scholarly journals Flickering task–irrelevant distractors induce dilation of target duration depending upon cortical distance

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Miku Okajima ◽  
Yuko Yotsumoto
Keyword(s):  
Target Duration ◽  
Irrelevant Distractors ◽  
Task Irrelevant

The Relationship of Interrogative Suggestibility to Memory and Attention

2006 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.C. Howard ◽  
A. Chaiwutikornwanich
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Oddball Paradigm ◽  
Memory Processes ◽  
Memory And Attention ◽  
Irrelevant Distractors ◽  
Alternative Hypotheses ◽  
Visual Oddball Paradigm ◽  
Interrogative Suggestibility ◽  
Task Irrelevant

This study combined an individual differences approach to interrogative suggestibility (IS) with ERP recordings to examine two alternative hypotheses regarding the source of individual differences in IS: (1) differences in attention to task-relevant vis-à-vis task-irrelevant stimuli, and (2) differences in one or more memory processes, indexed by ERP old/new effects. Sixty-five female participants underwent an ERP recording during the 50 min interval between immediate and delayed recall of a short story. ERPs elicited by pictures that either related to the story (“old”), or did not relate to the story (“new”), were recorded using a three-stimulus visual oddball paradigm. ERP old/new effects were examined at selected scalp regions of interest at three post-stimulus intervals: early (250-350 ms), middle (350-700 ms), and late (700-1100 ms). In addition, attention-related ERP components (N1, P2, N2, and P3) evoked by story-relevant pictures, story-irrelevant pictures, and irrelevant distractors were measured from midline electrodes. Late (700-1100 ms) frontal ERP old/new differences reflected individual differences in IS, while early (250-350 ms) and middle latency (350-700 ms) ERP old/new differences distinguished good from poor performers in memory and oddball tasks, respectively. Differences in IS were not reflected in ERP indices of attention. Results supported an account of IS as reflecting individual differences in postretrieval memory processes.

The Case of the Cognitive (Opti)miser: Electrophysiological Correlates of Working Memory Maintenance Predict Demand Avoidance

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (8) ◽  
pp. 1550-1561
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Nador ◽  
Assaf Harel ◽  
Ion Juvina ◽  
Brandon Minnery
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Cognitive Effort ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Match To Sample ◽  
Irrelevant Distractors ◽  
Filtering Efficiency ◽  
Task Irrelevant

People are often considered cognitive misers. When given a free choice between two tasks, people tend to choose tasks requiring less cognitive effort. Such demand avoidance (DA) is associated with cognitive control, but it is still not clear to what extent individual differences in cognitive control can account for variations in DA. We sought to elucidate the relation between cognitive control and cognitive effort preferences by investigating the extent to which sustained neural activity in a task requiring cognitive control is correlated with DA. We hypothesized that neural measures of efficient filtering will predict individual variations in demand preferences. To test this hypothesis, we had participants perform a delayed-match-to-sample paradigm with their ERPs recorded, as well as a separate behavioral demand-selection task. We focused on the ERP correlates of cognitive filtering efficiency (CFE)—the ability to ignore task-irrelevant distractors during working memory maintenance—as it manifests in a modulation of the contralateral delay activity, an ERP correlate of cognitive control. As predicted, we found a significant positive correlation between CFE and DA. Individuals with high CFE tended to be significantly more demand avoidant than their low-CFE counterparts. Low-CFE individuals, in comparison, did not form distinct cognitive effort preferences. Overall, our results suggest that cognitive control over the contents of visual working memory contribute to individual differences in the expression of cognitive effort preferences. This further implies that these observed preferences are the product of sensitivity to cognitive task demands.

scholarly journals Ignoring Irrelevant Information: Enhanced Intermodal Attention in Synaesthetes

