Involuntary attentional shifts as a function of set and processing fluency

Gardner, Katelyn; Walker, Erica B.; Liu, Yanming; Gazzaley, Adam; Morsella, Ezequiel

doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2020.103009

Cited by 9 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…This instruction was inspired by the most frequently mentioned strategy for thought suppression: try to think of something else (Uleman & Bargh, 1989). This strategy has also been reported by subjects in the funneled debriefing questionnaires from previous RITs (Allen et al, 2013, Gardner et al, 2020. The present study also asked subjects to report the imagery after each trial, which further corroborated the occurrence of the imagery, which also allowed us to investigate the degree of influence that the presented image might have on the generation of random imagery.…”

Section: Urge Due To Self Of the Experienced Imagerysupporting

confidence: 76%

“…Other than the efficacy of the strategy, the present study also investigates how the presence of external stimuli may modulate the subject's sense of control and sense of agency. Both subjects' report of difficulty in previous RIT study (Gardner et al, 2020) and subjects' inability to suppress the involuntary mental imagery on the majority of trials in Allen et al (2013) demonstrated how challenging the task was. The reported difficulty of the RIT may be due to interference of the external stimuli, as it closely resembles subjects' experiences in studies using paradigms such as the Flanker and Stroop task (Morsella et al, 2011;Riddle et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Further, previous studies have also shown that not only can involuntary subvocalizations be triggered by external stimuli, so can involuntary attentional shifts and mental rotation (Allen et al, 2013;Cushing et al, 2019;Gardner et al, 2020). Thus, we may not have complete control over what enters our consciousness.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

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The Influence of External Stimuli on the Generation of Random Thoughts

Liu¹

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Laboratory tasks such as the Reflexive Imagery Task (RIT) have revealed that external stimuli (e.g., line drawings) can elicit involuntary mental imagery (Allen, Wilkins, Gazzaley, & Morsella, 2013). In the present variant of the RIT, subjects (n = 40) were instructed to think of a random word when presented with a cue (a square frame). Subjects were instructed to disregard any image (e.g., a line drawing of a cat) that was presented inside the frame. Unlike in a standard RIT, subjects were instructed and encouraged to generate their own mental imagery. On half of the 120 trials, an image (selected from a set of 60 line drawings of everyday objects) was presented.On the other half of the trials, no image was presented. At the beginning of each trial, and after a pause of 700 ms, a bell sounded. After the sounding of the bell, the frame appeared, with or without an image, at one of three times randomly (1 second, 2 seconds, or 4 seconds). Across all conditions, subjects reported thinking of a word on the majority of the trials (the mean proportions across all conditions > .80). A fully within-subjects ANOVA with the factor Presence (Image Present or Image Absent) and the factor Pre-Stimulus Preparation Time (1 second, 2 seconds, or 4 seconds) revealed a main effect Presence, F (1, 39) = 10.48, p = .002 (ηp 2. = .212), and Pre-Stimulus Preparation Time, F (1.86, 72.41) = 9.64, p < .001 (ηp 2. = .198). There was also a significant interaction between the two factors, F (2, 77.81) = 6.54, p = .002 (ηp 2. = .144). The present finding illuminates under-investigated aspects of the RIT effect and can also shed light on the basic mechanisms involved in the generation of involuntary thoughts, thoughts that are often triggered by external stimuli and that can be debilitating in clinical disorders (e.g., rumination, addictions, and obsessions).

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Section: Urge Due To Self Of the Experienced Imagerysupporting

confidence: 76%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

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The Influence of External Stimuli on the Generation of Random Thoughts

Liu¹

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“…In addition, RIT effects have arisen from (a) syntactic processing ( Bui et al, 2019 ); (b) mental rotation ( Cushing et al, 2019 ); (c) musical imagery ( White et al, 2018 ); (d) high-level shifts in spatial attention ( Gardner et al, 2020 ); (e) insight-related processes (e.g., the insight that “candle” is associated with the stimuli WAX and FLAME; Bui et al, 2019 ); (f) and the type of sophisticated visuospatial imagery that occurs in chess ( Cushing et al, 2019 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insuppressible cognitions in the reflexive imagery task: Insights and future directions

et al. 2022

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In 1959, Neal Miller made the bold claim that the Stimulus–Response, Behaviorist models of that era were describing the way in which stimuli lead to the entry of contents into consciousness (“entry,” for short). Today, researchers have begun to investigate the link between external stimuli and involuntary entry, using paradigms such as the reflexive imagery task (RIT), the focus of our review. The RIT has revealed that stimuli can elicit insuppressible entry of high-level cognitions. Knowledge of the boundary conditions of the RIT effect illuminates the limitations of involuntary processes and the role of consciousness in the regulation of behavior. We review the boundary conditions of this paradigm as well as its systematic effects. Systematic effects are unlikely to be due to experimental demand. While reviewing each effect, we consider its theoretical implications. In addition, throughout our review, we discuss future directions for the study of insuppressible entry using the RIT. Last, we discuss a theoretical development (passive frame theory) that stems from the RIT and illuminates how involuntary entry and encapsulation, though at times disadvantageous for the actor, are essential for adaptive action selection during the course of ontogeny.

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“…More recently, Gardner et al (2020) have shown that involuntary attentional shifting can be associated with a non-perceptual stimulus characteristics, namely, word processing fluency (i.e., the ease with which information is processed). Subjects were asked to focus their gaze on a fixation cross and maintain their gaze, even if words appeared around the cross.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When the sense of fluency triggers an attentional bias

Turo

Collin

Brouillet

2022

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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Spatial attention can be captured automatically by an exogenous stimulus (e.g., digital interruption), or by an endogenous stimulus (e.g., valence of the stimulus). In the present study, we investigated whether a non-perceptual characteristic (e.g., sense of fluency) has an impact on attention. To this end, we used the conceptual fluency paradigm developed by Whittlesea (1993) combined with the dot-probe task developed by MacLeod, Matthews and Tata (1986). In 3 experiments, we measured the response times for each experimental situation (i.e., Valid and Non-valid situations). At each trial, participants were presented is three consecutive displays on a screen: 1) an incomplete and predictive sentence stem 2) a pair of words, one of them was semantically compatible with the previous sentence stem, and 3) a circle appeared at the spatial location of one of the words. Then, participants had to perform a Go (i.e., a filled circle) No-go (i.e., an empty circle) task. The analysis found that response times were significantly faster when the Go stimulus appeared at the same location as the semantically compatible word (i.e., Valid situations). Overall, our results show that the sense of fluency triggers attentional capture. Thus, they replicate those of Gardner and al. (2020) using another experimental paradigm. Our finding might be helpful to better understand the consequences of digital interruptions on behavioral performance

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Involuntary attentional shifts as a function of set and processing fluency

Cited by 9 publications

References 53 publications

The Influence of External Stimuli on the Generation of Random Thoughts

The Influence of External Stimuli on the Generation of Random Thoughts

Insuppressible cognitions in the reflexive imagery task: Insights and future directions

When the sense of fluency triggers an attentional bias

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