial Network with gradient penalty (WGAN-GP) to synthesize EEG data. This network addresses several modeling challenges of simulating time-series EEG data including frequency artifacts and training instability. We further extended this network to a class-conditioned variant that also includes a classification branch to perform event-related classification. We trained the proposed networks to generate one and 64-channel data resembling EEG signals routinely seen in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) experiment and demonstrated the validity of the generated samples. We also tested intra-subject cross-session classification performance for classifying the RSVP target events and showed that class-conditioned WGAN-GP can achieve improved event-classification performance over EEGNet.

Design of deep convolutional networks for prediction of image rapid serial visual presentation events.

We report in this paper an investigation of convolutional neural network (CNN) models for target prediction in time-locked image rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) experiment. We investigated CNN models with 11 different designs of convolution filters in capturing spatial and temporal correlations in EEG data. We showed that for both within-subject and cross-subject predictions, the CNN models outperform the state-of-the-art algorithms: Bayesian linear discriminant analysis (BLDA) and xDAWN spatial filtering and achieved >6% improvement. Among the 11 different CNN models, the global spatial filter and our proposed region of interest (ROI) achieved best performance. We also implemented the deconvolution network to show how we can visualize from activated hidden units for target/nontarget events learned by the ROI-CNN. Our study suggests that deep learning is a powerful tool for RSVP target prediction and the proposed model is applicable for general EEG-based classifications in brain computer interaction research. The code of this project is available at https://github.com/ZijingMao/ROICNN.

BHCR: RSVP target retrieval BCI framework coupling with CNN by a Bayesian method

To combine the complementary strengths of human vision (HV) and computer vision (CV) in target image retrieval, we proposed a brain-computer interface framework, Bayesian HV-CV Retrieval (BHCR), which couples HV with CV by a Bayesian method to retrieve target images in rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) sequences. To construct a well-suited electroencephalogram (EEG) decoding module for BHCR, we conducted a comparative inspection on the selection of classification algorithms, and adopted linear discriminant analysis and random forests as a feature extraction method and classification algorithm, respectively. We also introduced a CV system based on convolutional neural network (CNN) as a component of BHCR. A Bayesian brain-computer interaction (BBCI) module was carefully designed so that for each presented image, a Bayesian model that takes HV insight as prior information and CV insights as sample information is built up to present retrieval results. Unlike existing HV-CV coupled works that usually require extra manual labor, BHCR directly enhanced retrieval performance with the help of CV insights. As an auxiliary work and a natural extension of BHCR, we then proposed a probability propagation scheme that incorporates EEG decoding insights to improve the CV system and a one-shot image database retrieval scheme. We demonstrated the effectiveness of BHCR by extensive experiments and simulations on both the entire framework and its sub-components. The results showed the following: (1) The performance of BHCR was significantly better than the EEG-only mechanism in both receiver operating characteristic (ROC) and classification aspects; (2) The robustness of BHCR was ensured by its process flow and the steady performances of its sub-components.

Light Video Game Play is Associated with Enhanced Visual Processing of Rapid Serial Visual Presentation Targets.

There is mixed evidence that video game players (VGPs) may demonstrate better performance in perceptual and attentional tasks than non-VGPs (NVGPs). The rapid serial visual presentation task is one such case, where observers respond to two successive targets embedded within a stream of serially presented items. We tested light VGPs (LVGPs) and NVGPs on this task. LVGPs were better at correct identification of second targets whether they were also attempting to respond to the first target. This performance benefit seen for LVGPs suggests enhanced visual processing for briefly presented stimuli even with only very moderate game play. Observers were less accurate at discriminating the orientation of a second target within the stream if it occurred shortly after presentation of the first target, that is to say, they were subject to the attentional blink (AB). We find no evidence for any reduction in AB in LVGPs compared with NVGPs.

