Types Of Distractors Research Articles

Can foreknowledge of distractor type reduce the emotion-induced blindness effect?

Can foreknowledge of distractor type reduce the emotion-induced blindness effect?

Push-Pull Mechanism of Attention and Emotion in Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

Background/Objectives: While deficits in executive attention and alerting systems in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are well-documented, findings regarding orienting attention in ADHD have been inconsistent. The current study investigated the mechanism of attentional orienting in children with ADHD by examining their attentional bias towards threatening stimuli. Furthermore, we explored the modulating role of anxiety levels in ADHD on this attentional bias. Methods: In Experiment 1, 20 children with ADHD and 26 typically developing children (TDC) performed a continuous performance task that included task-irrelevant distractions consisting of angry faces and neutral places. In Experiment 2, 21 children with ADHD and 25 TDC performed the same task, but with angry and neutral faces as distractors. To measure children's anxiety levels, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory was administered before each experiment. Results: In Experiment 1, results revealed no attentional bias effects in children with ADHD, whereas TDC exhibited attentional capture effects by both types of distractors. However, in Experiment 2, ADHD children demonstrated an attentional bias towards angry faces, which revealed a significant positive correlation with their trait anxiety levels (r = 0.61, p < 0.05). Further analyses combining all ADHD children showed that trait anxiety levels in Experiment 2 were significantly higher than those in Experiment 1. Finally, a significant positive correlation was found between anxiety levels and attentional bias towards angry faces in all ADHD children (r = 0.36, p < 0.01). Conclusions: Children with ADHD exhibited atypical attentional-orienting effects to threats, and their levels of trait anxiety appeared to modulate such attentional-orienting mechanisms.

Modulation of EEG Signals by Visual and Auditory Distractors in Virtual Reality-based Continuous Performance Tests.

Compared to traditional continuous performance tasks, virtual reality-based continuous performance tests (VR-CPT) offer higher ecological validity.While previous studies have primarily focused on behavioral outcomes in VR-CPT and incorporated various distractors to enhance ecological realism, little attention has been paid to the effects of distractors on EEG. Therefore, our study aimed to investigate the influence of distractors on EEG during VR-CPT. We studied visual distractors and auditory distractors separately, recruiting 68 subjects (M=20.82, SD=1.72) and asking each to complete four tasks. These tasks were categorized into four groups according to the presence or absence of visual and auditory distractors. We conducted paired t-tests on the mean relative power of the five electrodes in the ROI region across different frequency bands. Significant differences were found in theta waves between Group 3 (M = 2.49, SD = 2.02) and Group 4 (M = 2.68, SD = 2.39) (p < 0.05); in alpha waves between Group 3 (M = 2.08, SD = 3.73) and Group 4 (M = 3.03, SD = 4.60) (p < 0.001); and in beta waves between Group 1 (M = -4.44, SD = 2.29) and Group 2 (M = -5.03, SD = 2.48) (p < 0.001), as well as between Group 3 (M = -4.48, SD = 2.03) and Group 4 (M = -4.67, SD = 2.23) (p < 0.05). The incorporation of distractors in VR-CPT modulates EEG signals across different frequency bands, with visual distractors attenuating theta band activity, auditory distractors enhancing alpha band activity, and both types of distractors reducing beta oscillations following target stimuli. This insight holds significant promise for the rehabilitation of children and adolescents with attention deficits.

Effects of Lexical Priming on Priming Type and Presence of Distractors in Persons with Mild Cognitive Impairment

Objectives: The purpose of the study is to examine if the lexical priming effect is valid in persons with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). In addition, this study attempted to examine the correlation between working memory and sentence production ability for MCI and healthy adults (HA).Methods: Fifteen individuals with MCI and sixteen HA described action pictures in sentences following lexical (agent or theme) primes. Priming effect was analyzed in terms of priming type and presence of distractor.Results: 1) Persons with MCI did show significantly lower proportion of passive sentences compared to HA. Overall, the proportion of passives were significantly higher in the theme primed condition versus the agent primed condition. 2) The difference in the presence of distractor stimuli in the agent primed condition was significantly larger than in the theme primed condition. 3) It was observed that the better the working memory ability of MCI participants, the higher the production of active sentences when compared with passive sentences in the theme primed condition.Conclusion: Persons with MCI used word-driven information as a strategy of sentence production like HA did. In addition, MCI participants showed difficulty in production of complex structures such as passive sentences. In previous research, most of the studies examined the priming effect through structural priming tasks for HA and aphasia patients. The results of this study also showed the effect of lexical priming in persons with MCI, and the finding of lower production of passive sentences in persons with MCI compared to HA emphasized the linguistic deficits that may appear in individuals with MCI.

