Gender and perceived cooperation modulate visual attention in a joint spatial cueing task

Although visual attention is one of the most thoroughly investigated topics in experimental psychology and vision science, most of this research tends to be restricted to the near periphery. Eccentricities used in attention studies usually do not exceed 20° to 30°, but most studies even make use of considerably smaller maximum eccentricities. Thus, empirical knowledge about attention beyond this range is sparse, probably due to a previous lack of suitable experimental devices to investigate attention in the far periphery. This is currently changing due to the development of temporal high-resolution projectors and head-mounted displays (HMDs) that allow displaying experimental stimuli at far eccentricities. In the present study, visual attention was investigated beyond the near periphery (15°, 30°, 56° Exp. 1) and (15°, 35°, 56° Exp. 2) in a peripheral Posner cueing paradigm using a discrimination task with placeholders. Interestingly, cueing effects were revealed for the whole range of eccentricities although the inhomogeneity of the visual field and its functional subdivisions might lead one to suspect otherwise.

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Social information rapidly prioritizes overt but not covert attention in a joint spatial cueing task

Acta Psychologica ◽

10.1016/j.actpsy.2020.103188 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 211 ◽

pp. 103188

Author(s):

Matthias S. Gobel ◽

Barry Giesbrecht

Keyword(s):

Social Information ◽

Covert Attention ◽

Spatial Cueing ◽

Cueing Task

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Disentangling attention from action in the emotional spatial cueing task

Cognition & Emotion ◽

10.1080/02699931.2013.878688 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 28 (7) ◽

pp. 1223-1241 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Manon Mulckhuyse ◽

Geert Crombez

Keyword(s):

Spatial Cueing ◽

Cueing Task

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Measuring biases of visual attention: A comparison of 4 tasks

10.31219/osf.io/dymhc ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Olafia Sigurjonsdottir ◽

Andri S Bjornsson ◽

Inga Wessman ◽

Arni Kristjansson

Keyword(s):

Visual Attention ◽

Attentional Blink ◽

Emotional Stimuli ◽

Control Groups ◽

Dot Probe ◽

Attentional Processing ◽

Differential Processing ◽

Spatial Cueing ◽

And Control ◽

Attentional Blink Task

Observers typically attend preferentially to stimuli with emotional content over emotionally neutral ones. For some this attentional pull is abnormally strong, and such attention biases may play a role in the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders. The assessment of potential biases is constrained by measurement methods. The tasks most commonly used to measure preferential attentional orienting to emotional stimuli, the dot-probe and spatial cueing tasks, have yielded mixed results. We assessed the sensitivity of 4 visual attention tasks (dot-probe, spatial cueing, visual search with irrelevant distractor and attentional blink tasks) to differences in attentional processing between threatening and neutral faces in 33 outpatients with a primary diagnosis of social anxiety disorder (SAD) and 26 healthy controls. The dot-probe and cueing tasks did not reveal any differential processing of neutral and threatening faces nor between the SAD and control groups. The irrelevant distractor task showed some sensitivity to differential processing of facial expression in the SAD group, but the attentional blink task was uniquely sensitive to such differences in both groups, and also revealed processing differences between the SAD and control groups. The attentional blink task revealed interesting temporal dynamics of attentional processing of emotional stimuli and may provide a uniquely nuanced picture of attentional response to emotional stimuli. The task may, therefore, be more suitable to measuring preferential attending to emotional stimuli and treating dysfunctional attention patterns than the more commonly used dot-probe and cueing tasks.

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Unintended Allocation of Spatial Attention to Goal-Relevant but Not to Goal-Related Events

Social Psychology ◽

10.1027/1864-9335/a000042 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 42 (1) ◽

pp. 48-55 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Julia Vogt ◽

Jan De Houwer ◽

Agnes Moors

Keyword(s):

Spatial Attention ◽

Goal Pursuit ◽

Spatial Cueing ◽

Cueing Task ◽

Automatic Goal Pursuit

We investigated whether words relevant to a person’s current goal and words related to that goal influence the orienting of attention even when an intention to attend to the goal-relevant and goal-related stimuli is not present. Participants performed a modified spatial cueing paradigm combined with a second task that induced a goal. The results showed that the induced goal led to the orienting of attention to goal-relevant words in the spatial cueing task. This effect was not found for goal-related words. The results provide evidence for accounts of automatic goal pursuit, which state that goals automatically guide attention to goal-relevant events.

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Keep Calm and Pump Up the Jams: How Musical Mood and Arousal Affect Visual Attention

Music & Science ◽

10.1177/2059204320922737 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 3 ◽

pp. 205920432092273

Author(s):

Angela Marti-Marca ◽

Tram Nguyen ◽

Jessica A. Grahn

Keyword(s):

Visual Attention ◽

Significant Interaction ◽

Memory Performance ◽

Reaction Times ◽

Background Music ◽

Attention Task ◽

High Arousal ◽

Induced Mood ◽

Cueing Task ◽

Intermediate Performance

Music is a prevalent part of everyday life and there has been a great deal of interest in the possibility that music facilitates cognition, including memory. Listening to background music has a modulatory effect on internal mood and arousal states, putting the listeners at the optimal levels necessary to enhance memory performance. However, there has been little research on how music-induced mood and arousal influence other aspects of cognition, in particular attention. The aim of the current study was to examine the effect of background music on visual attention. Participants rated an assortment of music clips on mood and arousal levels. The clips that participants rated most positive or negative in mood and highest or lowest in arousal were used during an adaptation of the Posner cueing task ( Posner, 1980 ). This visual attention task was either performed in silence or while listening to background music. A significant interaction between mood and arousal was observed. Participants were fastest when listening to high arousal positive music and slowest when listening to high arousal negative music. Intermediate performance occurred for low arousal negative and low arousal positive music. Thus, changes in music-induced mood and arousal can indeed alter reaction times, with opposite effects observed for high arousal music based on whether it is perceived as positive or negative in mood. However, there is no evidence that musical mood and arousal affect attention because mood and arousal levels do not alter the effect of congruency on either reaction times or accuracy. Thus, although reaction times are faster in the presence of high arousal positive music, this appears unrelated to effects on attention.

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