Extending the study of visual attention to a multisensory world (Charles W. Eriksen Special Issue)

Spence, Charles

doi:10.3758/s13414-020-02061-8

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 133 publications

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“…In Jensen et al's (2019a) study, this was the case when the target was presented at 1 To the best of our knowledge, no distractor processing study investigating the influence of HOC has used auditory stimuli (for the discussion of one unpublished experiment in this area, see Spence et al, 2017). In fact, although some distractor processing studies exist which have used auditory stimuli (e.g., Chan et al, 2005;Frings & Spence, 2010;Ulrich, Prislan & Miller, 2020; for a discussion, see Frings, Schneider & Moeller, 2014), far more visual and / or tactile distractor processing studies have been published (e.g., Driver & Grossenbacher, 1996;Eriksen & Eriksen, 1984, for reviews, see Merz et al, 2020;Spence, 2020;Wesslein et al, 2014). Subsequently, studies investigating the influence of HOC on distractor processing have used visual and / or tactile experimental set-ups.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Higher-Order Cognition Does Not Affect Multisensory Distractor Processing

et al. 2020

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Multisensory processing is required for the perception of the majority of everyday objects and events. In the case of irrelevant stimuli, the multisensory processing of features is widely assumed to be modulated by attention. In the present study, we investigated whether the processing of audiovisual distractors is also modulated by higher-order cognition. Participants fixated a visual distractor viewed via a centrally-placed mirror and responded to a laterally-presented audiovisual target. Critically, a distractor tone was presented from the same location as the mirror, while the visual distractor feature was presented at an occluded location, visible only indirectly via mirror reflection. Consequently, it appeared as though the visual and auditory features were presented from the same location though, in fact, they actually originated from different locations. Nevertheless, the results still revealed that the visual and auditory distractor features were processed together just as in the control condition, in which the audiovisual distractor features were both actually presented from fixation. Taken together, these results suggest that the processing of irrelevant multisensory information is not influenced by higher-order cognition.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Higher-Order Cognition Does Not Affect Multisensory Distractor Processing

et al. 2020

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“…From a crossmodal/multisensory perspective, the present study stands in a long line of research showing crossmodal influences of a seemingly irrelevant stimulus in one sensory modality on a task-relevant stimulus in another (e.g., the crossmodal congruency task; for reviews, see Spence, 2020;Spence et al, 2008). In the present study, we took a closer look at the way in which this seemingly irrelevant stimulus is processed.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

The level of representation of irrelevant stimuli—Distractor–response binding within and between the senses

Laub

Merz

Dröschel

et al. 2021

Atten Percept Psychophys

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Binding theories assume that features of stimuli and executed responses can be integrated together in one event file (Hommel, Visual Cognition, 5, 183–216, 1998; Hommel, Cognitive Sciences, 8, 494–500, 2004). Every reencounter with one or more of the stored features leads to an automatic retrieval of the previously constructed event file and hence of the response—even the repetition of a task-irrelevant distractor stimulus can retrieve a previously encoded response. This so-called distractor–response binding effect is typically investigated using a sequential prime-probe design that allows the orthogonal variation of response relation (response repetition vs. resporrevertnse change) and distractor relation (distractor repetition vs. distractor change), while probe response times and error rates are measured as dependent variable. Previous research has shown that task-relevant stimuli can be represented at different levels (e.g., perceptual and conceptual; see Henson et al., Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 18, 376–384, 2014), yet it is not clear at which level of representation distractor stimuli are processed. In the present study, we focused on the level of representation of response-irrelevant distractor stimuli. To this end, a crossmodal distractor–response binding paradigm was used that enables the differentiation between the perceptual and conceptual representation of the distractor by allowing the systematic repetition and change of conceptual distractor features independent of perceptual repetitions. The results suggest that the repetition of perceptual distractor features is indispensable for the initiation of the retrieval process while the sole repetition of conceptual distractor features is not sufficient to start the retrieval process.

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“…They are also consistent with the role of task difficulty (which can be also determined by factors other than working memory load) as an obvious yet neglected performance modulator (Lisi, Bonato, & Zorzi, 2015 ). Evidence derived from non-visual domains is crucial for testing the extent to which the effects found within the prevalently studied visuospatial attention domain are not modality-specific but rather reflect general characteristics of attentional functioning (Spence, 2020 ). Importantly, our findings suggest that this paradigm can be used to study processing of speech stimuli in the presence of background which is crucial for the populations with impaired speech recognition in noise.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Auditory selective attention under working memory load

Bayramova

Toffalini

Bonato

et al. 2020

Psychological Research

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Can cognitive load enhance concentration on task-relevant information and help filter out distractors? Most of the prior research in the area of selective attention has focused on visual attention or cross-modal distraction and has yielded controversial results. Here, we studied whether working memory load can facilitate selective attention when both target and distractor stimuli are auditory. We used a letter n-back task with four levels of working memory load and two levels of distraction: congruent and incongruent distractors. This combination of updating and inhibition tasks allowed us to manipulate working memory load within the selective attention task. Participants sat in front of three loudspeakers and were asked to attend to the letter presented from the central loudspeaker while ignoring that presented from the flanking ones (spoken by a different person), which could be the same letter as the central one (congruent) or a different (incongruent) letter. Their task was to respond whether or not the central letter matched the letter presented n (0, 1, 2, or 3) trials back. Distraction was measured in terms of the difference in reaction time and accuracy on trials with incongruent versus congruent flankers. We found reduced interference from incongruent flankers in 2- and 3-back conditions compared to 0- and 1-back conditions, whereby higher working memory load almost negated the effect of incongruent flankers. These results suggest that high load on verbal working memory can facilitate inhibition of distractors in the auditory domain rather than make it more difficult as sometimes claimed.

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Extending the study of visual attention to a multisensory world (Charles W. Eriksen Special Issue)

Cited by 9 publications

References 133 publications

Higher-Order Cognition Does Not Affect Multisensory Distractor Processing

Higher-Order Cognition Does Not Affect Multisensory Distractor Processing

The level of representation of irrelevant stimuli—Distractor–response binding within and between the senses

Auditory selective attention under working memory load

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