Learning to resist distraction by spatially predictable luminance transients and color singletons: same or different mechanisms?

ABSTRACT Stimuli that appear abruptly in the visual field or differ from the surrounding stimuli based on a given visual feature can capture attention and interfere with the visual search process if they are not targets. When both types of distractors appear with higher likelihood at a given location, observers can learn to reduce their impact (distractor-location effect). In the case of feature-singleton distractors, this can imply a cost for processing targets that appear at locations associated with a high distractor probability (target-location effect). This has been proposed as evidence that distractor interference originates in the competition between distractors and targets within an attentional map, whose inputs can be modified by experience. In this study, we conduct a series of experiments that confirmed previous finding related to feature-singleton distractors, but consistently showed that learning to predict the spatial occurrence of luminance transients induces a distractor-location effect in the absence of a target-location effect. Combining this finding with the fact that interference by luminance transients were larger when distractors were far from the target position, we suggest that different mechanisms are responsible for the reduction of distractor interference in the case of color singletons and luminance transients.

Effects of Cognitive and Physical Load of Acute Exercise on Inhibitory Control and Prefrontal Cortex Hemodynamics in Children.

Evidence suggests that acute exercise benefits inhibitory control, but it remains unclear how physical and cognitive load influence this ability in preadolescent children, when faced with different types of distractors. We examined their moderating effects along with changes in prefrontal cortex hemodynamics. Using a crossover design, 29 participants completed 10 min of exercise (with an interactive training wall) at 1) low physical and low cognitive load, 2) low physical and high cognitive load, 3) high physical and low cognitive load, and 4) high physical and high cognitive load in a randomized order. Before and after each condition, they performed a Standard and Affective Stroop task. During both tasks, the lateral oxygenation difference in the prefrontal cortex was measured by using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. For the Standard Stroop task, there was no effect of physical and cognitive load on performance. In contrast, exercise with low compared with high cognitive load was associated with a greater reduction of reaction time and increase in accuracy on the Affective Stroop task. This was accompanied by a decrease in lateral oxygenation difference on trials with low inhibitory control demands. Acute exercise with low compared with high cognitive demand benefits the ability to resolve emotional conflict, but the control over inhibition of nonemotional information remains unaffected. This effect of cognitive load is complemented by an increased efficiency of the left prefrontal cortex, when no emotional conflict resolution is required.

Foveal crowding for large and small Landolt Cs: Similarity and Attention

We compare the recognition of foveal crowded Landolt Cs of two sizes: brief (40 ms), large, low-contrast Cs and high-contrast (1 sec) tests at the resolution limit of the visual system. In different series, the test Landolt C was surrounded by two identical distractors located symmetrically along the horizontal or by a single distractor. The distractors were Landolt Cs or rings. At the resolution limit, the critical spacing was similar in the two series and did not depend on the type of distractor. The result supports the hypothesis that crowding at the resolution limit occurs when both the test and the distractors fall into the same smallest receptive field responsible for the target recognition. For large stimuli, at almost all separations distractors of the same shape caused greater impairment than did rings, and recognition errors were non-random. The critical spacing was equal to 0.5 test diameters only in the presence of one distracting Landolt C. This result suggests that attention is involved: When one distractor is added, involuntary attention, which is directed to the centre of gravity of the stimulus, can lead to confusion of features that are present in both tests and distractors and thus to non-random errors.

