On the Spatial Metric of Short-SOA Costs of Exogenous Cuing

Abstract

When the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between the cue and the target is short, exogenous spatial cues usually produce a response time benefit. However, consistent with several recent studies, we have found that a short stimulus onset asynchrony is not sufficient. At least one more factor-the number of cue and target locations-also plays a role. Even more interesting, when 8 cue and target locations are used, the effect of an exogenous cue produces a cost on valid cue trials, and the spatial metric of this negative cuing effect depends on whether the cue remains visible at target onset.

An Apparent-Motion Confound Causes the Negative Exogenous Cuing Effect at SOAs With Larger Numbers of Target Locations

“…The operational definition of attentional capture is when mean RT to targets in the cued location is less than mean RT to targets in uncued locations. Recently, however, we and others have reported atypical results: a negative cuing effect in which targets can appear in a larger number of display locations than is usually used (Chen, Moore, & Mordkoff, 2008;Gawryszewski, Carreiro, & Magalhaes, 2005;Mordkoff, Halterman, & Chen, 2008). The general goal of the present research is to examine a possible explanation for these atypical findings.…”

Why does the effect of short-SOA exogenous cuing on simple RT depend on the number of display locations?

“…The present study was motivated by several recent findings of a significant cost of exogenous cuing when the number of display locations was high (e.g., Chen et al, 2008;Gawryszewski et al, 2005). The working hypothesis was that the decrease in the overall validity of the cues, as well as the decrease in the probability that the previous trial involved a valid cue, were jointly responsible for this change in the "standard" result (e.g., Posner & Cohen, 1984).…”

“…Finally, it is also worth noting that, when more than three display locations are used, the target can be presented at various distances from the cue on invalid-cue trials (see, e.g., Chen et al, 2008). In the present experiment, whether the target appeared adjacent to or opposite from the cue had no effect on performance with Display Size 4, regardless of whether the previous cue was valid or invalid (see Table 1) (all Fs 1).…”

Spatial direction comprehension is guided by efficient allocation of space-based attention

“…Several other studies using spatially non-predictive peripheral cues (Chen, Moore, & Mordkoff, 2008;Gawryszewski, Carreiro, & Magalhães, 2005;Prinzmetal, Ha, & Khani, 2010) and spatially predictive central arrow cues (Ceballos, Tivis, Lawton-Craddock, & Nixon, 2005;Geng & Behrmann, 2005) have varied the number of matching target locations and spatial directions between four to eight. However, these studies typically report a single mean RT (or error rate) for valid and invalid trials without accounting for the location of the target in the visual field.…”