Attentional capture and inhibition (of return): The effect on perceptual sensitivity

Theeuwes, Jan; Chen, Chi Yong Donny

doi:10.3758/bf03193636

Cited by 54 publications

(59 citation statements)

References 30 publications

(76 reference statements)

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“…The results of Experiment 2 in which we observed RT benefits and no costs further support the conclusion that capture of attention by subliminal cues is truly automatic and stimulus-driven. The trend in finding IOR in Experiment 1 also is consistent with this claim, as some have claimed that IOR is the hallmark of exogenous stimulusdriven capture (Mulckhuse et al, 2007;Theeuwes & Chen, 2005).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 76%

Stimulus-driven attentional capture by subliminal onset cues

Schoeberl

Fuchs

Theeuwes

et al. 2014

Atten Percept Psychophys

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In two experiments, we tested whether subliminal abrupt onset cues capture attention in a stimulus-driven way. An onset cue was presented 16 ms prior to the stimulus display that consisted of clearly visible color targets. The onset cue was presented either at the same side as the target (the valid cue condition) or on the opposite side of the target (the invalid cue condition). Because the onset cue was presented 16 ms before other placeholders were presented, the cue was subliminal to the participant. To ensure that this subliminal cue captured attention in a stimulus-driven way, the cue's features did not match the top-down attentional control settings of the participants: (1) The color of the cue was always different than the color of the non-singleton targets ensuring that a top-down set for a specific color or for a singleton would not match the cue, and (2) colored targets and distractors had the same objective luminance (measured by the colorimeter) and subjective lightness (measured by flicker photometry), preventing a match between the top-down set for target and cue contrast. Even though a match between the cues and topdown settings was prevented, in both experiments, the cues captured attention, with faster response times in valid than invalid cue conditions (Experiments 1 and 2) and faster response times in valid than the neutral conditions (Experiment 2). The results support the conclusion that subliminal cues capture attention in a stimulus-driven way.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 76%

Stimulus-driven attentional capture by subliminal onset cues

Schoeberl

Fuchs

Theeuwes

et al. 2014

Atten Percept Psychophys

Self Cite

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“…Desimone and Gross, 1979), we assume that the spatial distance has a modulating effect on performance: a small distance between the two signals should have a higher impact than a large distance, because it should be more difficult to discriminate between the two signals when they are spatially close together. In accordance with the findings of visual search studies (e.g., Mounts, 2000;Theeuwes and Chen, 2005;Theeuwes et al, 2004), where the impact on performance of a spatially close distracter was higher than of a spatially more distant distracter, we expected a stronger impairment of performance in the presence of a nearby irrelevant patch than of a more distant irrelevant patch.…”

Section: U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O Fsupporting

confidence: 77%

“…The impact of task-irrelevant signals on detection performance has already been studied in the context of visual search tasks (e.g., Ester and Awh, 2008;Forster and Lavie, 2008;Hickey et al, 2006;Mounts, 2000;Müller et al, 2008;Theeuwes and Chen, 2005;Theeuwes et al, 2004). The general finding is that taskirrelevant salient objects can in fact deteriorate performance (e.g., discrimination or identification of singletons).…”

Section: U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O Fmentioning

confidence: 97%

Spatial distance between target and irrelevant patch modulates detection in a texture segmentation task

Schade¹,

Meinecke²

2009

Spatial Vis

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Abstract-In three texture segmentation experiments a target patch had to be detected. We studied the impact of a task-irrelevant patch in the backward mask on detection performance, and especially the modulating effects of its spatial distance to the target. It was assumed that the signals of the two texture irregularities interact as a function of their spatial distance. Experiment 1 revealed that the taskirrelevant patch impaired target detection only when the distance was small. In Experiments 2 and 3 with systematically varying distances, detection performance increased linearly with distance until a maximum point. If the task-irrelevant patch appeared outside of a critical distance, performance did not increase further with increasing distance. Our findings are discussed in terms of the biased competition account. It is proposed that the critical distance may correspond to the average receptive field size of a cortical area that is critical for target detection.

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“…Previous studies employing this method have demonstrated that location cueing can enhance gains for inputs presented at that location (e.g., Hawkins et al, 1990;Handy et al, 1999) and that attentional capture also results in an increased sensitivity at the location at which the singleton captured attention (Theeuwes & Chen, 2005).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of spatial and nonspatial information in visual selection

Theeuwes¹,

Burg²

2006

PsycEXTRA Dataset

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Even though it is undisputed that prior information regarding the location of a target affects visual selection, the issue of whether information regarding nonspatial features, such as color and shape, has similar effects has been a matter of debate since the early 1980s. In the study described in this article, measures derived from signal detection theory were used to show that perceptual sensitivity is affected by a top-down set for spatial information but not by a top-down set for nonspatial information. This indicates that knowing where the target singleton is affects perceptual selectivity but that knowing what it is does not help selectivity. Furthermore, perceptual sensitivity can be enhanced by nonspatial features, but only through a process related to bottom-up priming. These findings have important implications for models of visual selection.

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Attentional capture and inhibition (of return): The effect on perceptual sensitivity

Cited by 54 publications

References 30 publications

Stimulus-driven attentional capture by subliminal onset cues

Stimulus-driven attentional capture by subliminal onset cues

Spatial distance between target and irrelevant patch modulates detection in a texture segmentation task

The role of spatial and nonspatial information in visual selection

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