Can the processing of task-irrelevant threatening stimuli be inhibited? – The role of shape and valence in the saliency of threatening objects

Numerous studies have demonstrated that attention is quickly oriented towards threatening stimuli, and that this attentional bias is difficult to inhibit. The root cause(s) of this bias may be attributable to the affective (e.g., valence) or visual features (e.g., shape) of threats. In two experiments (behavioral, eye-tracking), we tested which features play a bigger role in the salience of threats. In both experiments, participants looked for a neutral target (butterfly, lock) among other neutral objects. In half of the trials a threatening (snake, gun) or nonthreatening (but visually similar; worm, hairdryer) task-irrelevant distractor was also present at a near or far distance from the target. Behavioral results indicate that both distractor types interfered with task performance. Rejecting nonthreatening distractors as nontargets was easier when they were presented further from the target but distance had no effect when the distractor was threatening. Eye-tracking results showed that participants fixated less often (and for less time) on threatening compared to nonthreatening distractors. They also viewed targets for less time when a threatening distractor was present (compared to nonthreatening). Results suggest that visual features of threats are easier to suppress than affective features, and the latter may have a stronger role in eliciting attentional biases.

Development of a novel rodent rapid serial visual presentation task reveals dissociable effects of stimulant versus nonstimulant treatments on attentional processes

The rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task and continuous performance tasks (CPT) are used to assess attentional impairments in patients with psychiatric and neurological conditions. This study developed a novel touchscreen task for rats based on the structure of a human RSVP task and used pharmacological manipulations to investigate their effects on different performance measures. Normal animals were trained to respond to a target image and withhold responding to distractor images presented within a continuous sequence. In a second version of the task, a false-alarm image was included, so performance could be assessed relative to two types of nontarget distractors. The effects of acute administration of stimulant and nonstimulant treatments for ADHD (amphetamine and atomoxetine) were tested in both tasks. Methylphenidate, ketamine, and nicotine were tested in the first task only. Amphetamine made animals more impulsive and decreased overall accuracy but increased accuracy when the target was presented early in the image sequence. Atomoxetine improved accuracy overall with a specific reduction in false-alarm responses and a shift in the attentional curve reflecting improved accuracy for targets later in the image sequence. However, atomoxetine also slowed responding and increased omissions. Ketamine, nicotine, and methylphenidate had no specific effects at the doses tested. These results suggest that stimulant versus nonstimulant treatments have different effects on attention and impulsive behaviour in this rat version of an RSVP task. These results also suggest that RSVP-like tasks have the potential to be used to study attention in rodents.

Closing the Gap: Automated Distractor Generation in Japanese Language Testing

Recent advances in natural language processing have increased interest in automatic question generation, particularly in education (e.g., math, biology, law, medicine, and languages) due to its efficiency in assessing comprehension. Specifically, multiple-choice questions have become popular, especially in standardized language proficiency tests. However, manually creating high-quality tests is time-consuming and challenging. Distractor generation, a critical aspect of multiple-choice question creation, is often overlooked, yet it plays a crucial role in test quality. Generating appropriate distractors requires ensuring they are incorrect but related to the correct answer (semantically or contextually), are grammatically correct, and of similar length to the target word. While various languages have seen research in automatic distractor generation, Japanese has received limited attention. This paper addresses this gap by automatically generating cloze tests, including distractors, for Japanese language proficiency tests, evaluating the generated questions’ quality, difficulty, and preferred distractor types, and comparing them to human-made questions through automatic and manual evaluations.

The effect of constituent frequency and distractor type on learning novel complex words

ABSTRACT The present study explored the role of constituent frequency and distractor type in complex word learning. Skilled readers were trained to associate novel letter strings with one out of two pictures, with one picture serving as the target, and the other as a distractor. A facilitatory effect of first-constituent frequency was found only in trials where distractors promoted first-constituent learning, and a facilitatory effect of second-constituent frequency only in trials where distractors promoted second-constituent learning, but not vice versa. Learning occurred in the absence of any pre-existing knowledge about the constituent morphemes and any explicit reference to the constituents during learning. The results point to the important role of constituent frequency and distractor type in novel word learning and provide insights into the mechanisms involved in the implicit acquisition of morphological knowledge in adult learners, that we suspect to be a key aspect of language learning in general.

Delayed memory for complex visual stimuli does not benefit from distraction during encoding.

