Attention Perception & Psychophysics最新文献

Objects actively stored in visual working memory (VWM) produce VWM-based attentional capture. Interestingly, for an object’s features to be stored in VWM, they do not need to be shown but can also be reinstated from long-term memory (LTM). Unlike shown features, reinstated features in VWM sometimes capture attention even when task-irrelevant, suggesting observers may be able to choose when reinstatement occurs. To investigate the control of LTM reinstatement, we examined how capture by reinstated features is influenced by differences in task demands. Participants memorized objects with specific colors and then completed a dual task in which they were instructed to rapidly identify the location of one of the objects’ shapes (speeded object search; Experiments 1a and 2a) or complete a self-paced forced-choice comparison test (unspeeded object recognition; Experiments 1b and 2b), regardless of color. On each trial, one memorized object was brought into VWM, and participants completed a diamond search task and/or an object recognition, or an object search task. The results revealed that under speeded task demands, task-irrelevant features from LTM were reinstated into the VWM template, leading to increased distraction in both the diamond and the object search tasks. However, under unspeeded task demands, the memorized color did not influence search in the diamond search task, but still biased performance in the recognition task (Exp. 2b). These findings suggest that the integration of LTM features into VWM templates is modulated by task demands, indicating some level of control over LTM reinstatement.

Segregating target speech in a multi-talker background would require organizing speech fragments into a coherent stream of speech. The current investigation explored the intelligibility of temporally interrupted and checkerboard (interrupted in time and frequency) speech stimuli with one and two talkers. A series of experiments with one-talker stimuli revealed that the intelligibility of interrupted speech became lowest at around a 255-ms segment duration. In contrast, for two- and four-band checkerboard speech, the minimum intelligibility occurred at around 113–160-ms segment durations. Two-talker experiments revealed that no phonemic restoration was found, and that signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) between target and competing talkers had no clear effect on the target intelligibility of interrupted (and staggered) speech and two- and four-band checkerboard speech. Still, SNRs dominated the intelligibility of two-talker checkerboard speech with eight or more frequency bands. The probability summation model may account for the intelligibility minimum in both interrupted and checkerboard speech with a single talker. The results suggest that the four speech cue channels explain the similarity of the intelligibility curves for two- and four-band checkerboard speech.

A Functional Visual Field (FVF) describes an area around the current point of fixation within which some task is done. In visual search, three types of FVF are of interest. The Resolution FVF describes the region within which a specific target can be identified. The Target FVF is a map of the starting point of saccades whose endpoint is a fixation on or near the target of the search, suggesting that the target was found from the previous fixation. If the endpoints of all saccades are normalized to land at one location, the Search FVF is the map of the starting points of all the saccades before the saccade to the target. We measured the Target and Search FVFs for observers as they searched for a T among Ls in regions of different shapes (vertical, horizontal, and triangular). The FVFs reflected the shapes of the regions. These FVF shapes arise as a by-product of a random walk in a constrained space. The results suggest a cautious interpretation of the shapes of FVFs in other studies. The FVF sizes and other aspects of the scanpaths probably remain informative, even if the shape might reflect the shape of the stimulus field.

Several studies have explored how the duration of stimuli delimiting time intervals influences interval judgments and perceived duration. Most focus on nonneighboring intervals and rely on two-alternative forced choice methods, while the method of adjustment and multimodal conditions are rarely used. This study investigated the ability to discriminate two neighboring intervals using an equisection and adjustment method, with variations in the duration of the stimuli marking the intervals, under multimodal conditions. In two experiments, participants adjusted the second of three brief successive signals (10 or 100 ms) marking two empty intervals until they were perceived as equal. In Experiment 1, only the second signal was lengthened to 100 ms. In Experiment 2, the first, third, or both the first and third signals were lengthened. Results from Experiment 1 show that interval judgments are more variable only when the second marker is lengthened within the same modality. Moreover, in intermodal conditions, the interval following the lengthened marker is perceived as longer than the preceding one. Experiment 2 reveals no overall difference in variability across marker-lengthening conditions but consistently shows that the interval following a lengthened marker is perceived as longer, regardless of modality. These findings clarify how stimulus duration and modality influence equisection judgments of short time intervals, shedding light on when and how timing mechanisms operate.

Feature binding has emerged as an important mechanism in the coordination of human action control. Apparently, the simple mechanisms of binding of individual features and retrieval of recently integrated episodes play a significant role in the selection, initiation, and execution of goal-directed actions. Importantly, ideomotor approaches suggest that the stimulus-driven (i.e., forced-choice) as well as the internally generated (i.e., free-choice) activation of a response representation should lead to facilitation of that response in behavior. Against these predictions we separately investigated binding and retrieval of free-choice response in modified response–response binding tasks. In Experiment 1a, we investigated whether binding and retrieval of responses influence a free-choice action and found that response–response binding effects influenced performance in a current free-choice action. In Experiment 1b, we investigated whether a free-choice response can initiate the process of event file retrieval and found response–response binding effects, indicating that event file retrieval can be triggered by a free-choice response. In Experiment 1c, we investigated whether a free-choice response can be bound to another response and found response–response binding effects, indicating shared representations of free-choice and forced-choice responses. These findings are in line with ideomotor approaches suggesting that the same mechanisms of binding and retrieval also operate on representations of free-choice actions. They further demonstrate that both processes can dynamically operate across extended action sequences that integrate both forced-choice and free-choice actions, thereby highlighting their general role in flexible action control. Data of the experiments are available at OSF (https://osf.io/t7pjb/?view_only=1af9b6ce0c1c4e19ab7a79a4b0bd176f), and none of the experiments was preregistered.

