Motor coactivation revealed by response force in divided and focused attention.

Four experiments examined effects of bimodal stimulation on response force (RF) in addition to reaction time (RT). In a divided-attention task (Exps 1–3), Ss were asked for a speeded response to either a visual or an auditory signal. In unimodal signal trials, either a visual or auditory signal was presented alone, and in redundant-signals trials, both signals were presented simultaneously. The same stimulus arrangement was used in a focused-attention task (Exp 4), but Ss had to withhold their response when an auditory signal was presented alone. In all experiments, the fastest RTs were attained in redundant-signals trials. In addition, RF was largest in redundant-signals trials, especially in the divided-attention task, suggesting a motor coactivation hypothesis. The results indicate that the type of stimulation influences not only when a response is initiated but also how the response is executed. This finding challenges the view, commonly held in mental chronometry, that late motoric processes remain untouched by experimental manipulations. A detailed analysis of the relationship between RT and RF revealed that these variables are not inherently redundant measures, and therefore, RF recording may supplement the traditional RT measurement in mental chronometry. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Levels of processing and selective attention effects on encoding in memory

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of selective attention and levels of processing (LOPs) at study on long-term repetition priming vis-a-vis their effects on explicit recognition. In a series of three experiments we found parallel effects of LOP and attention on long-term repetition priming and recognition performance when the manipulation of these factors at encoding was blocked. When a mixed study condition was used, both factors affected explicit recognition, while their effect on repetition priming was determined by the nature of the test. Shallow processing at test did not benefit from long-term repetition, regardless of whether the words had been studied deeply or shallowly. Selective attention affected long-term repetition priming in a semantic, but not in a lexical decision (LD), test. Regardless of study condition, retention lag affected long-term repetition priming only in the semantic test. These results suggest that if the experimental conditions allow scrupulous selection of attended and unattended information or narrow tuning to a shallow, pre-lexical LOP, implicit access to unattended or shallowly studied items is significantly reduced, as is explicit recognition. We suggest a conceptual framework for understanding the effects of LOP, attention, and retention interval on performance of explicit and implicit tests of memory.     

Effects of healthy aging and early stage dementia of the Alzheimer's type on components of response time distributions in three attention tasks.

Objective: The characteristics of response time (RT) distributions beyond measures of central tendency were explored in 3 attention tasks across groups of young adults, healthy older adults, and individuals with very mild dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT). Method: Participants were administered computerized Stroop, Simon, and switching tasks, along with psychometric tasks that tap various cognitive abilities and a standard personality inventory (NEO-FFI). Ex-Gaussian (and Vincentile) analyses were used to capture the characteristics of the RT distributions for each participant across the 3 tasks, which afforded 3 components: μ and σ (mean and standard deviation of the modal portion of the distribution) and τ (the positive tail of the distribution). Results: The results indicated that across all 3 attention tasks, healthy aging produced large changes in the central tendency μ parameter of the distribution along with some change in σ and τ (mean ηp2 = .17, .08, and .04, respectively). In contrast, early stage DAT primarily produced an increase in the τ component (mean ηp2 = .06). τ was also correlated with the psychometric measures of episodic/semantic memory, working memory, and processing speed, and with the personality traits of neuroticism and conscientiousness. Structural equation modeling indicated a unique relation between a latent τ construct (–.90), as opposed to σ (–.09) and μ constructs (.24), with working memory measures. Conclusions: The results suggest a critical role of attentional control systems in discriminating healthy aging from early stage DAT and the utility of RT distribution analyses to better specify the nature of such change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Additive and interactive effects on response time distributions in visual word recognition.

Across 3 different word recognition tasks, distributional analyses were used to examine the joint effects of stimulus quality and word frequency on underlying response time distributions. Consistent with the extant literature, stimulus quality and word frequency produced additive effects in lexical decision, not only in the means but also in the shape of the response time distributions, supporting an early normalization process that is separate from processes influenced by word frequency. In contrast, speeded pronunciation and semantic classification produced interactive influences of word frequency and stimulus quality, which is a fundamental prediction from interactive activation models of lexical processing. These findings suggest that stimulus normalization is specific to lexical decision and is driven by the task's emphasis on familiarity-based information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Probability matching in visual selective attention.

