Attentional Capture by Salient Distractors during Visual Search Is Determined by Temporal Task Demands

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 749-759 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monika Kiss ◽  
Anna Grubert ◽  
Anders Petersen ◽  
Martin Eimer
Keyword(s):  
Attentional Capture ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Time Range ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Response Onset ◽  
Irrelevant Color ◽  
Task Irrelevant

The question whether attentional capture by salient but task-irrelevant visual stimuli is triggered in a bottom–up fashion or depends on top–down task settings is still unresolved. Strong support for bottom–up capture was obtained in the additional singleton task, in which search arrays were visible until response onset. Equally strong evidence for top–down control of attentional capture was obtained in spatial cueing experiments in which display durations were very brief. To demonstrate the critical role of temporal task demands on salience-driven attentional capture, we measured ERP indicators of capture by task-irrelevant color singletons in search arrays that could also contain a shape target. In Experiment 1, all displays were visible until response onset. In Experiment 2, display duration was limited to 200 msec. With long display durations, color singleton distractors elicited an N2pc component that was followed by a late Pd component, suggesting that they triggered attentional capture, which was later replaced by location-specific inhibition. When search arrays were visible for only 200 msec, the distractor-elicited N2pc was eliminated and was replaced by a Pd component in the same time range, indicative of rapid suppression of capture. Results show that attentional capture by salient distractors can be inhibited for short-duration search displays, in which it would interfere with target processing. They demonstrate that salience-driven capture is not a purely bottom–up phenomenon but is subject to top–down control.

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 Auditory attention alterations in migraine: a behavioral and MEG/EEG study

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rémy Masson ◽  
Yohana Lévêque ◽  
Geneviève Demarquay ◽  
Hesham ElShafei ◽  
Lesly Fornoni ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Orienting Response ◽  
List Type ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Attention Task ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Attentional Processes ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
The Right ◽  
Task Irrelevant

AbstractObjectivesTo evaluate alterations of top-down and/or bottom-up attention in migraine and their cortical underpinnings.Methods19 migraineurs between attacks and 19 matched control participants performed a task evaluating jointly top-down and bottom-up attention, using visually-cued target sounds and unexpected task-irrelevant distracting sounds. Behavioral responses and MEG/EEG were recorded. Event-related potentials and fields (ERPs/ERFs) were processed and source reconstruction was applied to ERFs.ResultsAt the behavioral level, neither top-down nor bottom-up attentional processes appeared to be altered in migraine. However, migraineurs presented heightened evoked responses following distracting sounds (orienting component of the N1 and Re-Orienting Negativity, RON) and following target sounds (orienting component of the N1), concomitant to an increased recruitment of the right temporo-parietal junction. They also displayed an increased effect of the cue informational value on target processing resulting in the elicitation of a negative difference (Nd).ConclusionsMigraineurs appear to display increased bottom-up orienting response to all incoming sounds, and an enhanced recruitment of top-down attention.SignificanceThe interictal state in migraine is characterized by an exacerbation of the orienting response to attended and unattended sounds. These attentional alterations might participate to the peculiar vulnerability of the migraine brain to all incoming stimuli.HighlightsMigraineurs performed as well as healthy participants in an attention task.However, EEG markers of both bottom-up and top-down attention are increased.Migraine is also associated with a facilitated recruitment of the right temporo-parietal junction.

scholarly journals A critical role of temporoparietal junction in the integration of top-down and bottom-up attentional control

2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (11) ◽  
pp. 4317-4333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qiong Wu ◽  
Chi-Fu Chang ◽  
Sisi Xi ◽  
I-Wen Huang ◽  
Zuxiang Liu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Attentional Control ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Temporoparietal Junction

scholarly journals Temporal properties of task-irrelevant events: attentional capture is not purely bottom-up

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (9) ◽  
pp. 1082-1082
Author(s):  
J. Benjamins ◽  
H. Hogendoorn ◽  
I. Hooge ◽  
F. Verstraten
Keyword(s):  
Attentional Capture ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Temporal Properties ◽  
Task Irrelevant

scholarly journals Disentangling the Role of Cortico-Basal Ganglia Loops in Top–Down and Bottom–Up Visual Attention: An Investigation of Attention Deficits in Parkinson Disease

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (6) ◽  
pp. 1215-1237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giorgio Tommasi ◽  
Mirta Fiorio ◽  
Jérôme Yelnik ◽  
Paul Krack ◽  
Francesca Sala ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Visual Attention ◽  
Parkinson Disease ◽  
Attentional Capture ◽  
Motor Response ◽  
Response Selection ◽  
The Other ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Movement Initiation ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Brain Functions

