Pub Date : 2023-07-19DOI: 10.3389/fcogn.2023.1132766
Troy M. Houser
It is known that animals foraging in the wild must balance their levels of exploitation and exploration so as to maximize resource consumption. This usually manifests as an area-restricted search strategy, such that animals tend to exploit environmental patches and make long excursions between patches. This optimal foraging strategy, however, relies on an underlying assumption: nearby locations yield similar resources. Here, we offer an explanation as to how animals utilize this assumption, which implicitly involves generalization. We also describe the computational mechanisms hypothesized to incorporate factors of exploitation, exploration, and generalization, thus, providing a more holistic picture of animal search strategies. Moreover, we connect this foraging behavior to cognition in general. As such, we suggest that cognitive processes, particularly those involved in sequential decision-making, reuse the computational principles grafted into neural activity by the evolution of optimal foraging. We speculate as to what neurobiological substrates may be using area-restricted search, as well as how a model of exploitation, exploration, and generalization can inform psychopathology.
{"title":"How generalization relates to the exploration-exploitation tradeoff","authors":"Troy M. Houser","doi":"10.3389/fcogn.2023.1132766","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fcogn.2023.1132766","url":null,"abstract":"It is known that animals foraging in the wild must balance their levels of exploitation and exploration so as to maximize resource consumption. This usually manifests as an area-restricted search strategy, such that animals tend to exploit environmental patches and make long excursions between patches. This optimal foraging strategy, however, relies on an underlying assumption: nearby locations yield similar resources. Here, we offer an explanation as to how animals utilize this assumption, which implicitly involves generalization. We also describe the computational mechanisms hypothesized to incorporate factors of exploitation, exploration, and generalization, thus, providing a more holistic picture of animal search strategies. Moreover, we connect this foraging behavior to cognition in general. As such, we suggest that cognitive processes, particularly those involved in sequential decision-making, reuse the computational principles grafted into neural activity by the evolution of optimal foraging. We speculate as to what neurobiological substrates may be using area-restricted search, as well as how a model of exploitation, exploration, and generalization can inform psychopathology.","PeriodicalId":94013,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Cognition","volume":"92 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87046202","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-07DOI: 10.3389/fcogn.2023.1203435
B. Gibson, Jamie M. Trost, S. Maxwell
Previous research has suggested that standard manipulations of top-down information in the spatial cueing paradigm do not elicit voluntary attention control across all participants. Instead, this research showed that only about half of the individuals exhibited the expected pattern in which they reported feeling more agency when they performed visual search with the aid of an informative (arrow or onset) cue than when they performed this task with an uninformative cue or without any cue at all. The present study replicated these previous findings under conditions in which the standard manipulation of top-down information was conveyed by a number cue (as opposed to an arrow or onset cue). But more importantly, the present study also found that the proportion of individuals who aligned top-down and voluntary attention control could be increased to approximately 90% by combining the standard manipulation of top-down information with a novel manipulation of volition in a separate condition in which participants were given the opportunity to freely choose (or not) the direction of the spatial cue on each trial. Despite conceding experimental control of cued direction (but not cue validity) to participants in this latter condition, most participants (85%) nevertheless distributed their direction choices equally across the four directions. These findings suggest that providing participants active control of stimulus parameters may be required to elicit a strong sense of agency (and voluntary control) in the laboratory.