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (3-5) ◽  
pp. 253-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Mas-Casadesús ◽  
Elena Gherri
Keyword(s):  
Direct Evidence ◽  
Flanker Task ◽  
Sensory Modality ◽  
Irrelevant Information ◽  
Daily Activities ◽  
Perceptual Information ◽  
Conflicting Information ◽  
Sensory Modalities ◽  
Irrelevant Distractors ◽  
Task Irrelevant

Despite the fact that synaesthetes experience additional percepts during their inducer-concurrent associations that are often unrelated or irrelevant to their daily activities, they appear to be relatively unaffected by this potentially distracting information. This might suggest that synaesthetes are particularly good at ignoring irrelevant perceptual information coming from different sensory modalities. To investigate this hypothesis, the performance of a group of synaesthetes was compared to that of a matched non-synaesthete group in two different conflict tasks aimed at assessing participants’ abilities to ignore irrelevant information. In order to match the sensory modality of the task-irrelevant distractors (vision) with participants’ synaesthetic attentional filtering experience, we tested only synaesthetes experiencing at least one synaesthesia subtype triggering visual concurrents (e.g., grapheme–colour synaesthesia or sequence–space synaesthesia). Synaesthetes and controls performed a classic flanker task (FT) and a visuo-tactile cross-modal congruency task (CCT) in which they had to attend to tactile targets while ignoring visual distractors. While no differences were observed between synaesthetes and controls in the FT, synaesthetes showed reduced interference by the irrelevant distractors of the CCT. These findings provide the first direct evidence that synaesthetes might be more efficient than non-synaesthetes at dissociating conflicting information from different sensory modalities when the irrelevant modality correlates with their synaesthetic concurrent modality (here vision).

scholarly journals Been There, Seen That: A Neural Mechanism for Performing Efficient Visual Search

2009 ◽  
Vol 102 (6) ◽  
pp. 3481-3491 ◽  
Author(s):  
Koorosh Mirpour ◽  
Fabrice Arcizet ◽  
Wei Song Ong ◽  
James W. Bisley
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Neural Mechanism ◽  
Saliency Map ◽  
Lateral Intraparietal Area ◽  
Goal Selection ◽  
Reward Expectancy ◽  
Irrelevant Distractors ◽  
Saliency Map Models ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
Foraging Task

In everyday life, we efficiently find objects in the world by moving our gaze from one location to another. The efficiency of this process is brought about by ignoring items that are dissimilar to the target and remembering which target-like items have already been examined. We trained two animals on a visual foraging task in which they had to find a reward-loaded target among five task-irrelevant distractors and five potential targets. We found that both animals performed the task efficiently, ignoring the distractors and rarely examining a particular target twice. We recorded the single unit activity of 54 neurons in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) while the animals performed the task. The responses of the neurons differentiated between targets and distractors throughout the trial. Further, the responses marked off targets that had been fixated by a reduction in activity. This reduction acted like inhibition of return in saliency map models; items that had been fixated would no longer be represented by high enough activity to draw an eye movement. This reduction could also be seen as a correlate of reward expectancy; after a target had been identified as not containing the reward the activity was reduced. Within a trial, responses to the remaining targets did not increase as they became more likely to yield a result, suggesting that only activity related to an event is updated on a moment-by-moment bases. Together, our data show that all the neural activity required to guide efficient search is present in LIP. Because LIP activity is known to correlate with saccade goal selection, we propose that LIP plays a significant role in the guidance of efficient visual search.

Contextual Modulation of Emotional Distraction: Attentional Capture and Motivational Significance

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 621-633 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonia Micucci ◽  
Vera Ferrari ◽  
Andrea De Cesarei ◽  
Maurizio Codispoti
Keyword(s):  
Orientation Discrimination ◽  
Emotional Stimuli ◽  
Emotional Modulation ◽  
Contextual Modulation ◽  
Motivational Systems ◽  
Emotional Interference ◽  
Irrelevant Distractors ◽  
Evaluative Processes ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
The Impact