Sex hormones modulate neurophysiological correlates of visual temporal attention

The functional cerebral asymmetry (FCA) in processing targets within rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) streams has been reported to fluctuate across the menstrual cycle, with identification of the second of two closely spaced targets being impaired when both targets occur in the left or the right hemifield stream during the luteal phase, while during the menstrual phase identification of the second target is only impaired for target pairs presented in the right hemifield stream. This fluctuation has been proposed to result from variations in estradiol levels. The current study used EEG to investigated whether the cycle-related fluctuation in RSVP target identification FCA relates to changes in early, stimulus-driven, bottom-up or in later, top down-driven aspects of FCA. While the former would be expected to become evident in the early visual evoked potentials (VEPs) P1 or N1, the latter would be evident in later event-related potentials (ERPs) such as N2pc or P3. Women performed a dual-stream RSVP task once during the menstrual phase and once during the follicular phase. Estradiol levels were determined from saliva samples. In contrast to previous findings, FCA in RSVP target identification was not affected by cycle phase. However, the impairment in second-target identification when targets where closely spaced was generally smaller during the menstrual phase than during the follicular phase. This effect was matched by shorter peak latencies of P1 VEPs for the menstrual phase, and by a reduction in the latency of the second-target P3 ERP for closely spaced relative to widely spaced target pairs, again for the menstrual phase. Results suggest that in a dual-stream RSVP setup, target identification, early stage stimulus processing, and target consolidation are affected by cycle phase, but that the asymmetry of these effects does not differ between menstrual and follicular phase. The observed cycle-related modulations in neurophysiology and behavior could relate to the effects of estradiol on the locus ceruleus norepinephrine (LC-NE) system, which is known to play a major role in arousal, attention and stress response.

A Permutation Test for Unbalanced Paired Comparisons of Global Field Power.

Global field power is a valuable summary of multi-channel electroencephalography data. However, global field power is biased by the noise typical of electroencephalography experiments, so comparisons of global field power on data with unequal noise are invalid. Here, we demonstrate the relationship between the number of trials that contribute to a global field power measure and the expected value of that global field power measure. We also introduce a statistical testing procedure that can be used for multi-subject, repeated-measures (also called within-subjects) comparisons of global field power when the number of trials per condition is unequal across conditions. Simulations demonstrate the effect of unequal trial numbers on global field power comparisons and show the validity of the proposed test in contrast to conventional approaches. Finally, the proposed test and two alternative tests are applied to data collected in a rapid serial visual presentation target detection experiment. The results show that the proposed test finds global field power differences in the classical P3 range; the other tests find differences in that range but also at other times including at times before stimulus onset. These results are interpreted as showing that the proposed test is valid and sensitive to real within-subject differences in global field power in multi-subject unbalanced data.

Visual statistical learning produces implicit and explicit knowledge about temporal order information and scene chunks: Evidence from direct and indirect measures

ABSTRACTWe examined whether visual statistical learning (VSL) produced implicit and/or explicit knowledge about temporal order information and scene chunks, using a rapid serial visual presentation target detection task and a two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) familiarity test as indirect and direct measures of VSL, respectively. In the familiarization phase, participants viewed a visual stream of natural scenes consisting of four triplets (i.e., three images that always appeared in the same order). In the subsequent target detection task, participants were required to detect target items embedded in a stream of 12 images or 12 words representing each natural scene. In the final 2AFC familiarity test, participants observed two test sequences (statistically related triplets vs. unrelated foils) and decided whether the first or second sequence was more familiar based on the familiarization phase. In both test phases, we included the same (forward) and reverse (backward) order of scenes as presented during the familiarization phase to examine whether the expression of VSL was based on temporal order of scenes or scene chunks. The results of the target detection task showed a learning effect for both temporal order in the forward condition and chunks in the backward condition, irrespective of whether stimuli were images or words; in contrast, we did not observe a learning effect in the backward condition for scene images in the familiarity test. Our findings are compatible with a learning mechanism that has both implicit and explicit components based on temporal order information and scene chunks.

