Movements of attention in the three spatial dimensions and the meaning of “neutral” cues

Inhibition of return, gap effect and saccadic reaction time to a visual target

“…For instance, Berlucchi et al (2) have reported that a cue located at 1º from the fixation point (FP) inhibits the manual response to an ipsilateral target located at a 30º eccentric position (a 29º cue-target distance), but does not inhibit the response to a contralateral target located at 1º from the FP (a 2º cue-target distance). These findings are symmetrical with those found in covert voluntary orienting of attention experiments in which the MRT to a target occurring at the attended point is shorter than to targets occurring at other positions (9)(10)(11). Moreover, the benefit arising from the orienting of attention decreases with distance between the attended position and target position but does not cross the meridians (3,12).…”

The cost of expecting events in the wrong sensory modality

“…This aspect of our results accords with Pashler's (1998;see pp. 190-191) account of the effects of attentionalset (see also Dai, Scharf, & Buus, 1991, Gawryszewski, Riggio, Rizzolatti, & Umiltà, 1987, Shiu & Pashler, 1994, Spence & Driver, 1996, and Spence, Pavani, & Driver, 2000, for other examples of expectancy costs in the absence of expectancy benefits).…”

Influence of hand position on the near effect in 3-D attention

“…Their results showed that detection times were greater when the target was presented at the uncued location, but also that this effect of cuing varied with direction. Detection times for targets at the far location when attention had been cued to the near LED were greater than when attention had been cued to the far location and the target was presented at the near LED (Gawryszewski et al, 1987). Comparable asymmetric effects have been observed within pictorial scenes (Parks & Corballis, 2006) and in stereoscopic depth, where reorienting from near to far locations is associated with greater error costs (Atchley et al, 1997; but see , for an exception).…”

“…Studies investigating the nature of selective attention in 3-D space have reported reliable effects of location cues to near and far locations on performance measures in real depth situations (Couyoumdjian, Di Nocera, & Ferlazzo, 2003;Downing & Pinker, 1985;Gawryszewski, Riggio, Rizzolatti, & Umiltà, 1987), in stereoscopic displays (e.g., Atchley, Kramer, Andersen, & Theeuwes, 1997;Bourke, Partridge, & Pollux, 2006;Theeuwes, Atchley, & Kramer, 1998), in perceived space (Han, Wan, & Humphreys, 2005), and within pictorial scenes (Parks & Corballis, 2006). Particularly in real depth experimental situations, deployment of attention is characterized by an asymmetric effect of spatial cuing, first referred to as the near effect by Gawryszewski et al in 1987. In their study, spatial attention was cued at fixation with high probability to one of two target LEDs, one located near the viewer and the second at a depth beyond fixation, but still within reach.…”

“…If the near bias in the reorienting of attention reflects a bias toward the response hand, placing the hand at the same depth as the far LED may reverse the reorienting bias to the far target location. Alternatively, if the near effect reflects the influence of a 3-D viewer-centered spatial representation on spatial attention, as suggested by Gawryszewski et al (1987), the bias should be unaffected by response hand position.…”