Inhibition of return to negative emotion: Evidence from an emotional expression detection task.

After the presentation of an uninformative spatial cue, it usually takes participants more time to respond to a target that appears at the cued location when the interval between the cue and target is long. This phenomenon is named inhibition of return (IOR), implying that returning attention to the cued location is inhibited because of attentional disengagement. The present study investigated whether irrelevant emotional information is processed by the attentional system in a similar manner. Uninformative positive and negative emotional cues were presented at the center of the screen, and faces were presented as the target. An emotional expression detection task was used to reveal the inhibitory and facilitatory aftereffects of the attentional processing of the emotional cues. An emotion-based IOR effect on reaction time was observed only after the presence of a negative emotional cue, implying that the attentional system tends to inhibit irrelevant negative emotion but not inhibit irrelevant positive emotion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Inhibition of return and object-based attentional selection.

Visual attention research has revealed that attentional allocation can occur in space- and/or object-based coordinates. Using the direct and elegant design of R. Egly, J. Driver, and R. Rafal (1994), the present experiments tested whether space- and object-based inhibition of return (IOR) emerge under similar time courses. The experiments were capable of isolating both space- and object-based effects induced by peripheral and back-to-center cues. The results generally support the contention that spatially nonpredictive cues are effective in producing space-based IOR at a variety of stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) and under a variety of stimulus conditions. Whether facilitatory or inhibitory in direction, the object-based effects occurred over a very different time course than did the space-based effects. Reliable object-based IOR was only found under limited conditions and was tied to the time since the most recent cue (peripheral or central). The finding that object-based effects are generally determined by SOA from the most recent cue may help to resolve discrepancies in the IOR literature. These findings also have implications for the search facilitator role that IOR is purported to play in the guidance of visual attention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the uniqueness of attentional capture by uninformative gaze cues: Facilitation interacts with the Simon effect and is rarely followed by IOR.

Orienting to an uninformative peripheral cue is characterized by a brief facilitation followed by a long-lasting inhibition once attention is removed from the cued location. Although central gaze cues cause reflexive orienting, the inhibitory effect that is relatively ubiquitous following exogenous orienting to uninformative peripheral cues has been relatively rare. We hypothesized that IOR might be seen following gaze-induced orienting if attention were effectively returned to centre by a return gaze or return flash. The timecourse of gaze-directed orienting was measured by varying the interval between the gaze cue and a peripheral target requiring an orientation discrimination (permitting measurement of the Simon effect). Significant facilitation was observed at all but the longest SOA tested, 2,880 ms, by which time the facilitation had disappeared with no evidence of IOR. Gaze-induced cuing (which was unaffected by return cue condition) interacted with the Simon effect, decreasing it at the gazed-at location, a pattern that is not seen with more typical endogenous and exogenous cuing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Spatiotemporal distribution of facilitation and inhibition of return arising from the reflexive orienting of covert attention.

Currently, there is debate regarding both the spatial and temporal relationship between facilitation and inhibition of return (IOR) components of attention, as observed on the covert orienting of visual attention task (COVAT). These issues were addressed in a series of experiments where the spatial and temporal relationships between cue and target were manipulated. Facilitation occurred only when the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was short and there was temporal overlap between cue and target. IOR occurred only when SOA was long and there was no temporal overlap between cue and target. Facilitation encompassed the cued location and all locations between the cue and fixation, whereas IOR arose for the entire cued hemifield. These findings suggest that the facilitation and IOR found on COVATs that use noninformative peripheral cues are separable and stimulus-driven processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A new component of visual orienting: Implicit effects of peripheral information and subthreshold cues on covert attention.

Four experiments examined effects of peripheral cue stimuli on covert spatial attention. In Experiment 1 target stimuli were preceded by a pair of bilaterally presented cue letters. The relative location of the cues predicted target location (left or right), but participants were not informed of this. After a brief practice period, visual orienting was influenced by the letter cues. This implicit peripheral cuing effect was unrelated to participants' awareness of the cue-target relationship. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that visual orienting may occur independently of both perceptual awareness of the peripheral cue event itself and contingency awareness concerning the cue–target relation. Experiment 4 demonstrated that implicit peripheral cuing is qualitatively distinct from voluntary orienting. These findings are discussed in relation to work on spatial attention, implicit learning, and perception without awareness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

How attentional systems process conflicting cues. The superiority of social over symbolic orienting revisited.