The attentional boost effect (ABE) describes the counterintuitive phenomenon in which detecting and responding to behaviorally relevant targets improves the processing of unrelated stimuli presented at the same time. To better understand the mechanisms behind this dual-task enhancement, we compared behavioral and pupillary measures of the ABE, isolating the contributions of perceptual target detection and response requirements. Participants monitored a rapid serial presentation of a specific target letter (e.g., “E”), a large set of nontarget letters, and blank (baseline) trials in equal proportions. In one condition, they pressed a button for the target letter only; in another, for the nontarget letters. Experiment 1 assessed the ABE behaviorally by measuring memory for concurrently presented photographs. Experiment 2 assessed physiological responses via pupillometry during the same letter task (without image encoding). Memory was enhanced for target-paired images when participants responded to targets and showed a modest enhancement for both target- and nontarget-paired images when participants responded to nontargets. This is consistent with the idea that both perceptual and response goals modulate the ABE. Pupil dilation was also sensitive to both factors but was more strongly driven by response. These findings highlight the dual contributions of detection and response in producing the ABE.

Whether the motion of a target could influence the represented location of another stimulus was examined. In Experiment 1, judged location of a stationary object was displaced in the direction of motion of a subsequent moving target. In Experiment 2, forward displacement of the judged locations of two sequentially presented targets moving along the same path was not influenced by whether the targets moved in the same direction or in opposite directions. In Experiment 3, forward displacement of the judged locations of two simultaneously presented targets moving along different paths was larger when targets moved in the same direction than when targets moved in opposite directions, In Experiment 4, the judged location of the second (trailing) of two simultaneously presented targets moving along the same path was displaced forward, but the judged location of the first (leading) target was displaced backward; this pattern offers a novel interpretation of the tandem effect based on representational momentum and is consistent with anisotropy of the displacement of the leading edge and trailing edge of a single target. The patterns of displacement across experiments are consistent with the hypothesis that the representational momentum of a moving target can extend beyond that target to influence the represented location of another stimulus. Data and stimulus materials are available from the authors.

In the current study, we used an efficient visual search paradigm in a pseudo-realistic environment, with well-controlled search stimuli that allow a simultaneous evaluation of the impact of top-down and bottom-up factors on eye-movement patterns. Our stimuli varied along the color dimension to manipulate target-distractor similarity and our displays contained a salient stimulus of higher salience than target and other less-salient distractor stimuli. We manipulated task instructions, introducing a free-view instruction condition to serve as a baseline for how bottom-up contrast guided eye movements in one group of participants, and a top-down search instruction in a second group, where subjects were asked to find the red target in the scene. Experiment 1 assessed the impact of set size of less-salient distractors across both instructions. Experiment 2 examined target-distractor similarity effects for the less-salient distractors. We compared the likelihood that the first fixation in a trial would be selective towards the target (top-down) versus the high-salience singleton (bottom-up) and studied how this selectivity varied as a function of initial saccade latency. Interestingly, the results from the free-view conditions showed selectivity for the high-salience item during the first fixation was sustained across saccade latencies, yet the high-salience items capture very few saccades in the search task, suggesting attention might be in limbo early in the trial. Indeed, the results also showed that it takes time for saccades to be correctly directed at the target in a search task.

Attentional orienting in response to infants’ gaze is crucial for effective caregiving and interaction with infants, yet it has often been overlooked in previous studies. Using a modified central cueing paradigm, this study measured gaze-cueing effect (GCE) in response to infant versus adult faces (N = 115). Results showed that male participants exhibited a negligible GCE to infant faces, significantly smaller than their response to adult faces. In contrast, female participants exhibited significant GCEs to both infant and adult faces. This gender difference disappeared when the infant faces were partially scrambled to obscure facial features, leaving only the eyes visible. These findings highlight distinct processing of infant gaze between males and females, providing new evidence of gender differences in the processing of infant-related stimuli.

Exploring our environment through touch often entails integration of tactile input with auditory and/or visual cues. The mechanisms by which mechanosensation integrates with other sensory modalities during active touch remain poorly understood, despite their ecological importance. Here, we investigated auditory-tactile integration in the context of edge localization during active tactile exploration. We assessed how accurately participants could determine the position of their moving finger in relation to the onsets of tactile, auditory, and auditory-tactile stimuli with respect to a visually displayed midline. We hypothesized that localization precision would be improved in the presence of combined auditory-tactile stimulation. In Experiment 1, the auditory, tactile, and auditory-tactile conditions were presented in separate blocks, while in Experiment 2, they were interleaved within blocks. For both experiments, we found that concurrent auditory-tactile stimulation did not increase localization precision. We also observed across all modalities an inclination to localize the finger position towards the right, possibly due to a shift induced by the left-to-right finger movement. This bias was reduced in the auditory-tactile condition of the second experiment, suggesting that when modality was not predictable, integration of auditory and tactile input may have led to a more accurate representation of finger position at stimulation onset. In conclusion, we show that combined auditory-tactile input may reduce biases in reconstructing the spatial location of a tactile stimulus generated by sliding the finger onto a flat surface. These observations have potential implications for the design of haptic technologies involving active touch.