Emotional stimuli engage corticolimbic circuits and capture attention even when they are task-irrelevant distractors. Whether top–down or contextual factors can modulate the filtering of emotional distractors is a matter of debate. Recent studies have indicated that behavioral interference by emotional distractors habituates rapidly when the same stimuli are repeated across trials. However, little is known as to whether we can attenuate the impact of novel (never repeated) emotional distractors when they occur frequently. In two experiments, we investigated the effects of distractor frequency on the processing of task-irrelevant novel pictures, as reflected in both behavioral interference and neural activity, while participants were engaged in an orientation discrimination task. Experiment 1 showed that, compared with a rare distractor condition (20%), frequent distractors (80%) reduced the interference of emotional stimuli. Moreover, Experiment 2 provided evidence that emotional interference was reduced by distractor frequency even when rare, and unexpected, emotional distractors appeared among frequent neutral distractors. On the other hand, in both experiments, the late positive potential amplitude was enhanced for emotional, compared with neutral, pictures, and this emotional modulation was not reduced when distractors were frequently presented. Altogether, these findings suggest that the high occurrence of task-irrelevant stimuli does not proactively prevent the processing of emotional distractors. Even when attention allocation to novel emotional stimuli is reduced, evaluative processes and the engagement of motivational systems are needed to support the monitoring of the environment for significant events.

scholarly journals Evidence for differential top-down and bottom-up suppression in posterior parietal cortex

2013 ◽  
Vol 368 (1628) ◽  
pp. 20130069 ◽  
Author(s):  
Koorosh Mirpour ◽  
James W. Bisley
Keyword(s):  
Neural Activity ◽  
Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Irrelevant Distractors ◽  
Posterior Parietal ◽  
Physically Identical ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
Foraging Task ◽  
Single Unit Response

When searching for an object, we usually avoid items that are visually different from the target and objects or places that have been searched already. Previous studies have shown that neural activity in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) can be used to guide this behaviour; responses to task irrelevant stimuli or to stimuli that have been fixated previously in the trial are reduced compared with responses to potential targets. Here, we test the hypothesis that these reduced responses have a different genesis. Two animals were trained on a visual foraging task, in which they had to find a target among a number of physically identical potential targets (T) and task irrelevant distractors. We recorded neural activity and local field potentials (LFPs) in LIP while the animals performed the task. We found that LFP power was similar for potential targets and distractors but was greater in the alpha and low beta bands when a previously fixated T was in the response field. We interpret these data to suggest that the reduced single-unit response to distractors is a bottom-up feed-forward result of processing in earlier areas and the reduced response to previously fixated Ts is a result of active top-down suppression.

scholarly journals Registered Replication Report of Weissman, D. H., Jiang, J., & Egner, T. (2014). Determinants of congruency sequence effects without learning and memory confounds

2020 ◽  
Vol 82 (8) ◽  
pp. 3777-3787
Author(s):  
Mate Gyurkovics ◽  
Marton Kovacs ◽  
Matt Jaquiery ◽  
Bence Palfi ◽  
Filip Dechterenko ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Learning And Memory ◽  
Cognitive Conflict ◽  
Online Data ◽  
Bayesian Analyses ◽  
Sequence Effects ◽  
Control Research ◽  
Irrelevant Distractors ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Task Irrelevant

Abstract The congruency sequence effect (CSE) refers to the finding that the effect of cognitive conflict is smaller following conflicting, incongruent trials than after non-conflicting, congruent trials in conflict tasks, such as the Stroop, Simon, and flanker tasks. This is typically interpreted as an upregulation of cognitive control in response to conflict. Weissman, Jiang, & Egner (2014) investigated whether the CSE appears in these three tasks and a further variant where task-irrelevant distractors precede the target (prime-probe task), in the absence of learning and memory confounds in samples collected online. They found significant CSEs only in the prime-probe and Simon tasks, suggesting that the effect is more robust in tasks where the distractor can be translated into a response faster than the target. In this Registered Replication Report we collected data online from samples approx. 2.5 times larger than in the original study for each of the four tasks to investigate whether the task-related differences in the magnitude of the CSE are replicable (Nmin = 115, Nmax = 130). Our findings extend but do not contradict the original results: Bayesian analyses suggested that the CSE was present in all four tasks in RT but only in the Simon task in accuracy. The size of the effect did not differ between tasks, and the size of the congruency effect was not correlated with the size of the CSE across participants. These findings suggest it might be premature to conclude that the difference in the speed of distractor- vs target-related response activation is a determinant of the size of cross-trial modulations of control. The practical implications of our results for online data collection in cognitive control research are also discussed.