We investigated orienting of attention by social and symbolic cues presented inside/outside the locus of attention. Participants responded to laterally presented targets preceded by simultaneously presented gaze and arrow cues. Participants’ attention was allocated to either of the cues and the other cue served as a distractor. In Experiments 1–4 nonpredictive cues were employed. The validity of the attended cue and distractor were varied orthogonally. Valid cues and distractors produced additive facilitation to reaction times when compared to invalid cues and distractors. The effects of gaze and arrow distractors were similar. When the cue was 100% valid and the distractor 50% valid (Experiment 5), distractor validity had no effect on reaction times. When realistic gaze and arrow cues were employed (Experiment 6), arrow but not gaze distractors influenced the reaction times. The results suggest that social and symbolic directional information can be integrated for attention orienting. The processing of social and symbolic directional information can be modulated by top-down control, but the efficiency of the control depends on the visual saliency of the cues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Disengaging attention: On the locus of the cue-duration effect in partial report.

Increasing cue duration impairs performance in bar-probe partial report when cues are presented peripherally, but not centrally (P. Dixon, R. Gordon, A. Leung, & V. Di Lollo, 1997). Three experiments examined whether this cue-duration effect reflects processes of exogenous attention. The effect of cue duration on partial report performance with peripheral, but not central, cues was replicated (Experiment 1). Further experiments manipulated the degree that exogenous versus endogenous modes of selection were favored and found that the cue-duration effect for peripheral cues was reduced (1) when blocks contained a high proportion of central cues (Experiment 2) and (2) when the color of the cue indicated the location of the target (Experiment 3). These findings challenge the view that the cue-duration effect is restricted to exogenous attention and are discussed in terms of the process of disengaging attention from the cue to reallocate attention to the target representation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Capture of attention in selective frequency listening.

Four signal-detection experiments demonstrated robust stimulus-driven, or exogenous, attentional processes in selective frequency listening. Detection of just-above-threshold signal tones was consistently better when the signal matched the frequency of an uninformative cue tone, even with relatively long cue-signal delays (Experiment 1) or when as few as 1 in 8 signals were at the cued frequency (Experiment 2). Experiments 3 and 4 compared performance with informative and uninformative cues. The involvement of intentional, or endogenous, processes was found to only slightly increase the size of the cuing effect beyond that evident with solely exogenous processes, although the attention band, a measure of how narrowly attention is focused, was found to be wider when cues were informative. The implications for models of auditory attention are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of signaling inescapable shock on subsequent escape learning: Implications for theories of coping and "learned helplessness."

The present experiments reveal that shuttle-escape performance deficits are eliminated when exteroceptive cues are paired with inescapable shock. Experiment 1 indicated that, as in instrumental control, a signal following inescapable shock eliminated later escape performance deficits. Subsequent experiments revealed that both forward and backward pairings between signals and inescapable shock attenuated performance deficits. However, the data also suggest that the impact of these temporal relations may be modulated by qualitative aspects of the cues because the effects of these relations depended upon whether an increase or decrease in illumination (Experiment 2) or a compound auditory cue (Experiment 4) was used. Preliminary evidence suggests that the ability of illumination cues to block escape learning deficits may be related to their ability to reduce contextual fear (Experiment 3). The implications of these data for conceptions of instrumental control and the role of fear in the etiology of effects of inescapable shock exposure are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Focal/nonfocal cue effects in prospective memory: Monitoring difficulty or different retrieval processes?

We investigated whether focal/nonfocal effects (e.g., Einstein et al., 2005) in prospective memory (PM) are explained by cue differences in monitoring difficulty. In Experiment 1, we show that syllable cues (used in Einstein et al., 2005) are more difficult to monitor for than are word cues; however, initial-letter cues (in words) are similar in monitoring difficulty to word cues (Experiments 2a and 2b). Accordingly, in Experiments 3 and 4, we designated either an initial letter or a particular word as a PM cue in the context of a lexical decision task, a task that presumably directs attention to focal processing of words but not initial letters. We found that the nonfocal condition was more likely than the focal condition to produce costs to the lexical decision task (task interference). Furthermore, when task interference was minimal or absent, focal PM performance remained relatively high, whereas nonfocal PM performance was near floor (Experiment 4). Collectively, these results suggest that qualitatively different retrieval processes can support prospective remembering for focal versus nonfocal cues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cue utilization in communication of emotion in music performance: Relating performance to perception.