J. Jonides (see record 1981-22746-001) suggested a model to account for shifts of spatial attention in visual search tasks with less than 100% cue validity. This 2-stage probability matching model was subsequently tested by Jonides (see record 1984-08558-001). Reaction time (RT) distribution characteristics provided some support for the model. The present author reanalyzes Jonides's data (including that published in 1981). Analysis showed strong support for the probability matching hypothesis. It is concluded that probability matching is an important strategic characteristic of visual spatial attention. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age-related decrement in auditory selective attention.

Young (n?=?30), middle-aged (n?=?32), and old (n?=?28) adults repeated (shadowed) words presented to the left ear at 60 words per minute with and without distracter words presented to the other ear. Dichotic shadowing error rate increased with age. An attempt to eliminate the age effect by adjusting for age differences in monaural shadowing errors, fluid intelligence, and pure-tone hearing loss did not succeed. When the analyses were confined to Ss who made no monaural shadowing errors, dichotic shadowing errors still increased linearly with age. These results showed that there are selective-attention deficits in older adults that cannot be accounted for by the uncertainty of the target location. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of selective attention during visual search.

Monitored eye movements in 8 2nd graders, 8 6th graders, and 8 college students during a search task in which Ss were given different types of information about target location before trial onset. Whereas color cues facilitated search performance in the 2 older groups, form cues were less successful in facilitating search and significantly interfered with search relative to a control condition for the 2nd graders. Both facilitation and interference effects in overall search times were related to number of fixations rather than to average fixation during a trial. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Semantic and spatial components of selective attention.

Semantic and spatial effects on selective processing were examined. A prime presented 250 ms or 1,000 ms before a pair of masked words was related to 1 of the words on 1/3 of the trials. Although Experiments 1 and 2 required report of both words, processing was selective; typically, just 1 word could be reported. In Experiment 1, reported words were more often top words, showing spatial selectivity, and more often words related to the prime, showing semantic selectivity. Experiment 2 included to-be-ignored peripheral cues 50 ms before the pair. Related words were reported more often at both delays, and cuing produced an additive benefit at 1,000 ms. Experiment 3 required report of just the cued word and included 100-ms cues. Cued words were reported more often, especially at 1,000 ms and with 100-ms cues, but semantic selectivity also occurred. Selectivity via semantic priming and via location reflect separate attentional mechanisms. (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)     

Habituation of the orienting response: a gating mechanism subserving selective attention

Possibilities of involution of changes in lesser circulation after closure of experimental aortopulmonary anastomosis were studied. 37 observations at various intervals after closure of anastomosis (several minutes to 13.5 months) in 25 dogs were analyzed. Before closure the anastomosis had functioned for 1-7 months. The results of histological examinations of lungs, pressure measurements in lesser circulation, heart weight, electrocardiographic and spirographic examinations were analyzed. It was found that complete involution of changes in lesser circulation was possible only in first month of existence of anastomosis, in this case with changes of both "early" and "late" types. "Late"-type changes after four months function of anastomosis had both reversible and irreversible character, whereas "early"-type changes became irreversible already after three-month duration of anastomosis. With the "late"-type changes, the operation itself (closure of anastomosis) was accompanied by symptoms of pulmonary vasomotor paresis and heart failure, whereas in the presence of "early"-type changes the operation elicited no morphological or functional changes.     

Dynamics of the attentional control of word retrieval: Analyses of response time distributions.