{"title":"Aligning top-down and voluntary attention control across individuals","authors":"B. Gibson, Jamie M. Trost, S. Maxwell","doi":"10.3389/fcogn.2023.1203435","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fcogn.2023.1203435","url":null,"abstract":"Previous research has suggested that standard manipulations of top-down information in the spatial cueing paradigm do not elicit voluntary attention control across all participants. Instead, this research showed that only about half of the individuals exhibited the expected pattern in which they reported feeling more agency when they performed visual search with the aid of an informative (arrow or onset) cue than when they performed this task with an uninformative cue or without any cue at all. The present study replicated these previous findings under conditions in which the standard manipulation of top-down information was conveyed by a number cue (as opposed to an arrow or onset cue). But more importantly, the present study also found that the proportion of individuals who aligned top-down and voluntary attention control could be increased to approximately 90% by combining the standard manipulation of top-down information with a novel manipulation of volition in a separate condition in which participants were given the opportunity to freely choose (or not) the direction of the spatial cue on each trial. Despite conceding experimental control of cued direction (but not cue validity) to participants in this latter condition, most participants (85%) nevertheless distributed their direction choices equally across the four directions. These findings suggest that providing participants active control of stimulus parameters may be required to elicit a strong sense of agency (and voluntary control) in the laboratory.","PeriodicalId":94013,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Cognition","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83264159","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-13DOI: 10.3389/fcogn.2023.1191595
Pom Charras, A. B. Chica, M. Capizzi
Introduction Recent evidence suggests that the temporal expectations afforded by a regular rhythmic structure operate independently from endogenous spatial attention in simple reaction-time tasks. The most common manipulation followed in previous studies consisted of presenting a target stimulus either “in-time” or “out-of-time” (earlier or later) with a preceding rhythm. However, contrary to the proposal of entrainment models predicting a behavioral advantage for in-time compared to both early and late targets, responses were still faster for late targets, according to the so-called “foreperiod effect”. This finding makes it difficult to fully disentangle the impact of rhythm and the benefits afforded by the passage of time on the relationship between rhythm-based temporal and endogenous spatial attention. Methods To shed more light on this issue, we combined a spatial orienting task with a rhythmic manipulation, in which two placeholders flanking the fixation cross flickered at either a regular or irregular pace. Spatial orienting to the target location was deployed by symbolic color cues that were displayed independently of the rhythm (independent cues) or were integrated with the temporal rhythmic cues (integrated cues). Crucially, for both independent and integrated cues, and for regular and irregular rhythms, the interval between the rhythm and the target (i.e., the foreperiod) was kept fixed in Experiments 1–3 to control for the foreperiod effect, while the effect of foreperiod was explored in Experiment 4. Results Results showed a more beneficial effect of rhythms with independent cues as compared to integrated cues. Additionally, the benefit of rhythms was slightly but significantly larger at valid, compared to invalid, spatial locations, regardless of the foreperiod. Discussion Our results extend previous studies by showing that interactive effects of rhythms and endogenous spatial attention may emerge in low-demanding detection tasks.
{"title":"On the relationship between rhythm-based temporal expectations and endogenous spatial attention in simple reaction-time tasks","authors":"Pom Charras, A. B. Chica, M. Capizzi","doi":"10.3389/fcogn.2023.1191595","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fcogn.2023.1191595","url":null,"abstract":"Introduction Recent evidence suggests that the temporal expectations afforded by a regular rhythmic structure operate independently from endogenous spatial attention in simple reaction-time tasks. The most common manipulation followed in previous studies consisted of presenting a target stimulus either “in-time” or “out-of-time” (earlier or later) with a preceding rhythm. However, contrary to the proposal of entrainment models predicting a behavioral advantage for in-time compared to both early and late targets, responses were still faster for late targets, according to the so-called “foreperiod effect”. This finding makes it difficult to fully disentangle the impact of rhythm and the benefits afforded by the passage of time on the relationship between rhythm-based temporal and endogenous spatial attention. Methods To shed more light on this issue, we combined a spatial orienting task with a rhythmic manipulation, in which two placeholders flanking the fixation cross flickered at either a regular or irregular pace. Spatial orienting to the target location was deployed by symbolic color cues that were displayed independently of the rhythm (independent cues) or were integrated