The attentional boost effect with verbal materials.

Mulligan, Neil W.; Spataro, Pietro; Picklesimer, Milton E.

doi:10.1037/a0036163

Cited by 57 publications

(135 citation statements)

References 40 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

116

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In addition, there is substantial evidence that target detection affects the processing of low-level visual or auditory item features (e.g., Pascucci & Turatto, 2013;Spataro et al, 2013;Swallow, Makovski, & Jiang, 2012). However, the attentional boost effect in explicit memory tests of words does not appear to depend on matching visual or auditory features (e.g., word modality, font, or color) of the word during encoding and test (Mulligan, Spataro, & Picklesimer, 2014;Mulligan et al, 2016). This may mean that the attentional boost effect in explicit memory tests reflects a memory advantage for more abstract information, such as concepts and categories (Mulligan et al, 2016;Weldon et al, 1995).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attending to behaviorally relevant moments enhances incidental relational memory

Turker

Swallow

2018

Mem Cogn

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Memory for the items one has recently encountered is sometimes enhanced in divided attention tasks: Attending to behaviorally relevant items, such as a target in a detection task, boosts memory for unrelated background items (e.g., scenes or words). However, a central feature of episodic memory is memory for the spatiotemporal relationship between items and other elements of an event (relational memory), not just the item itself. Three experiments examined whether attending to a behaviorally relevant target-item boosts memory for the relationship between that item, its features, and a background scene. Participants memorized briefly presented scenes. At the same time, they pressed a button if a second unrelated item (a figure or face) was a particular target color (Experiments 1 and 2) or target gender (Experiment 3) rather than a distractor color or gender. Target and distractor items also varied in task-irrelevant features (shape, location, or facial identity). If attending to behaviorally relevant events influences relational memory, then participants should be better able to report both target-defining and irrelevant features of items that appeared with target-paired scenes rather than distractor-paired scenes. This was the case in all experiments: memory was enhanced for the target-paired scenes as well as the association between a scene and features of the paired target-item. Attending to behaviorally relevant moments therefore has broader effects on memory encoding than previously thought. In addition to boosting memory for unrelated background items, attending to targets facilitates relational memory in these tasks.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attending to behaviorally relevant moments enhances incidental relational memory

Turker

Swallow

2018

Mem Cogn

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This unexpected result is inconsistent with our initial hypothesis, and surprising in light of the results of several previous studies. In these studies, an attentional manipulation during the study phase produced superior memory performance for the condition with higher attention demands at study (Krebs et al, 2015;Mulligan, Spataro, & Picklesimer, 2014;Rosner, D'Angelo, et al, 2015a;Rosner, Davis, & Milliken, 2015b;Swallow & Jiang, 2010). For example, consider the study of Krebs et al (2015).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attentional influences on memory formation: A tale of a not-so-simple story

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Is there a learning mechanism triggered by mere expectation violation? Is there some form of memory enhancement inherent to an event mismatching our predictions? Across seven experiments, we explore this issue by means of a validity paradigm. Although our manipulation clearly succeeded in generating an expectation and breaking it, the memory consequences of that expectation mismatch are not so obvious. We report here evidence of a null effect of expectation on memory formation. Our results (1) show that enhanced memory for unexpected events is not easily achieved and (2) call for a reevaluation of previous accounts of memory enhancements based on prediction error or difficulty of processing. Limitations of this study and possible implications for the field are discussed in detail.

show abstract

“…Although the demands of the detection task are higher for detecting and responding to a target than for rejecting a distractor 2,6 , target detection facilitates both short- and long-term memory for concurrently presented images 3,4,7,8 . Evidence that target detection facilitates the processing of concurrently presented items is also found in perceptual priming 9 , when the stimuli are presented within the same or in different modalities 10 , and in memory for task-irrelevant information about the event 5,8,11 . Yet, current understanding of the mechanisms that produce the attentional boost effect is limited.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Target detection increases pupil diameter and enhances memory for background scenes during multi-tasking

Swallow

Jiang

Riley

2019

Sci Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Attending to targets in a detection task can facilitate memory for concurrently presented information, a phenomenon known as the attentional boost effect . One account of the attentional boost suggests that it reflects the temporal selection of behaviorally relevant moments, broadly facilitating the processing of information encountered at these times. Because pupil diameter increases when orienting to behaviorally relevant events and is positively correlated with increases in gain and activity in the locus coeruleus (a purported neurophysiological mechanism for temporal selection), we tested whether the attentional boost effect is accompanied by an increase in pupil diameter. Participants memorized a series of individually presented scenes. Whenever a scene appeared, a high or low pitched tone was played, and participants counted (and later reported) the number of tones in the pre-specified, target pitch. Target detection enhanced later memory for concurrently presented scenes. It was accompanied by a larger pupil response than was distractor rejection, and this effect was more pronounced for subsequently remembered rather than forgotten scenes. Thus, conditions that produce the attentional boost effect may also elicit phasic changes in neural gain and locus coeruleus activity.

show abstract

The attentional boost effect with verbal materials.

Cited by 57 publications

References 40 publications

Attending to behaviorally relevant moments enhances incidental relational memory

Attending to behaviorally relevant moments enhances incidental relational memory

Attentional influences on memory formation: A tale of a not-so-simple story

Target detection increases pupil diameter and enhances memory for background scenes during multi-tasking

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About