This study describes the utilization of acoustic cues in communication of emotions in music performance. Three professional guitarists were asked to perform 3 short melodies to communicate anger, sadness, happiness, and fear to listeners. The resulting performances were analyzed with respect to 5 acoustic cues and judged by 30 listeners on adjective scales. Multiple regression analysis was applied to the relationships between (a) the performer's intention and the cues and (b) the listeners' judgments and the cues. The analyses of performers and listeners were related using C. J. Hursch, K. R. Hammond, and J. L. Hursch's (1964) lens model equation. The results indicated that (a) performers were successful at communicating emotions to listeners, (b) performers' cue utilization was well matched to listeners' cue utilization, and (c) cue utilization was more consistent across different melodies than across different performers. Because of the redundancy of the cues, 2 performers could communicate equally well despite differences in cue utilization. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Relationship Between Inhibition of Return and Saccade Trajectory Deviations.

After presentation of a peripheral cue, a subsequent saccade to the cued location is delayed (inhibition of return: IOR). Furthermore, saccades typically deviate away from the cued location. The present study examined the relationship between these inhibitory effects. IOR and saccade trajectory deviations were found after central (endogenous) and peripheral (exogenous) cuing of attention, and both effects were larger with an onset cue than with a color singleton cue. However, a dissociation in time course was found between IOR and saccade trajectory deviations. Saccade trajectory deviations occurred at short delays between the cue and the saccade, but IOR was found at longer delays. A model is proposed in which IOR is caused by inhibition applied to a preoculomotor attentional map, whereas saccade trajectory deviations are caused by inhibition applied to the saccade map, in which the final stage of oculomotor programming takes place. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Examining inhibition of return with multiple sequential cues in younger and older adults.

Studies with younger adults have shown that when multiple peripheral cues are presented sequentially, inhibition of return (IOR) occurs at several locations with the greatest IOR at the most recently cued location and the least at the earliest cued location. The inhibitory ability needed to tag multiple locations requires visuospatial working memory, and it is thought that this type of memory may be vulnerable to the effects of aging. The present experiments examined whether older adults would show less IOR at multiple cued locations than younger adults when placeholders were present (Experiment 1) and absent (Experiment 2). Of interest, in both experiments older adults showed an almost identical pattern of IOR, in both magnitude and number of inhibited locations, to that of younger adults. This finding, in conjunction with research on memory-guided saccades, suggests that there may be a form of visuospatial working memory, specific to oculomotor and visual attention processes, that is relatively resistant to the effects of aging. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When cues collide: Use of stress and statistical cues to word boundaries by 7- to 9-month-old infants.

Prior research suggests that stress cues are particularly important for English-hearing infants' detection of word boundaries. It is unclear, though, how infants learn to attend to stress as a cue to word segmentation. This series of experiments was designed to explore infants' attention to conflicting cues at different ages. Experiment 1 replicated previous findings: When stress and statistical cues indicated different word boundaries, 9-month-old infants used syllable stress as a cue to segmentation while ignoring statistical cues. However, in Experiment 2, 7-month-old infants attended more to statistical cues than to stress cues. These results raise the possibility that infants use their statistical learning abilities to locate words in speech and use those words to discover the regular pattern of stress cues in English. Infants at different ages may deploy different segmentation strategies as a function of their current linguistic experience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Automatic versus volitional orienting and the production of the inhibition-of-return effect.

A single, to-be-ignored peripheral flash (i.e., cue) reflexively attracts an orienting response (oculomotor/attention/head turn) that ultimately causes reaction time delays to target stimuli that later arise at this cued location, in relation to when the target appears at a new position (i.e., the inhibition-of-return [IOR] effect). The basic question posed here dealt with whether an IOR effect is also produced following volitional orienting. Results from paired cue-trial stimulations, one a distractor and one a target (nonsalient/salient) event, positioned more or less symmetrically on either side of fixation, supported the net vector model of IOR (R. Klein, J. Christie, & E. P. Morris, 2005). Automatic orienting did not yield an IOR effect at the stimulated positions. When the need to later report cue-trial target location was added, an IOR effect appeared at distractor-occupied, but not at target-occupied, locations. Seemingly, an IOR effect can follow volitional orienting. In this instance, the IOR process seems capable of undergoing modulation; however, such modulation was not evident following automatic orienting. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Examining the role of the fixation cue in inhibition of return.