with the temporal rhythmic cues (integrated cues). Crucially, for both independent and integrated cues, and for regular and irregular rhythms, the interval between the rhythm and the target (i.e., the foreperiod) was kept fixed in Experiments 1–3 to control for the foreperiod effect, while the effect of foreperiod was explored in Experiment 4. Results Results showed a more beneficial effect of rhythms with independent cues as compared to integrated cues. Additionally, the benefit of rhythms was slightly but significantly larger at valid, compared to invalid, spatial locations, regardless of the foreperiod. Discussion Our results extend previous studies by showing that interactive effects of rhythms and endogenous spatial attention may emerge in low-demanding detection tasks.","PeriodicalId":94013,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Cognition","volume":"189 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75784018","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-25DOI: 10.3389/fcogn.2023.1135435
Sofia Bonventre, Andrea Marotta
Introduction Spatial interference tasks have been recently used to investigate the supposed uniqueness of gaze processing and attention. For instance, it has been observed that gaze stimuli elicited faster responses when their direction was incongruent with their position (“reversed spatial congruency effect”, RCE), whereas arrows produced faster reaction times (RT) when it was congruent (“standard spatial congruency effect”, SCE). In the present study, we tested whether the RCE is unique to eye-gaze stimuli or can be observed in response to other important social stimuli such as pointing fingers. Method To this aim, congruency effects elicited by eye gaze, arrows, and pointing fingers were compared in a spatial interference task. Results The RCE was only observed in response to eye-gaze stimuli while pointing fingers and arrows elicited the SCE. Discussion This suggests that the RCE reversed congruency effect is specific to gaze stimuli and cannot be generalized to finger-pointing stimuli.
{"title":"Is the reversed congruency effect unique to the eye-gaze? Investigating the effects of finger pointing, eye-gaze and arrows stimuli on spatial interference","authors":"Sofia Bonventre, Andrea Marotta","doi":"10.3389/fcogn.2023.1135435","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fcogn.2023.1135435","url":null,"abstract":"Introduction Spatial interference tasks have been recently used to investigate the supposed uniqueness of gaze processing and attention. For instance, it has been observed that gaze stimuli elicited faster responses when their direction was incongruent with their position (“reversed spatial congruency effect”, RCE), whereas arrows produced faster reaction times (RT) when it was congruent (“standard spatial congruency effect”, SCE). In the present study, we tested whether the RCE is unique to eye-gaze stimuli or can be observed in response to other important social stimuli such as pointing fingers. Method To this aim, congruency effects elicited by eye gaze, arrows, and pointing fingers were compared in a spatial interference task. Results The RCE was only observed in response to eye-gaze stimuli while pointing fingers and arrows elicited the SCE. Discussion This suggests that the RCE reversed congruency effect is specific to gaze stimuli and cannot be generalized to finger-pointing stimuli.","PeriodicalId":94013,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Cognition","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85436375","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-18DOI: 10.3389/fcogn.2023.1170422
Laura M. Getz
An audiovisual correspondence (AVC) refers to an observer's seemingly arbitrary yet consistent matching of sensory features across the two modalities; for example, between auditory pitch height and visual height or visual size. Research on AVCs frequently uses a speeded classification procedure in which participants are asked to rapidly classify the pitch of a sound accompanied either by a congruent or an incongruent visual object (e.g., high pitches are congruent with higher/smaller visual objects and incongruent with lower/larger visual objects). To investigate the strength of these pitch AVCs (height, size, spatial frequency, brightness, sharpness), trials where the height AVC competed with each other AVC in terms of pitch congruency were created. For example, when classifying pitch height, participants were presented with trials where both visual height and size were congruent or incongruent with pitch; additionally, there were trials where height was congruent but size was incongruent (i.e., high pitch matched with large object at high height) and trials where size was congruent but height was incongruent (i.e., high pitch matched with small object at low height). Based on previous work, congruency between pitch and height was expected to be more important than congruency between pitch and spatial frequency, brightness, sharpness, or size. As predicted, in all four studies, RTs when only height was congruent were just as fast as when both dimensions were congruent. In contrast, RTs when only spatial frequency, brightness, sharpness, or size was congruent (and height was incongruent) were just as slow as when both dimensions were incongruent. These results reinforce the superiority of the pitch-height AVC and can be interpreted based on the metaphor used for pitch in English, showing the importance of semantic/linguistic effects to understanding AVCs.
