Upper visual field distractors preferentially bias attention to the left

Thomas, Nicole A.; Castine, Ben; Loetscher, Tobias; Nicholls, Michael E. R.

doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2014.10.018

Cited by 21 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“…Finally, for the long lines, we found a significant leftward bias in the near condition [t(19) = 3.664, p = .002]-but not in the far condition. The leftward bias in the near condition is consistent with the effect of pseudoneglect (McCourt, 2001;McCourt & Jewell, 1999;Thomas et al, 2015). The fact that pseudoneglect was present in the near but not the far condition most likely reflects the effect of viewing distance on pseudoneglect (Longo & Lourenco, 2006;Nicholls et al, 2016).…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 64%

“…(c) The long lines subtended 18.43°of VA. In the near viewing condition, an overestimation of the leftward features, consistent with the effect of pseudoneglect, was expected (McCourt, 2001;McCourt & Jewell, 1999;Thomas et al, 2015). In the far condition, the leftward bias was expected to be either reversed to a rightward bias (Longo & Lourenco, 2006;Nicholls et al, 2016) or extinguished (Bjoertomt et al, 2002;Longo et al, 2015;McCourt & Garlinghouse, 2000).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 78%

“…Pseudoneglect causes people to overestimate the leftward side of a stimulus as compared to the right. The leftward bias can be seen in tasks, such as line bisection, in which participants overestimate the relative length on the left (McCourt, 2001;McCourt & Jewell, 1999;Thomas, Castine, Loetscher, & Nicholls, 2015). A leftward overestimation is seen for a range of other discriminations, such as luminance discrimination (Nicholls, Bradshaw, & Mattingley, 1999), for visual search (Nicholls et al, 2014), and even for the left/right mental representations of stimuli (Loftus & Nicholls, 2012;Loftus, Nicholls, Mattingley, Chapman, & Bradshaw, 2009).…”

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confidence: 98%

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An investigation of the mechanisms underlying the effects of viewing distance and stimulus length on attentional asymmetries during line bisection

Nicholls

Beckman

Churches

2016

Atten Percept Psychophys

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Clinical neglect patients overattend to stimuli on their right, whereas the general population overattend to the left (pseudoneglect). Both phenomena are affected by viewing distance, whereby the attentional biases are attenuated as the stimulus moves from near to far space. Both are also affected by stimulus length and reduce in strength, or even reverse (the crossover effect), as length decreases. To gain an insight into the cognitive/neural mechanisms that underlie the effects of viewing distance and stimulus length, in two experiments we examined the interaction between the variables. In Experiment 1 we asked university students (n = 20) to perform a horizontal landmark bisection task with lines presented at varying lengths (1.2°, 6.3°, and 18.4°of viewing angle) and distances (450 and 1,350 mm). A crossover effect and pseudoneglect were observed for the short and the long lines, respectively. An effect of viewing distance was only observed for long lines. Experiment 2 was the same, except that the lines were rotated to form vertical lines. No crossover effect was observed for the short lines, but an upward bias was observed for the long lines. Once again, an effect of viewing distance was only apparent for the long lines. These results demonstrate that the crossover effect is not a general property of short lines and is specific to the horizontal dimension. Models of crossover therefore need to incorporate processes related to left-right asymmetries. The results also demonstrate that viewing distance only affects long lines, and that this happens irrespective of orientation. A model of viewing distance is discussed that incorporates a right hemisphere mechanism specialized for an interaction between the ventral and dorsal streams.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 64%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 78%

mentioning

confidence: 98%

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An investigation of the mechanisms underlying the effects of viewing distance and stimulus length on attentional asymmetries during line bisection

Nicholls

Beckman

Churches

2016

Atten Percept Psychophys

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“…Similarly, upper and lower visual field stimuli show differences in their ability to attract attentional resources 24 – 31 , and furthermore, differentially increase distraction 32 – 34 . In general, stimuli in the upper visual field appear to attract more attentional resources, as a result of their higher salience 35 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Asymmetries in Distractibility: Left Distractors Improve Reaction Time Performance

Nicholls

2018

Sci Rep

Self Cite

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Research using the irrelevant-distractor paradigm shows perceptual load influences distractibility, such that distractors are more likely to be processed and decrease reaction times during low perceptual load. In contrast, under high load, attentional resources are limited, and the likelihood of distractibility is decreased. We manipulated distractor placement to determine whether location differentially influenced distractibility. During low load, reaction times were increased equally for all distractor locations. Under high load, left distractors speeded reaction times significantly more than right distractors. We suggest two potential explanations: (1) the central focus of attention was sufficiently large to encapsulate both the distractor and the visual array during low perceptual load, leading to increased distraction—during high load, attention was split across the two visual stimuli, allowing the distractors and array to be processed independently; (2) superior executive control for stimuli in the left visual field allowed participants to ‘catch and release’ left distractors more efficiently, ultimately decreasing distraction and providing a performance benefit. Our findings represent an intriguing development in relation to visual asymmetries in distractibility.

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“…Second, the stimuli presentation was modified such that the distracting words were centred at the bottom of the screen rather than at the lower right. This served to avoid pseudoneglect; the natural inclination to overattend to information on the left side of space (Nicholls, 2014), and to increase the saliency of the changing words. In turn this modification should have increased the amount of selfcontrol required in order to avoid attending to the words literally at the centre of attention.…”

Section: Ego Depletionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Touchy Thinking: Interactivity Improves Planning Performance

Henderson¹

2017

Preprint

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Planning is an everyday activity that is extended in time and space, yet is frequently studied in the absence of interactivity. Successful planning relies on an array of executive functions including self-control. We investigated the effects of interactivity and self-control on planning using a sequential-task paradigm. Half of the participants first completed a video-viewing task requiring self-control of visual attention, whereas the other half completed the same task without the self-control constraint. Next, and within each of these groups, half of the participants manipulated cards to complete their plan (high-interactivity condition); for the other half, plans were made with their hands down (low-interactivity condition). Planning performance was significantly better in the high- than in the low-interactivity conditions; however the self-control manipulation had no impact on planning performance. An exploration of individual differences revealed that long-term planning ability and non-planning impulsiveness moderated the impact of interactivity on planning. These findings suggest that interactivity augments working memory resources and planning performance, underscoring the importance of an interactive perspective on planning research.

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Upper visual field distractors preferentially bias attention to the left

Cited by 21 publications

References 68 publications

An investigation of the mechanisms underlying the effects of viewing distance and stimulus length on attentional asymmetries during line bisection

An investigation of the mechanisms underlying the effects of viewing distance and stimulus length on attentional asymmetries during line bisection

Asymmetries in Distractibility: Left Distractors Improve Reaction Time Performance

Touchy Thinking: Interactivity Improves Planning Performance

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