Which way is which? Examining symbolic control of attention with compound arrow cues

Abstract

Spatial symbols can generate attentional biases toward peripheral locations compatible with the symbol's meaning. An important question concerns how one symbol is selected when competing symbols are present. Studies examining this issue for spatially distinct symbols have suggested that selection depends on the task goals. In the present study, we examined whether the influence of competing symbolic stimuli (arrows) at different levels of structure on attentional control also depends on the task goals. Participants made simple detection responses to a peripheral target preceded by a spatially uninformative compound arrow (global arrow composed of local arrows). In addition, participants were required to perform a secondary task in which they matched the orientation of the global arrow (global task) or the location of a uniquely colored local arrow (local task) to a test display presented immediately following a detection response. When the global and local arrows pointed at opposite locations, a local cueing effect emerged in the local task, and a global cueing effect in the global task, indicating that the task goals influenced the selection of the level of structure. However, when the local level was spatially neutral (global arrow, local rectangles), a cueing effect was observed independent of task, and when the global level was spatially neutral (global rectangle, local arrows), a cueing effect was observed in the local task only, suggesting that global processing was obligatory and local processing optional. These findings suggest that attentional effects triggered by the global level are more strongly reflexive than those triggered by the local level.Keywords Attention . Symbolic control . Contingent capture . Compound cue . Global/local Everyday visual environments generally contain more information than can be processed within a glance. As such, goaldirected perception and action depend on mechanisms of selective visual attention for prioritizing an endless stream of sensory input, and so giving more weight to those objects, locations, or events that require immediate or sustained processing. To understand how attention is prioritized and allocated to visual stimuli, a useful distinction is that between bottom-up (reflexive) and top-down (volitional) attentional control, with the former driven by the physical characteristics of a stimulus and the latter by the current goals of the observer