{"title":"Competition between audiovisual correspondences aids understanding of interactions between auditory and visual perception","authors":"Laura M. Getz","doi":"10.3389/fcogn.2023.1170422","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fcogn.2023.1170422","url":null,"abstract":"An audiovisual correspondence (AVC) refers to an observer's seemingly arbitrary yet consistent matching of sensory features across the two modalities; for example, between auditory pitch height and visual height or visual size. Research on AVCs frequently uses a speeded classification procedure in which participants are asked to rapidly classify the pitch of a sound accompanied either by a congruent or an incongruent visual object (e.g., high pitches are congruent with higher/smaller visual objects and incongruent with lower/larger visual objects). To investigate the strength of these pitch AVCs (height, size, spatial frequency, brightness, sharpness), trials where the height AVC competed with each other AVC in terms of pitch congruency were created. For example, when classifying pitch height, participants were presented with trials where both visual height and size were congruent or incongruent with pitch; additionally, there were trials where height was congruent but size was incongruent (i.e., high pitch matched with large object at high height) and trials where size was congruent but height was incongruent (i.e., high pitch matched with small object at low height). Based on previous work, congruency between pitch and height was expected to be more important than congruency between pitch and spatial frequency, brightness, sharpness, or size. As predicted, in all four studies, RTs when only height was congruent were just as fast as when both dimensions were congruent. In contrast, RTs when only spatial frequency, brightness, sharpness, or size was congruent (and height was incongruent) were just as slow as when both dimensions were incongruent. These results reinforce the superiority of the pitch-height AVC and can be interpreted based on the metaphor used for pitch in English, showing the importance of semantic/linguistic effects to understanding AVCs.","PeriodicalId":94013,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Cognition","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84724757","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-15DOI: 10.3389/fcogn.2023.1134505
Beatriz Gil-Gómez de Liaño, Chiara Castelletti, E. Pérez-Hernández, María Quirós-Godoy, J. Wolfe
Introduction Inattentional Blindness (IB) is the failure to notice an unexpected, usually salient stimulus while immersed in a different, often demanding attentional task. More than just a laboratory curiosity, IB is an important phenomenon to understand because it may be related to real-world errors such as missed “incidental findings” in medical image or security searches. Interest in individual differences in susceptibility to IB has produced a number of studies showing inconclusive results. Methods Here, we tested IB in a sample of 277 participants, 4-25 years old performing a visual search task. On two critical trials, an unexpected letter and an unexpected word were presented among photorealistic objects. Results There was a clear age effect with younger individuals showing higher IB levels. IB correlated with attentional control in visual search and with Continuous Performance Test-CPT for d-prime, response times and attentional shifting measures. These effects disappeared if age was controlled. There were no general effects of intelligence (IQ; RIST) or gender. Younger observers showed a negative correlation of IB for the word with the verbal components of the RIST IQ-proxy (no effect for the letter). Discussion These results support a relationship between IB and cognitive-developmental changes, showing that maturation of attention and executive processes can help us understand the intriguing phenomenon of (sometimes) missing what is in front of our eyes.
