Testing the top‐down contingent capture of attention for abrupt‐onset cues: Evidence from cue‐elicited N2pc

2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Goller ◽  
Tobias Schoeberl ◽  
Ulrich Ansorge
Keyword(s):  
Abrupt Onset ◽  
Contingent Capture ◽  
Top Down

TESTING GOAL-DRIVEN CAPTURE BY THREAT

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Robert Harrison Brown
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Attentional Capture ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Experimental Manipulation ◽  
Contingent Capture ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Affective Stimuli ◽  
Clinical Disorders ◽  
Positive Stimuli

Attention has long been characterised within prominent models as reflecting a competition between goal-driven and stimulus-driven processes. It remains unclear, however, how involuntary attentional capture by affective stimuli, such as threat-laden content, fits into such models. While such effects were traditionally held to reflect stimulus-driven processes, recent research has increasingly implicated a critical role of goal-driven processes. Here we test an alternative goal-driven account of involuntary attentional capture by threat, using an experimental manipulation of goal-driven attention. To this end we combined the classic ‘contingent capture’ and ‘emotion-induced blink’ (EIB) paradigms in an RSVP task with both positive or threatening target search goals. Across six experiments, positive and threat distractors were presented in peripheral, parafoveal, and central locations. Across all distractor locations, we found that involuntary attentional capture by irrelevant threatening distractors could be induced via the adoption of a search goal for a threatening category; adopting a goal for a positive category conversely led to capture only by positive stimuli. Our findings provide direct experimental evidence for a causal role of voluntary goals in involuntary capture by irrelevant threat stimuli, and hence demonstrate the plausibility of a top-down account of this phenomenon. We discuss the implications of these findings in relation to current cognitive models of attention and clinical disorders.

Tracking the Location of Visuospatial Attention in a Contingent Capture Paradigm

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 657-671 ◽  
Author(s):  
Émilie Leblanc ◽  
David J. Prime ◽  
Pierre Jolicoeur
Keyword(s):  
Attentional Capture ◽  
Attentional Control ◽  
Visuospatial Attention ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Contingent Capture ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Distractor Location ◽  
Attentional Control Settings ◽  
Attentional Engagement ◽  
Considerable Controversy

Currently, there is considerable controversy regarding the degree to which top-down control can affect attentional capture by salient events. According to the contingent capture hypothesis, attentional capture by a salient stimulus is contingent on a match between the properties of the stimulus and top-down attentional control settings. In contrast, bottom-up saliency accounts argue that the initial capture of attention is determined solely by the relative salience of the stimulus, and the effect of top-down attentional control is limited to effects on the duration of attentional engagement on the capturing stimulus. In the present study, we tested these competing accounts by utilizing the N2pc event-related potential component to track the locus of attention during an attentional capture task. The results were completely consistent with the contingent capture hypothesis: An N2pc wave was elicited only by distractors that possessed the target-defining attribute. In a second experiment, we expanded upon this finding by exploring the effect of target-distractor similarity on the duration that attention dwells at the distractor location. In this experiment, only distractors possessing the target-defining attribute (color) captured visuospatial attention to their location and the N2pc increased in duration and in magnitude when the capture distractor also shared a second target attribute (category membership). Finally, in three additional control experiments, we replicated the finding of an N2pc generated by distractors, only if they shared the target-defining attribute. Thus, our results demonstrate that attentional control settings influence both which stimuli attract attention and to what extent they are processed.

scholarly journals Surprise capture of the eyes can be (almost) as reliable and fast as top-down contingent capture

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (10) ◽  
pp. 140a
Author(s):  
Gernot Horstmann ◽  
Daniel Ernst
Keyword(s):  
Contingent Capture ◽  
Top Down

Top-down control settings and the attentional blink: Evidence for nonspatial contingent capture

2008 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 616-642 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles L. Folk ◽  
Andrew B. Leber ◽  
Howard E. Egeth
Keyword(s):  
Attentional Blink ◽  
Contingent Capture ◽  
Top Down

scholarly journals Predictability of salient distractor increases top-down control in healthy younger and older adults

