Dissociating Orienting Biases From Integration Effects With Eye Movements

Abstract

Despite decades of research, the conditions under which shifts of attention to prior target locations are facilitated or inhibited remain unknown. This ambiguity is a product of the popular feature discrimination task, in which attentional bias is commonly inferred from the efficiency by which a stimulus feature is discriminated after its location has been repeated or changed. Problematically, these tasks lead to integration effects; effects of target-location repetition appear to depend entirely on whether the target feature or response also repeats, allowing for several possible inferences about orienting bias. To parcel out integration effects and orienting biases, we designed the present experiments to require localized eye movements and manual discrimination responses to serially presented targets with randomly repeating locations. Eye movements revealed consistent biases away from prior target locations. Manual discrimination responses revealed integration effects. These data collectively revealed inhibited reorienting and integration effects, which resolve the ambiguity and reconcile episodic integration and attentional orienting accounts.

Feature integration in basic detection and localization tasks: Insights from the attentional orienting literature

“…In any event, in the present context, without considering eye movements, we remain agnostic about whether the observed same-location costs are related to inhibition of return (orienting) or to some other mechanism related to target detection costs (selection). However, when the oculomotor system responsible for rapid eye movements is involved (Klein & Hilchey, 2011), we maintain that there are clear orienting biases against previously attended locations (e.g., Bichot & Schall, 2002;Hilchey et al, 2016;Hilchey et al, 2014;Hilchey, Pratt, & Christie, 2018;Hilchey, Rajsic, et al, 2018;Posner et al, 1985;Pratt & Abrams, 1999;Taylor & Klein, 2000).…”

“…It is true that in localization tasks, individuals need to evaluate whether a stimulus is to the left or the right of fixation, with the key point being that they can determine where the stimulus is or how to act on it, without having to process what it is, which may rely on different neural pathways. Our hypothesis pertains specifically to participants making evaluations concerning the stimulus itself, not merely where it is in space (see also Hilchey, Rajsic, et al, 2018).…”

“…This conflict leads to relatively slow responses. With color or form discrimination tasks-even when simplified further, such that there are only two stimuli in each trial, each requiring either shape or color processing prior to the keypress response (Hilchey et al, 2017a(Hilchey et al, , 2017b)-feature integration frameworks account for the keypress effects very well (but see Hilchey, Rajsic, et al, 2018, for eye movement data). There is often little need to appeal to attentional frameworks or constructs (Hilchey et al, 2017a;Hommel, 2005).…”

“…According to the detection cost theory of inhibition of return (e.g., Lupiáñez, 2010;Lupiáñez, Martín-Arévalo, & Chica, 2013), repeating a stimulus location leads to effects that are independent of orienting. At its core, the detection cost theory appears to recognize a distinction between Battentional orienting^-which, in classic spotlight theories of attention, refers to the alignment of the senses, either covertly or overtly, to a location in order to improve the extraction of input from it-and Battentional selection^-which refers to the ease with which said input can be extracted or selected from said space, once it is oriented to (Posner & Petersen, 1990; see also, e.g., Hilchey, Rajsic, et al, 2018). The detection cost theory envisions that at least some of the Binhibition of return^effect is more closely related to selection than orienting.…”

“…Yet, interpretations of the data from such paradigms vary considerably, depending on whether the data are seen through the lens of frameworks that place greater emphases on feature integration (e.g., Hommel, 2004;Lupiáñez, 2010, for reviews) or attentional processes (e.g., Klein, 2004;Lupiáñez, Klein, & Bartolomeo, 2006, for reviews). The success of both frameworks under certain circumstances (e.g., Hilchey, Rajsic, Huffman, Klein, & Pratt, 2018) invites us to consider, broadly, the limit(s) and transition point(s) between feature integration and attentional orienting effects.…”