A regression method for estimating performance in a rapid serial visual presentation target detection task

BackgroundEstimating target detection performance in the rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) target detection paradigm can be challenging when the inter-stimulus interval is small relative to the variability in human response time. The challenge arises because assigning a particular response to the correct image cannot be done with certainty. Existing solutions to this challenge establish a heuristic for assigning responses to images and thereby determining which responses are hits and which are false alarms. New methodWe developed a regression-based method for estimating hit rate and false alarm rate that corrects for expected errors in a likelihood-based assignment of responses to stimuli. ResultsSimulations show that this regression method results in an unbiased and accurate estimate of target detection performance. Comparison with existing methodsThe regression method had lower estimation error compared to three existing methods, and in contrast to the existing methods, the errors made by the regression method do not depend strongly on the true values of hit rate and false alarm rate. The most commonly used existing method performed well when simulated performance was nearly perfect, but not when behavioral error rates increased. ConclusionsBased on its better estimation of hit rate and false alarm rate, the regression method proposed here would seem the best choice when estimating the hit rate and false alarm rate is the primary interest.

The benefit of attention is not diminished when distributed over two simultaneous cues.

Recent findings have suggested that transient attention can be triggered at two locations simultaneously. However, it is unclear whether doing so reduces the effect of attention at each attended location. In two experiments, we explored the consequences of dividing attention. In the first experiment, we compared the effects of one or two cues against an uncued baseline to determine the consequences of dividing attention in a paradigm with four rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) streams. The results indicated that two simultaneous cues increase the accuracy of reporting two targets by almost the same amount as a single cue increases the report of a single target. These results suggest that when attention is divided between multiple locations, the attentional benefit at each location is not reduced in proportion to the total number of cues. A consequent prediction of this finding is that the identification of two RSVP targets should be better when they are presented simultaneously rather than sequentially. In a second experiment, we verified this prediction by finding evidence of lag-0 sparing: Two targets presented simultaneously in different locations were reported more easily than two targets separated by 100 ms. These findings argue against a biased-competition theory of attention. We suggest that visual attention, as triggered by a cue or target, is better described by a convergent gradient-field attention model.

Event-Related Potential Evidence for Two Functionally Dissociable Sources of Semantic Effects in the Attentional Blink

Three target words (T1, T2, and T3) were embedded in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream of non-word distractors, and participants were required to report the targets at the end of each RSVP stream. T2 and T3 were semantically related words in half of the RSVP streams, and semantically unrelated words in the other half of the RSVP streams. Using an identical design, a recent study reported distinct reflections of the T2–T3 semantic relationship on the P2 and N400 components of event-related potentials (ERPs) time-locked to T3, suggesting an early, automatic, source of P2 semantic effects and a late, controlled, source of N400 semantic effects. Here, P2 and N400 semantic effects were examined by manipulating list-wide context. Relative to participants performing in a semantically unbiased context, participants over-exposed to filler RSVP streams always including semantically related T2/T3 words reported a dilution of T3-locked P2 semantic effects and a magnification of T3-locked N400 semantic effects. Opposite effects on P2 and N400 ERP components of list-wide semantic context are discussed in relation to recent proposals on the representational status of RSVP targets at processing stages prior to consolidation in visual short-term memory.

Direction of association between targets in a RSVP task influences priming at very short but not long SOAs

When two targets are presented using rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) and the interval between the targets is 200-500 ms, detection or identification of the second target is impaired. This impairment in second target report is known as the attentional blink (AB). This study sought to examine the impact of the direction of target association on priming during an AB task using very short and long SOAs. Two experiments were conducted using dual-stream RSVP tasks and targets that either shared an associative relationship or were unrelated to one another. The direction of association between the targets was also varied so that associatively related targets were presented in the forward (strongest association from target 1 to target 2) or backward directions of association (strongest association from target 2 to target 1). In Experiment 1 very short SOAs between targets (27-213 ms) were used. Priming was evident at the same SOAs for both targets presented in the backward direction of association. However, for targets presented in the forward direction of association, priming occurred for target 1 and target 2 at different SOAs. Experiment 2 used longer SOAs between targets (107 to 535 ms) and it was determined that while direction of association between the targets did not affect priming, there was a larger priming effect for target 2 than for target 1. The results of the two experiments indicate that direction of association between targets influences priming in RSVP tasks that use very short but not long SOAs. The results are discussed in relation to the two-stage response competition model of Potter et al. (J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 28:1149-1162, 2002).