{"title":"Attentional development can help us understand the inattentional blindness effect in visual search","authors":"Beatriz Gil-Gómez de Liaño, Chiara Castelletti, E. Pérez-Hernández, María Quirós-Godoy, J. Wolfe","doi":"10.3389/fcogn.2023.1134505","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fcogn.2023.1134505","url":null,"abstract":"Introduction Inattentional Blindness (IB) is the failure to notice an unexpected, usually salient stimulus while immersed in a different, often demanding attentional task. More than just a laboratory curiosity, IB is an important phenomenon to understand because it may be related to real-world errors such as missed “incidental findings” in medical image or security searches. Interest in individual differences in susceptibility to IB has produced a number of studies showing inconclusive results. Methods Here, we tested IB in a sample of 277 participants, 4-25 years old performing a visual search task. On two critical trials, an unexpected letter and an unexpected word were presented among photorealistic objects. Results There was a clear age effect with younger individuals showing higher IB levels. IB correlated with attentional control in visual search and with Continuous Performance Test-CPT for d-prime, response times and attentional shifting measures. These effects disappeared if age was controlled. There were no general effects of intelligence (IQ; RIST) or gender. Younger observers showed a negative correlation of IB for the word with the verbal components of the RIST IQ-proxy (no effect for the letter). Discussion These results support a relationship between IB and cognitive-developmental changes, showing that maturation of attention and executive processes can help us understand the intriguing phenomenon of (sometimes) missing what is in front of our eyes.","PeriodicalId":94013,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Cognition","volume":"126 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76155918","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-12DOI: 10.3389/fcogn.2023.1146511
R. Klein, R. S. Redden, Matthew D. Hilchey
In the early 1980's independent research streams were launched by two of the 20th century's leading attention researchers. Anne Treisman's research program is best-known for distinguishing empirically between serial and pop-out search and for proposing feature integration theory and the idea of an attentional operator, that sequentially inspects items or groups of items when search is difficult. Among his many contributions to psychological science, Michael Posner is well-known for pioneering simple model tasks that made the allocation of visual attention in space amenable to scientific inquiry. When one version of the Posner cuing paradigm was used to explore visuospatial orienting it was serendipitously discovered that an “inhibitory” effect occurred in the aftermath of events that captured visuospatial attention involuntarily. This “inhibitory” phenomenon became known as Inhibition of Return (IOR), and, as implied by its name, the underlying mechanisms were thought to bias attention away from previously explored places. These two research programs were linked in 1988 when Raymond Klein exploited the distinction between pop-out and serial search to test and verify Posner's proposal that this inhibition might be a novelty seeking mechanism that could improve search efficiency. Subsequent research has identified at least two different inhibitory mechanisms that bias attention toward novelty. We present evidence using several diagnostics (central vs. peripheral targets, joint consideration of speed and accuracy, and the locus of slack logic embedded in the psychological refractory period effect) to illustrate the dual natures of IOR. The input form operates on a salience map that influences what will capture our attention, while the output form operates on a priority map that influences what behaviors (including orienting) are likely to be executed. The input form is generated when the reflexive oculomotor system is suppressed while the output form is generated when this system is not suppressed. We believe that both forms of IOR can serve the novelty seeking (and search facilitating) function proposed by Posner and others. Yet, many questions remain unanswered. Some of the many remaining puzzles will be described and we hope that our review will stimulate research to solve them.
{"title":"Visual search and the inhibitions of return","authors":"R. Klein, R. S. Redden, Matthew D. Hilchey","doi":"10.3389/fcogn.2023.1146511","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fcogn.2023.1146511","url":null,"abstract":"In the early 1980's independent research streams were launched by two of the 20th century's leading attention researchers. Anne Treisman's research program is best-known for distinguishing empirically between serial and pop-out search and for proposing feature integration theory and the idea of an attentional operator, that sequentially inspects items or groups of items when search is difficult. Among his many contributions to psychological science, Michael Posner is well-known for pioneering simple model tasks that made the allocation of visual attention in space amenable to scientific inquiry. When one version of the Posner cuing paradigm was used to explore visuospatial orienting it was serendipitously discovered that an “inhibitory” effect occurred in the aftermath of events that captured visuospatial attention involuntarily. This “inhibitory” phenomenon became known as Inhibition of Return (IOR), and, as