To clarify the role of the fixation cue in inhibition of return (IOR), the present study compared four conditions: fixation cue immediately after the peripheral cue, in the middle of the stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA), immediately before the onset of the target, or no fixation cue. With a 200-ms SOA, less IOR was found when the fixation cue was either absent or occurred immediately after the peripheral cue. No differences between the four conditions were found with 400-ms and 800-ms SOAs. These findings suggest that there is a brief period of time in which attention cannot be withdrawn from the peripherally cued location. Once attention has been withdrawn from the peripherally cued location, IOR can be found at short SOAs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Inhibitory mechanisms of attentional networks: Spatial and semantic inhibitory processing.

Four experiments assessed the relationships between the orienting and the executive networks of visual attention. Experiment 1 showed spatial inhibition of return (IOR) with target words. Experiment 2 showed a type of semantic inhibition that mimicked spatial IOR. Reaction times to targets preceded by 2 consecutively presented words, the prime and the intervening stimulus, were longer when the target and prime were related than when they were unrelated. Experiment 3 combined spatial and semantic inhibition in a lexical-decision task. Spatial IOR was observed with both related and unrelated targets, but semantic inhibition was observed only when target words were presented in uncued locations. A similar interaction between IOR and positive semantic priming was observed when the intervening stimulus was not presented (Experiment 4). Implications for the relationships between the 2 attentional networks are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eliminating inhibition of return by changing salient nonspatial attributes in a complex environment.

Inhibition of return (IOR) occurs when a target is preceded by an irrelevant stimulus (cue) at the same location: Target detection is slowed, relative to uncued locations. In the present study, we used relatively complex displays to examine the effect of repetition of nonspatial attributes. For both color and shape, attribute repetition produced a robust inhibitory effect that followed a time course similar to that for location-based IOR. However, the effect only occurred when the target shared both the feature (i.e., color or shape) and location with the cue; this constraint implicates a primary role for location. The data are consistent with the idea that the system integrates consecutive stimuli into a single object file when attributes repeat, hindering detection of the second stimulus. The results are also consistent with an interpretation of IOR as a form of habituation, with greater habituation occurring with increasing featural overlap of a repeated stimulus. Critically, both of these interpretations bring the IOR effect within more general approaches to attention and perception, rather than requiring a specialized process with a limited function. In this view, there is no process specifically designed to inhibit return, suggesting that IOR may be the wrong framing of inhibitory repetition effects. Instead, we suggest that repetition of stimulus properties can interfere with the ability to focus attention on the aspects of a complex display that are needed to detect the occurrence of the target stimulus; this is a failure of activation, not an inhibition of processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Inhibitory processes in covert orienting in patients with Alzheimer's disease

Previous studies of covert orienting in Alzheimer's disease (AD) have investigated exogenous and endogenous processes separately. We aimed to investigate how the 2 modes of orienting interact to control attention in healthy older participants and patients with AD. The covert orienting of visual attention task (COVAT) with abrupt onset cues was used in all experiments. In Experiments 1 and 2, predictive information was added to cues to initiate an endogenous orienting response. Results showed that healthy older participants were able to use endogenous processes to inhibit exogenous orienting. In contrast, patients with AD were unable to inhibit exogenous orienting to cues even when targets rarely appeared there. Experiment 3 investigated inhibition of return (IOR) in patients with AD. Both healthy older controls and patients with AD showed a normal IOR, suggesting that exogenous orienting processes are relatively unaffected by the normal aging process or in patients with AD. A model of covert orienting in which exogenous and endogenous orienting processes interact to control attentional behaviors is discussed.     

Sex differences in cue perception in a visual scene: Investigation of cue type.

Sex differences in spatial navigation indicate that women may focus on positional, landmark cues whereas men favor Euclidean, directional cues. Some studies have investigated sex differences in proximal and distal cue use; however, sex differences in gradient (i.e., graded features) and pinpoint (i.e., single, defined) cue perception remain unexamined. In the current experiments, paired photographs were presented in which the 2nd photograph showed the same scene with cues removed (Experiment 1) or isolated (Experiment 2) from the 1st photograph. In Experiment 1, women showed less disruption of task performance than men showed following cue removal but were slowest after proximal pinpoint cue removal. Male performance was slowed by distal gradient and proximal pinpoint cue removal. In Experiment 2, women were faster than men at identifying isolated proximal and distal pinpoint cues and were more accurate at identifying isolated distal gradient and distal pinpoint cues. Better pinpoint cue perception and memory in women indicates one possible mechanism underlying female preference for landmark-based navigation strategies. Findings also show that whereas men may preferentially rely on distal gradient cues they are not better at perceiving those cues than are women. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)