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marleen Haupt ◽  
Natan Napiórkowski ◽  
Christian Sorg ◽  
Hermann J. Müller ◽  
Kathrin Finke
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Attentional Capture ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Abrupt Onset ◽  
Partial Report ◽  
Spatial Cues ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Distractor Location ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Bottom Up

AbstractYounger adults are able to shield attentional selection against distractors when they have preknowledge about the upcoming distractor location. For older adults, who suffer from an overall decrease in attentional capacity and who are, in addition, particularly prone to attentional capture, such an adaptive shielding ability would be of particular importance. However, it is an open question whether healthy older adults can utilise the predictability of distractor locations to improve top-down controlled selection to the same degree as younger adults. The theory of visual attention (TVA) framework provides a systematic way to measure an individual’s efficiency of top-down control. The present study combined a TVA-based partial-report paradigm with abrupt-onset cues rendering the indicated location highly salient in a bottom-up fashion. Experiment 1, in which (on cued trials) the cue was invariably followed by a distractor at the cued location, showed that the cueing increased the weight of the distractor in the competition for selection compared to uncued distractors (on trials without a cue). In Experiment 2, the probability with which the abrupt-onset cue indicated the upcoming distractor location (1/3 vs. 2/3 of trials) was manipulated between experimental blocks. Participants were able to learn these statistical contingencies and exert top-down control more efficiently in blocks with highly valid distractor location cues, as compared to low-validity blocks. This finding suggests that, even though abrupt-onset spatial cues increase the attentional weights of distractors, participants can acquire and use pre-knowledge about the likelihood that a distractor will appear at an indicated location to down-weight the bottom-up attentional-capture signal. This ability turned out to be comparable across age groups, suggesting that efficient use of predictive information to shield against distracting information is preserved in normal ageing.

scholarly journals Neural Mechanisms Mediating Contingent Capture of Attention by Affective Stimuli

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 1113-1126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Crystal Reeck ◽  
Kevin S. LaBar ◽  
Tobias Egner
Keyword(s):  
Frontal Cortex ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Contingent Capture ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Affective Stimuli ◽  
Face Area ◽  
Exogenous Cues ◽  
Face Stimuli

Attention is attracted exogenously by physically salient stimuli, but this effect can be dampened by endogenous attention settings, a phenomenon called “contingent capture.” Emotionally salient stimuli are also thought to exert a strong exogenous influence on attention, especially in anxious individuals, but whether and how top–down attention can ameliorate bottom–up capture by affective stimuli is currently unknown. Here, we paired a novel spatial cueing task with fMRI to investigate contingent capture as a function of the affective salience of bottom–up cues (face stimuli) and individual differences in trait anxiety. In the absence of top–down cues, exogenous stimuli validly cueing targets facilitated attention in low-anxious participants, regardless of affective salience. However, although high-anxious participants exhibited similar facilitation following neutral exogenous cues, this facilitation was completely absent following affectively negative exogenous cues. Critically, these effects were contingent on endogenous attentional settings, such that explicit top–down cues presented before the appearance of exogenous stimuli removed anxious individuals' sensitivity to affectively salient stimuli. fMRI analyses revealed a network of brain regions underlying this variability in affective contingent capture across individuals, including the fusiform face area (FFA), posterior ventrolateral frontal cortex, and SMA. Importantly, activation in the posterior ventrolateral frontal cortex and the SMA fully mediated the effects observed in FFA, demonstrating a critical role for these frontal regions in mediating attentional orienting and interference resolution processes when engaged by affectively salient stimuli.

How top-down is contingent capture?

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Artem V. Belopolsky ◽  
Daniel Schreij ◽  
Jan Theeuwes
Keyword(s):  
Contingent Capture ◽  
Top Down

scholarly journals What is top-down about contingent capture?

2010 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 326-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Artem V. Belopolsky ◽  
Daniel Schreij ◽  
Jan Theeuwes
Keyword(s):  
Contingent Capture ◽  
Top Down
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