implied by its name, the underlying mechanisms were thought to bias attention away from previously explored places. These two research programs were linked in 1988 when Raymond Klein exploited the distinction between pop-out and serial search to test and verify Posner's proposal that this inhibition might be a novelty seeking mechanism that could improve search efficiency. Subsequent research has identified at least two different inhibitory mechanisms that bias attention toward novelty. We present evidence using several diagnostics (central vs. peripheral targets, joint consideration of speed and accuracy, and the locus of slack logic embedded in the psychological refractory period effect) to illustrate the dual natures of IOR. The input form operates on a salience map that influences what will capture our attention, while the output form operates on a priority map that influences what behaviors (including orienting) are likely to be executed. The input form is generated when the reflexive oculomotor system is suppressed while the output form is generated when this system is not suppressed. We believe that both forms of IOR can serve the novelty seeking (and search facilitating) function proposed by Posner and others. Yet, many questions remain unanswered. Some of the many remaining puzzles will be described and we hope that our review will stimulate research to solve them.","PeriodicalId":94013,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Cognition","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86451992","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-25DOI: 10.3389/fcogn.2023.1125197
Jonathan S. A. Carriere, Andrea L. Nelson, J. Cheyne, D. Smilek
Introduction Going through life mindlessly appears to produce feelings of boredom and depression, suggesting that cognitive deficits can lead both directly and indirectly to emotional problems. Under this hypothesis, there are numerous possible routes from attention to affective issues, including through the sense of self-efficacy – a judgement about our ability to successfully achieve goals – and the experience of psychological stress. The present study assessed potential pathways from everyday inattentiveness, through the presumed intermediate experiences of diminished self-efficacy and psychological stress, to the experience of depressive affect. Method In two studies we collected questionnaire responses from large groups of participants (N = 188, Study 1; N = 399, Study 2), assessing individual differences in trait inattention, attention-related errors, self-efficacy, stress, and depression. Results Via path analyses we tested several predictions: 1) the frequency of attention lapses predicts depressive affect; 2) attention-related errors mediate effects of inattention in predicting both self-efficacy and stress; 3) self-efficacy and stress directly influence depressive affect. The results indicate the proposed Attention-to-Affect models provide good fit overall. They also indicate a reversal of the causal flow, while consistent with traditional views, does not adequately fit the data. Discussion That the Attention-to-Affect models provide good fit for the data is consistent with the view that everyday inattention contributes to the emotional distress that creates depression. While this view is contrary to the typical conception of attention problems as consequences of depression, it is consistent with our own previous findings. Accordingly, our results continue to suggest it is important for future research to further validate this pathway and to consider directly remedying attentional issues as a potentially important part of depression treatment strategies.
{"title":"Influences of inattention on perceived self-efficacy, stress, and depression","authors":"Jonathan S. A. Carriere, Andrea L. Nelson, J. Cheyne, D. Smilek","doi":"10.3389/fcogn.2023.1125197","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fcogn.2023.1125197","url":null,"abstract":"Introduction Going through life mindlessly appears to produce feelings of boredom and depression, suggesting that cognitive deficits can lead both directly and indirectly to emotional problems. Under this hypothesis, there are numerous possible routes from attention to affective issues, including through the sense of self-efficacy – a judgement about our ability to successfully achieve goals – and the experience of psychological stress. The present study assessed potential pathways from everyday inattentiveness, through the presumed intermediate experiences of diminished self-efficacy and psychological stress, to the experience of depressive affect. Method In two studies we collected questionnaire responses from large groups of participants (N = 188, Study 1; N = 399, Study 2), assessing individual differences in trait inattention, attention-related errors, self-efficacy, stress, and depression. Results Via path analyses we tested several predictions: 1) the frequency of attention lapses predicts depressive affect; 2) attention-related errors mediate effects of inattention in predicting both self-efficacy and stress; 3) self-efficacy and stress directly influence depressive affect. The results indicate the proposed Attention-to-Affect models provide good fit overall. They also indicate a reversal of the causal flow, while consistent with traditional views, does not adequately fit the data. Discussion That the Attention-to-Affect models provide good fit for the data is consistent with the view that everyday inattention contributes to the emotional distress that creates depression. While this view is contrary to the typical conception of attention problems as consequences of depression, it is consistent with our own previous findings. Accordingly, our results continue to suggest it is important for future research to further validate this pathway and to consider directly remedying attentional issues as a potentially important part of depression treatment strategies.","PeriodicalId":94013,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Cognition","volume":"95 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86164398","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-20DOI: 10.3389/fcogn.2023.1112877