Since W. Wundt (1904) and H. J. Watt (1906), researchers have found no agreement on how goals direct word retrieval. A prevailing associative account (E. K. Miller & J. D. Cohen, 2001) holds that goals bias association strength, which determines retrieval latency and whether irrelevant words interfere. A symbolic account (A. Roelofs, 2003) holds that goals enable retrieval rules and predicts no strict dependence of interference on latency. Here, 3 chronometric experiments in which the role of relative retrieval latency was investigated through distributional analyses, following Watt, are reported. Participants verbally categorized picture-word pairs that were semantically related or unrelated, or they categorized single pictures or words. The pairs yielded semantic latency effects in both word and picture categorizing, although single words were categorized slower than single pictures. Semantic effects occurred in word categorizing even when postexposure of the pictures compensated for the difference in categorizing latency. Vincentile and ex-Gaussian analyses revealed that the semantic effects occurred throughout the latency distributions, excluding goal neglect as the cause of the effects. The results were interpreted as most consistent with the symbolic account, which was corroborated by computer simulations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differentiation and response bias in episodic memory: Evidence from reaction time distributions.

In differentiation models, the processes of encoding and retrieval produce an increase in the distribution of memory strength for targets and a decrease in the distribution of memory strength for foils as the amount of encoding increases. This produces an increase in the hit rate and decrease in the false-alarm rate for a strongly encoded compared with a weakly encoded list, consistent with empirical data. Other models assume that the foil distribution is unaffected by encoding manipulations or the foil distribution increases as a function of target strength. They account for the empirical data by adopting a stricter criterion for strongly encoded lists relative to weakly encoded lists. The differentiation and criterion shift explanations have been difficult to discriminate with accuracy measures alone. In this article, reaction time distributions and accuracy measures are collected in a list-strength paradigm and in a response bias paradigm in which the proportion of test items that are targets is manipulated. Diffusion model analyses showed that encoding strength is primarily accounted for by changes in the rate of accumulation of evidence (i.e., drift rate) for both targets and foils and manipulating the proportion of targets is primarily accounted for by changes in response bias (i.e., starting point). The diffusion model analyses is interpreted in terms of predictions of the differentiation models in which subjective memory strength is mapped directly onto drift rate and criterion placement is mapped onto starting point. Criterion shift models require at least 2 types of shifts to account for these findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adult age differences in memory-driven selective attention.

Investigated the ability of young and elderly adults to use memory-driven selective attention in 2 visual-search experiments. In Exp I, 16 18–22 yr olds and 16 60–74 yr olds were Ss in a yes–no search paradigm. Stimulus-onset-asynchrony (SOA) was varied from 200 to 1,000 msec. In Exp II, 18 18–24 yr olds and 18 60–73 yr olds were presented 1 of 2 target letters as a cue, using the same SOA ranges. Results in both experiments show that both age groups exhibited faster RTs to a visual display on trials when advance information (a cue) correctly predicted the particular target letter that would most likely be present in the display. Variations in the SOA between the cue and the display demonstrated that both age groups were capable of developing this selective preparation for a particular target letter within 200 msec. Results indicate that age differences in performance were determined primarily by quantitative changes in the speed of information processing rather than by qualitative changes in attention. In both experiments, the 2 age groups differed in the type of relationship between speed and accuracy that they adopted, suggesting a possible age difference in performance strategy. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotion, personality, and selective attention.

Examined the effect of presenting emotionally salient information when attention is focused away from the information. 109 undergraduates completed the Test Anxiety Scale, the Defensiveness Scale, and the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List (MAACL) 3–6 wks prior to a listening task. Emotionally salient material was embedded in the ignored channel of a dichotic listening task which Ss completed before taking the MAACL again. The emotional quality of the information presented in the ignored channel—outside awareness—exerted an influence on processing of information in the attended channel—within awareness. Sexually explicit information presented in the ignored channel was found to intrude upon awareness, whereas other kinds of information did not. State anxiety scores were predictive of these intrusions from outside awareness. Other personality measures were predictive of processing only when intrusions did not occur or when the information was presented to awareness. (41 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptual load influences selective attention across development.