RSVP in orbit: Identification of single and dual targets in motion

Three experiments using rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) tested participants' ability to detect targets in streams that are in motion. These experiments compared the ability to identify moving versus stationary RSVP targets and examined the attentional blink with pairs of targets that were moving or stationary. One condition presented RSVP streams in the center of the screen; a second condition used an RSVP that was orbiting in a circle, with participants instructed to follow the stream with their eyes; and a third condition had participants fixate in the middle while observing a circling RSVP stream. Relative to performance in stationary RSVP streams, participants were not markedly impaired in detecting single targets in RSVP streams that were moving, either with or without instructions to pursue the motion. In streams with two targets, a normal attentional blink effect was observed when participants were instructed to pursue the moving stream. When participants had to maintain central fixation as the RSVP stream moved, the attentional blink was nearly absent even when a trailing mask was added. We suggest that the reduction of the attentional blink for moving RSVP streams may reflect a reduced ability to perceive the temporal boundaries of the individual items.

The Attentional Blink Reveals Serial Working Memory Encoding: Evidence from Virtual and Human Event-related Potentials

Observers often miss a second target (T2) if it follows an identified first target item (T1) within half a second in rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP), a finding termed the attentional blink. If two targets are presented in immediate succession, however, accuracy is excellent (Lag 1 sparing). The resource sharing hypothesis proposes a dynamic distribution of resources over a time span of up to 600 msec during the attentional blink. In contrast, the ST(2) model argues that working memory encoding is serial during the attentional blink and that, due to joint consolidation, Lag 1 is the only case where resources are shared. Experiment 1 investigates the P3 ERP component evoked by targets in RSVP. The results suggest that, in this context, P3 amplitude is an indication of bottom-up strength rather than a measure of cognitive resource allocation. Experiment 2, employing a two-target paradigm, suggests that T1 consolidation is not affected by the presentation of T2 during the attentional blink. However, if targets are presented in immediate succession (Lag 1 sparing), they are jointly encoded into working memory. We use the ST(2) model's neural network implementation, which replicates a range of behavioral results related to the attentional blink, to generate "virtual ERPs" by summing across activation traces. We compare virtual to human ERPs and show how the results suggest a serial nature of working memory encoding as implied by the ST(2) model.

Distractor Inhibition Predicts Individual Differences in the Attentional Blink

BackgroundThe attentional blink (AB) refers to humans' impaired ability to detect the second of two targets (T2) in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream of distractors if it appears within 200–600 ms of the first target (T1). Here we examined whether humans' ability to inhibit distractors in the RSVP stream is a key determinant of individual differences in T1 performance and AB magnitude.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe presented subjects with RSVP streams (93.3 ms/item) of letters containing white distractors, a red T1 and a green T2. Subjects' ability to suppress distractors was assessed by determining the extent to which their second target performance was primed by a preceding distractor that shared the same identity as T2. Individual subjects' magnitude of T2 priming from this distractor was found to be negatively correlated with their T1 accuracy and positively related to their AB magnitude. In particular, subjects with attenuated ABs showed negative priming (i.e., worse T2 performance when the priming distractor appeared in the RSVP stream compared to when it was absent), whereas those with large ABs displayed positive priming (i.e., better T2 performance when the priming distractor appeared in the RSVP stream compared to when it was absent). Thus, a subject's ability to suppress distractors, as assessed by T2 priming magnitude, predicted both their T1 performance and AB magnitude.Conclusions/SignificanceThese results confirm that distractor suppression plays a key role in RSVP target selection and support the hypothesis that the AB results, at least in part, from a failure of distractor inhibition.

Cross-task repetition amnesia: Impaired recall of RSVP targets held in memory for a secondary task

People often fail to select and encode the second of two targets presented within less than 500ms in rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP), an effect known as the attentional blink. We investigated how report of the two targets is affected when one of them is maintained in working memory for a secondary, memory-search task. The results showed that report of either target was impaired when it was a member of the memory set relative to when it was not. This effect was independent of both the temporal interval separating the RSVP target from the presentation of the memory set and the interval separating the targets. We propose that the deficit in recall occurs because the association between a target and the memory-search task interferes with the formation of a new association between that target and the following RSVP task, with the result that observers may be biased to ascribe the target only to the memory set.