The covert retrieval model (McCabe, Journal of Memory and Language 58(2), 480-494, 2008) postulates that delayed memory performance is enhanced when the encoding of memoranda in working memory (WM) is interrupted by distraction. When subjects are asked to remember stimuli for an immediate memory test, they usually remember them better when the items are presented without distraction, compared to a condition in which a distraction occurs following each item. In a delayed memory test, this effect has been shown to be reversed: Memory performance is better for items followed by distraction than without. Yet, this so-called McCabe effect has not been consistently replicated in the past. In an extensive replication attempt of a previous study showing the effect for complex visual stimuli, we investigated five potential boundary conditions of the predictions of the covert retrieval model: (1) Type of Stimuli (doors vs. faces), (2) type of distractor (pictures vs. math equations), (3) expectation about task difficulty (mixed vs. blocked lists), (4) memory load in WM (small vs. large), and (5) expectation about the long-term memory (LTM) test (intentional vs. incidental encoding). Across four experiments we failed to replicate the original findings and show that delayed memory for faces and other complex visual stimuli does not benefit from covert retrieval during encoding - as suggested as being induced by distractors. Our results indicate that the transfer of information from WM to LTM does not seem to be influenced by covert retrieval processes, but rather that a fixed proportion of information is laid down as a more permanent trace.

I can take my eyes off of you: Effect of alexithymia and perceptual load on processing emotional faces

Alexithymic individuals have difficulties processing emotional stimuli, including faces, and may require more resources to process such stimuli. Alexithymia may interact with task characteristics, like perceptual load, which modulates the processing capacity allocated to task-relevant, versus task-irrelevant stimuli. We examined effects of load and distractor type (face, object) and valence (threatening, neutral), and alexithymia on performing a letter-search task. We assessed reaction time, accuracy, and heart rate to index arousal and cognitive effort. Perceptual load, distractor presence, type and valence showed expected effects. Alexithymia did not meaningfully affect reaction time, but was associated with decreased accuracy when distractors were threatening, under low perceptual load. HR did not suggest changes in resources mobilized depending on alexithymia level. Results suggest that alexithymic individuals perceived emotional stimuli and were able to maintain intact reaction time, though this came with a cost in accuracy. Absence of HR effects suggests that no additional resources were recruited to remedy this difficulty. Overall, results suggest that emotional stimuli are perceived in alexithymia at early stages, but resources are not appropriately allocated to prevent performance impairment.

Little engagement of attention by salient distractors defined in a different dimension or modality to the visual search target.

Singleton distractors may inadvertently capture attention, interfering with the task at hand. The underlying neural mechanisms of how we prevent or handle distractor interference remain elusive. Here, we varied the type of salient distractor introduced in a visual search task: the distractor could be defined in the same (shape) dimension as the target, a different (color) dimension, or a different (tactile) modality (intra-dimensional, cross-dimensional, and, respectively, cross-modal distractor, all matched for physical salience); and besides behavioral interference, we measured lateralized electrophysiological indicators of attentional selectivity (the N2pc, Ppc, PD , CCN/CCP, CDA, and cCDA). The results revealed the intra-dimensional distractor to produce the strongest reaction-time interference, associated with the smallest target-elicited N2pc. In contrast, the cross-dimensional and cross-modal distractors did not engender any significant interference, and the target-elicited N2pc was comparable to the condition in which the search display contained only the target singleton, thus ruling out early attentional capture. Moreover, the cross-modal distractor elicited a significant early CCN/CCP, but did not influence the target-elicited N2pc, suggesting that the tactile distractor is registered by the somatosensory system (rather than being proactively suppressed), without, however, engaging attention. Together, our findings indicate that, in contrast to distractors defined in the same dimension as the target, distractors singled out in a different dimension or modality can be effectively prevented to engage attention, consistent with dimension- or modality-weighting accounts of attentional priority computation.