Research suggests that visual selective attention develops across childhood. However, there is relatively little understanding of the neurological changes that accompany this development, particularly in the context of adult theories of selective attention, such as N. Lavie's (1995) perceptual load theory of attention. This study examined visual selective attention across development from 7 years of age to adulthood. Specifically, the author examined if changes in processing as a function of selective attention are similarly influenced by perceptual load across development. Participants were asked to complete a task at either low or high perceptual load while processing of an unattended probe stimulus was examined using event related potentials. Similar to adults, children and teens showed reduced processing of the unattended stimulus as perceptual load increased at the P1 visual component. However, although there were no qualitative differences in changes in processing, there were quantitative differences, with shorter P1 latencies in teens and adults compared with children, suggesting increases in the speed of processing across development. In addition, younger children did not need as high a perceptual load to achieve the same difference in performance between low and high perceptual load as adults. Thus, this study demonstrates that although there are developmental changes in visual selective attention, the mechanisms by which visual selective attention is achieved in children may share similarities with adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Abnormal selective attention in psychopathic female offenders.

Research on psychopathy in women has generated equivocal laboratory findings. This study examined the performance of psychopathic women in 2 laboratory tasks designed to assess abnormal selective attention associated with response modulation deficits: a computerized picture-word (PW) task, and a picture-word Stroop (PW Stroop) task. Consistent with data from psychopathic men, women receiving high scores on the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (Hare, 1991) displayed reduced Stroop interference on the PW and PW Stroop tasks. Results suggest that despite some differences in the expression of psychopathy across gender, psychopathic women are characterized by selective attention abnormalities predicted by the response modulation hypothesis and similar to those exhibited by psychopathic men. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multidimensional psychophysics and selective attention in animals.

Notes that the hypothesis that animals selectively attend developed mainly in explanations of certain conditioning and discrimination learning phenomena. This hypothesis of selective attention is evaluated against a continuity (nonattentional) theory, and most, if not all, facts of simple learning can be accounted for by a nonattentional analysis. Thus, the usefulness of selective attention as an explanatory notion remains in doubt, and few phenomena can be regarded as exemplars of selective attention. In contrast, many examples of selective attention phenomena have been discovered in human information processing experiments. Emphasis in these experiments is on instructional and stimulus variables as they affect steady-state performance rather than response learning. Recent research with animals, modeled on human steady-state tasks, promises to provide similar instances of selective attention effects in performance. (2 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The limits of selective attention in tachistoscopic recognition.

Investigated selective attention in tachistoscopic recognition in 3 experiments with a total of 74 undergraduates, using 2 rows of items with partial report cues presented at various intervals before, during, or after the display. The processing of the nonattended or nonreported row was monitored by varying the category of items in that row, in order of approximation to English of the nonattended items, or the degree to which nonattended items resembled attended items. Results demonstrate selective attention but show that some degree of processing must precede the point of selection. (French summary) (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Incidental learning and the development of selective attention.

The incidental learning paradigm has provided 2 well-established findings concerning the development of selective attention: (a) The difference between central and incidental task performance increases with age, and (b) the correlation between central and incidental performance decreases with age. It has been assumed that these results reflect a developmental increase in the ability to process information selectively. The present article argues that neither of these findings constitutes unambiguous support for the view that attentional selectivity improves with age. It is suggested that recent theory and research on capacity trade-offs in dual-task performance provide a potentially valuable alternative framework for understanding the development of attentional processes. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Goal-directed selective attention and response competition monitoring: Evidence from unilateral parietal and anterior cingulate lesions.

Competing visual stimuli lead to slower responses to targets. This response competition must be resolved before correct responses are executed. Neuroimaging suggests that response competition monitoring may be subserved by an integrated neural network including the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). In this study, 1 patient with a parietal lesion (Patient J.S.) and 1 with an ACC lesion (Patient G.M.) were presented with 2 flanker tasks; 1 required verbal identification of color targets, and the other required an opposite response to targets (e.g., see red and say "green"); a control group was also tested. For controls, perceptually incongruent flankers interfered with the ability to inhibit prepotent responses to targets. Patient J.S. performed in a similar manner, even when flankers appeared in the neglected field. Patient G.M. demonstrated reduced interference effects for contralesional flankers. Results are discussed in terms of goal-directed selective attention and response competition monitoring. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)