scholarly journals Top-down search strategies cannot override attentional capture

2004 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Theeuwes
Keyword(s):  
Attentional Capture ◽  
Search Strategies ◽  
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.

scholarly journals Capture by Context Elements, Not Attentional Suppression of Distractors, Explains the PD with Small Search Displays

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (6) ◽  
pp. 1170-1183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Kerzel ◽  
Nicolas Burra
Keyword(s):  
Attentional Capture ◽  
Attentional Selection ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Voltage Difference ◽  
Context Element ◽  
Selection Of

Top–down control of attention allows us to resist attentional capture by salient stimuli that are irrelevant to our current goals. Recently, it was proposed that attentional suppression of salient distractors contributes to top–down control by biasing attention away from the distractor. With small search displays, attentional suppression of salient distractors may even result in reduced RTs on distractor-present trials. In support of attentional suppression, electrophysiological measures revealed a positivity between 200 and 300 msec contralateral to the distractor, which has been referred to as distractor positivity (PD). We reexamined distractor benefits with small search displays and found that the positivity to the distractor was followed by a negativity to the distractor. The negativity, referred to as N2pc, is considered an index of attentional selection of the contralateral element. Thus, attentional suppression of the distractor (PD) preceded attentional capture (N2pc) by the distractor, which is at odds with the idea that attentional suppression avoids attentional capture by the distractor. Instead, we suggest that the initial “PD” is not a positivity to the distractor but rather a negativity (N2pc) to the contralateral context element, suggesting that, initially, the context captured attention. Subsequently, the distractor was selected because, paradoxically, participants searched all lateral target positions (even when irrelevant) before they examined the vertical positions. Consistent with this idea, search times were shorter for lateral than vertical targets. In summary, the early voltage difference in small search displays is unrelated to distractor suppression but may reflect capture by the context.

Influence of Task Knowledge and Display Features on Driver Attention to Cluttered Navigation Displays

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 1768-1772 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl Pankok ◽  
David Kaber
Keyword(s):  
Driving Simulator ◽  
Search Strategies ◽  
Attention Allocation ◽  
Vehicle Navigation ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Task Knowledge ◽  
Competing Demands ◽  
Multiple Tasks

Two experiments were conducted to assess the effect of display clutter on driver attention allocation for highand low-clutter in-vehicle navigation displays. Participants were asked to respond to navigation queries in a static, presentation-based experiment and a dynamic, driving simulator experiment. Results revealed differential associations between clutter and attention allocation such that stronger correlations were exhibited in the presentation-based experiment. Those measures of display clutter focusing on display features and data (i.e., bottom-up factors) had stronger correlations with attention allocation than measures focusing on user task knowledge or familiarity (i.e., top-down factors). The findings suggest that humans adjust search strategies to account for competing demands of multiple tasks in such a way that any effect of clutter on driver attention is minimized, and that bottom-up influences of clutter have a stronger association with driver attention allocation than top-down influences.

Top-down influences on attentional capture by color changes

2008 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 244-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian von Mühlenen ◽  
Markus Conci
Keyword(s):  
Attentional Capture ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Color Changes

scholarly journals Reward can modulate attentional capture, independent of top-down set

2015 ◽  
Vol 77 (8) ◽  
pp. 2540-2548 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaap Munneke ◽  
Sylco S. Hoppenbrouwers ◽  
Jan Theeuwes
Keyword(s):  
Attentional Capture ◽  
Top Down
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