Three-dimensional dento-skeletal effects of mandibular midline distraction and surgically assisted rapid maxillary expansion: A retrospective study

It was the aim of the study to provide a three-dimensional evaluation of dento-skeletal effects following bone-borne vs tooth-borne mandibular midline distraction (MMD) and tooth-borne surgically assisted rapid maxillary expansion (SARME). A retrospective observational study was conducted. Cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) records were taken pre-operatively (T1), immediately post-distraction (T2) and 1 year post-operatively (T3). All included 30 patients had undergone MMD (20 bone-borne MMD; 10 tooth-borne MMD). A total of 20 bone-borne MMD and 8 tooth-borne MMD patients had simultaneously undergone tooth-borne SARME. At T1 vs T3, canine (p = 0.007; 26.0 ± 2.09 vs 29.2 ± 2.02) and first premolar (p = 0.005; 33.8 ± 2.70 vs 37.0 ± 2.43) showed significant expansion on the tip level for tooth-borne MMD. This was no significant on the apex level, indicating tipping. Bone-borne MMD showed a parallel distraction gap, whereas tooth-borne MMD showed a V-shape. There was a significant (p = 0.017; 138 ± 17.8 vs 141 ± 18.2) inter-condylar axes increase for bone-borne MMD. In conclusion, bone-borne vs tooth-borne MMD and tooth-borne SARME showed stable dento-skeletal effects at 1 year post-operatively. Bone-borne and tooth-borne MMD seemed not to be superior to each other. The choice of distractor type therefore depends more on anatomical and comfort factors.

Versatility of Transport Distraction Osteogenesis for Reconstruction of Lateral Mandibular Ablative Defects.

The reconstitution of form and function after maxillofacial tumor resection or traumatic bony defects is a challenge when considering reconstructive options. The reconstructive options will depend upon whether the tissues to be replaced included bone alone or both bone and soft tissue (composite resection). This study was carried out on nine patients who with benign tumors or cysts of the mandible that required segmental resection. Mandibular reconstruction using mandibular transport distraction osteogenesis was performed for all the cases. Depending on whether the condyle was spared or sacrificed, the type of mandibular transport distractor either fixed on the remnant condyle-ramus unit or had a condylar component replacing the resected condyles. Depending on the location of the defect, transport distraction was carried our anterior to posterior or posterior to anterior. A total of nine cases of benign mandibular pathologies were operated. Segmental resection with condylar preservation was carried out in seven cases, segmental resection with condylar resection was carried out in two cases. In cases with condylar resection, the reconstruction plate of the distractor device had a condylar component. Anterior to posterior transport distraction was carried out in seven cases, and posterior to anterior transport distraction carried out in two cases. The amount of distracted bone ranged from 38 to 46mm. Mandibular transport distraction osteogenesis offers a modality of reconstruction where the patient's native host bone is osteotomized and gradually distracted to induce the formation of regenerated osseous structure and soft tissue. Being cost-effective, not requiring a steep learning curve/long operative time, and not technically demanding as vascularized bone grafts/flaps, it is feasible in the Indian setup as a practical reconstructive option for benign jaw tumors.

Attentional Bias to Emotional Stimuli and Effects of Anxiety on the Bias in Neurotypical Adults and Adolescents

Human can rapidly detect and deal with dangerous elements in their environment, and they generally manifest as attentional bias toward threat. Past studies have reported that this attentional bias is affected by anxiety level. Other studies, however, have argued that children and adolescents show attentional bias to threatening stimuli, regardless of their anxiety levels. Few studies directly have compared the two age groups in terms of attentional bias to threat, and furthermore, most previous studies have focused on attentional capture and the early stages of attention, without investigating further attentional holding by the stimuli. In this study, we investigated both attentional bias patterns (attentional capture and holding) with respect to negative emotional stimulus in neurotypical adults and adolescents. The effects of anxiety level on attentional bias were also examined. The results obtained for adult participants showed that abrupt onset of a distractor delayed attentional capture to the target, regardless of distractor type (angry or neutral faces), while it had no effect on attention holding. In adolescents, on the other hand, only the angry face distractor resulted in longer reaction time for detecting a target. Regarding anxiety, state anxiety revealed a significant positive correlation with attentional capture to a face distractor in adult participants but not in adolescents. Overall, this is the first study to investigate developmental tendencies of attentional bias to negative facial emotion in both adults and adolescents, providing novel evidence on attentional bias to threats at different ages. Our results can be applied to understanding the attentional mechanisms in people with emotion-related developmental disorders, as well as typical development.