A. Proverbio, F. Pischedda
This Pictionary is suitable for communicating with individual unable to interact (locked-in syndrome, LIS) through the development of Brain Computer Interface (BCI) systems. It includes 60 validated, easy-to-understand illustrated plates depicting adults in various situations affecting their physiological or psychological state. The drawings are in color and represent persons of both sexes and various ethnicities. Twenty participants were interviewed to appropriately design the Pictionary. An additional group of 50 healthy adults (25 women and 25 men) aging 18–33 years was recruited to validate the pictogram corpus. Their schooling levels ranged from middle school to master's degrees. Participants were presented with five runs of randomly mixed pictograms illustrating 12 different motivational states, including primary and secondary needs, affective states, and somatosensory sensations (with five variants for each category). They had to precisely identify the motivational category illustrated (e.g., “Feeling pain” or “Being hungry”) while also providing information about its clarity and unambiguity on a Likert scale. Statistical analyses provided evidence of the strong communicative effectiveness of the illustrations (rated on average 2.7, on a 0 to 3 scale), with an accuracy of 98.4%. The PAIN set could be a valuable communication tool for individuals with LIS, as well as any clinical population lacking verbal communication skills. Its main purpose is to generate electrophysiological markers of internal mental states to be automatically classified by BCI systems.
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Pub Date : 2023-04-17DOI: 10.3389/fcogn.2023.1168320
Verena C. Seibold, Janina Balke, B. Rolke
Attention, that is, the ability to focus processing resources on a specific part of sensory input, is often thought of as being mainly allocated in space, toward specific objects or modalities. However, attention can also be allocated within time. Temporal attention can be induced implicitly, that is, through learning of temporal regularities between at least two events, or explicitly, by the active instruction to attend to a specific time point. Moreover, temporal attention can be induced via external rhythmic stimulation. Many studies throughout the last 120 years have shown that, irrespective of the way temporal attention is induced, it facilitates processing of upcoming events. Based on early findings measuring reaction time, researchers initially assumed that temporal attention primarily accelerates motor processing. Within the last 20 years, however, more and more evidence has emerged supporting the view that temporal attention facilitates perceptual processing. Moreover, temporal attention may even interact with other attentional domains such as spatial attention or feature-based attention. In the present article, we summarize classical as well as current findings and theoretical accounts on how temporal attention affects perceptual processing. Furthermore, we sketch current challenges and open questions in research on temporal attention.
{"title":"Temporal attention","authors":"Verena C. Seibold, Janina Balke, B. Rolke","doi":"10.3389/fcogn.2023.1168320","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fcogn.2023.1168320","url":null,"abstract":"Attention, that is, the ability to focus processing resources on a specific part of sensory input, is often thought of as being mainly allocated in space, toward specific objects or modalities. However, attention can also be allocated within time. Temporal attention can be induced implicitly, that is, through learning of temporal regularities between at least two events, or explicitly, by the active instruction to attend to a specific time point. Moreover, temporal attention can be induced via external rhythmic stimulation. Many studies throughout the last 120 years have shown that, irrespective of the way temporal attention is induced, it facilitates processing of upcoming events. Based on early findings measuring reaction time, researchers initially assumed that temporal attention primarily accelerates motor processing. Within the last 20 years, however, more and more evidence has emerged supporting the view that temporal attention facilitates perceptual processing. Moreover, temporal attention may even interact with other attentional domains such as spatial attention or feature-based attention. In the present article, we summarize classical as well as current findings and theoretical accounts on how temporal attention affects perceptual processing. Furthermore, we sketch current challenges and open questions in research on temporal attention.","PeriodicalId":94013,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Cognition","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78381104","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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