Automatic Attention Capture by Threatening, But Not by Semantically Incongruent Natural Scene Images

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (7) ◽  
pp. 4158-4168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcin Furtak ◽  
Łucja Doradzińska ◽  
Alina Ptashynska ◽  
Liad Mudrik ◽  
Anna Nowicka ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Attention Capture ◽  
Visual Objects ◽  
Probe Task ◽  
Irrelevant Distractors ◽  
Low Probability ◽  
Automatic Attention ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
Automatic Capture ◽  
Primary Measure

Abstract Visual objects are typically perceived as parts of an entire visual scene, and the scene’s context provides information crucial in the object recognition process. Fundamental insights into the mechanisms of context-object integration have come from research on semantically incongruent objects, which are defined as objects with a very low probability of occurring in a given context. However, the role of attention in processing of the context-object mismatch remains unclear, with some studies providing evidence in favor, but other against an automatic capture of attention by incongruent objects. Therefore, in the present study, 25 subjects completed a dot-probe task, in which pairs of scenes—congruent and incongruent or neutral and threatening—were presented as task-irrelevant distractors. Importantly, threatening scenes are known to robustly capture attention and thus were included in the present study to provide a context for interpretation of results regarding incongruent scenes. Using N2 posterior-contralateral ERP component as a primary measure, we revealed that threatening images indeed capture attention automatically and rapidly, but semantically incongruent scenes do not benefit from an automatic attentional selection. Thus, our results suggest that identification of the context-object mismatch is not preattentive.

scholarly journals Discriminative Fear Learners are Resilient to Temporal Distortions during Threat Anticipation

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica I. Lake ◽  
Warren H. Meck ◽  
Kevin S. LaBar
Keyword(s):  
Fear Conditioning ◽  
Fear Learning ◽  
Ordinal Comparison ◽  
Timing Task ◽  
Skin Conductance Responses ◽  
Experience Of Time ◽  
Irrelevant Distractors ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
Attentional Models ◽  
Discriminative Fear Conditioning

Discriminative fear conditioning requires learning to dissociate between safety cues and cues that predict negative outcomes yet little is known about what processes contribute to discriminative fear learning. According to attentional models of time perception, processes that distract from timing result in temporal underestimation. If discriminative fear learning only requires learning what cues predict what outcomes, and threatening stimuli distract attention from timing, then better discriminative fear learning should predict greater temporal distortion on threat trials. Alternatively, if discriminative fear learning also reflects a more accurate perceptual experience of time in threatening contexts, discriminative fear learning scores would predict less temporal distortion on threat trials, as time is perceived more veridically. Healthy young adults completed discriminative fear conditioning in which they learned to associate one stimulus (CS+) with aversive electrical stimulation and another stimulus (CS−) with non-aversive tactile stimulation and then an ordinal-comparison timing task during which CSs were presented as task-irrelevant distractors. Consistent with predictions, we found an overall temporal underestimation bias on CS+ relative to CS− trials. Differential skin conductance responses to the CS+ versus the CS− during conditioning served as a physiological index of discriminative fear conditioning and this measure predicted the magnitude of the underestimation bias, such that individuals exhibiting greater discriminative fear conditioning showed less underestimation on CS+ versus CS− trials. These results are discussed with respect to the nature of discriminative fear learning and the relationship between temporal distortions and maladaptive threat processing in anxiety.

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