The influence of reward in the Simon task: Differences and similarities to the Stroop and Eriksen flanker tasks

Previous studies have suggested that performance-contingent reward can modulate cognitive control by biasing irrelevant location-response associations in the Simon task. However, the influence of reward in the case of irrelevant words (Stroop task) or irrelevant flankers (Eriksen Flanker task) remains unclear. Across two preregistered experiments, the present study investigated the influence of reward on conflict processing with different types of distractors. Conflict effects on mean reaction time (RT) were reduced in the Simon task (Experiments 1 and 2) when incongruent versus congruent trials were rewarded, and this modulating effect of reward on conflict processing was also observed in the Eriksen flanker task (Experiment 2), but not in the Stroop task (Experiment 1). We propose that cognitive control adjustments to distractor-specific reward contingencies can be generalized across distractor types producing both perceptual-related (Flanker task) and motor-related (Simon task) conflict, but, if any, to a limited degree when distractors produce additional higher-level task conflict (Stroop task). In addition, distributional RT analyses (delta plots) revealed that rewarded distractor-response associations modulate cognitive control not only via biasing the strength (Simon and Eriksen tasks) but also the time-course of suppressing distractor processing (Eriksen task). Overall, the present study dissociated distractor-general and distractor-specific effects of reward on cognitive control.

The role of temporal order of relevant and irrelevant dimensions within conflict tasks.

Conflict tasks are commonly used to investigate control processes under situations of relevant and irrelevant sources of information. In addition to compatibility effects at a mean behavioral level, delta plot analyses of reaction time distributions reveal that the compatibility effect generally increases with time (i.e., positive delta plot slopes) across most conflict-like tasks. Critically, the underlying causes of the increasing delta plot slopes with different types of distractors are still poorly understood. The present study tested whether the relative onset of target-to-distractor processing affects the delta plot slope. Specifically, we manipulated the temporal order of relevant and irrelevant dimensions within an Eriksen flanker task (Experiment [Exp.] 1), an Arrow-Simon task (Exp. 2), and a manual Stroop task (Exp. 3a/3b). The results of the Eriksen flanker task and Arrow-Simon task revealed that the delta plots slopes were less increasing (and instead rather decreasing) when the irrelevant dimension appears first (IR condition) compared to the reversed order (RI condition)-consistent with the idea that the underlying mechanism driving the slope of the delta plot is the temporal overlap of activation between the relevant and irrelevant dimensions. In contrast, for the Stroop task, the delta plots in the RI condition were not more increasing than the ones for the IR condition. Overall, these results suggest that the temporal properties strongly influence delta plot shape, but that the temporal dynamics operating in the flanker task and the Arrow-Simon task differs from the Stroop task, at least under conditions where relevant and irrelevant information is presented sequentially. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Escaping from worries: Comparing the effectiveness of focusing on one's breath, a neutral and a positive distractor in worry control.

Focused-distraction strategies are commonly used for thought control, but their effectiveness in handling personal worries with different types of distractors has rarely been examined. To examine this issue, 101 undergraduate and graduate students whose depression levels fell below mild depression were recruited (64.4% female, Mage = 20.27) and were randomly assigned to one of the three strategy conditions: 34 participants for the focused-breathing strategy (FBS), 34 for the focused-positive-distractor strategy (FPS), and 33 for the focused-neutral-distractor strategy (FNS). After a short introduction and practice, they applied the assigned strategy during a 5-min worry control session to prevent thoughts regarding a recent worrying event. The number of worry intrusions was measured using an online self-caught method. Participants rated their emotional states before and after the worry control session. Their working memory capacities (WMCs) and depressive tendency were comparable across conditions. The results showed the FBS and FPS groups exhibited fewer worry intrusions than did the FNS group. Furthermore, worry intrusions were negatively related to WMC for the FNS group but independent of WMC for the other two. The above findings together indicate that the FBS and FPS are relatively effective and effortless methods for reducing worry intrusions. Negative emotions decreased after the worry control session for all groups. However, decoupling of negative emotions from worry intrusions was only observed for the FBS and FNS groups. Overall, FBS outperforms FPS and FNS in managing worries from the above aspects. Several theoretical and practical implications of the study were discussed.