It is solidly established that top–down (goal-driven) and bottom–up (stimulus-driven) attention mechanisms depend on distributed cortical networks, including prefrontal and frontoparietal regions. On the other hand, it is less clear whether the BG also contribute to one or the other of these mechanisms, or to both. The current study was principally undertaken to clarify this issue. Parkinson disease (PD), a neurodegenerative disorder primarily affecting the BG, has proven to be an effective model for investigating the contribution of the BG to different brain functions; therefore, we set out to investigate deficits of top–down and bottom–up attention in a selected cohort of PD patients. With this objective in mind, we compared the performance on three computerized tasks of two groups of 12 parkinsonian patients (assessed without any treatment), one otherwise pharmacologically treated and the other also surgically treated, with that of a group of controls. The main behavioral tool for our study was an attentional capture task, which enabled us to tap the competition between top–down and bottom–up mechanisms of visual attention. This task was suitably combined with a choice RT and a simple RT task to isolate any specific deficit of attention from deficits in motor response selection and initiation. In the two groups of patients, we found an equivalent increase of attentional capture but also comparable delays in target selection in the absence of any salient distractor (reflecting impaired top–down mechanisms) and movement initiation compared with controls. In contrast, motor response selection processes appeared to be prolonged only in the operated patients. Our results confirm that the BG are involved in both motor and cognitive domains. Specifically, damage to the BG, as it occurs in PD, leads to a distinct deficit of top–down control of visual attention, and this can account, albeit indirectly, for the enhancement of attentional capture, reflecting weakened ability of top–down mechanisms to antagonize bottom–up control.

Reward- and Attention-related Biasing of Sensory Selection in Visual Cortex

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
pp. 1049-1065 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antje Buschschulte ◽  
Carsten N. Boehler ◽  
Hendrik Strumpf ◽  
Christian Stoppel ◽  
Hans-Jochen Heinze ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Target Object ◽  
Extrastriate Cortex ◽  
Brain Response ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Extrastriate Visual Cortex ◽  
Response Enhancement ◽  
Irrelevant Color ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
Attention To Task

Attention to task-relevant features leads to a biasing of sensory selection in extrastriate cortex. Features signaling reward seem to produce a similar bias, but how modulatory effects due to reward and attention relate to each other is largely unexplored. To address this issue, it is critical to separate top–down settings defining reward relevance from those defining attention. To this end, we used a visual search paradigm in which the target's definition (attention to color) was dissociated from reward relevance by delivering monetary reward on search frames where a certain task-irrelevant color was combined with the target-defining color to form the target object. We assessed the state of neural biasing for the attended and reward-relevant color by analyzing the neuromagnetic brain response to asynchronously presented irrelevant distractor probes drawn in the target-defining color, the reward-relevant color, and a completely irrelevant color as a reference. We observed that for the prospect of moderate rewards, the target-defining color but not the reward-relevant color produced a selective enhancement of the neuromagnetic response between 180 and 280 msec in ventral extrastriate visual cortex. Increasing reward prospect caused a delayed attenuation (220–250 msec) of the response to reward probes, which followed a prior (160–180 msec) response enhancement in dorsal ACC. Notably, shorter latency responses in dorsal ACC were associated with stronger attenuation in extrastriate visual cortex. Finally, an analysis of the brain response to the search frames revealed that the presence of the reward-relevant color in search distractors elicited an enhanced response that was abolished after increasing reward size. The present data together indicate that when top–down definitions of reward relevance and attention are separated, the behavioral significance of reward-associated features is still rapidly coded in higher-level cortex areas, thereby commanding effective top–down inhibitory control to counter a selection bias for those features in extrastriate visual cortex.

A Supervisory Grid to Understand the Role of the Maintenance Foreman in Process Industries

1989 ◽  
Vol 203 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-123
Author(s):  
H S Riddell
Keyword(s):  
Critical Role ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
Senior Management ◽  
Process Industry ◽  
Wide Scope ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Process Industries ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Practical Applications

The maintenance foreman occupies a critical role in a process industry. He is at the focus of two strong, sometimes conflicting, sets of influences, top-down from senior management, and bottom-up from the maintenance workload and tradesmen. It is a complex and ambiguous role both to the foremen themselves and to their managers. This paper explains why such ambiguity is likely to arise. A novel matrix is developed comprising four key interrelated domains of the maintenance foreman's role, and into which all the duties he is normally expected to perform can be categorized. The resulting supervisory grid clarifies both the wide scope of these duties, and identifies the two differing personal characteristics which maintenance foremen require in order to succeed in performing them. The grid has many practical applications. In particular it provides a sound basis for examining the new specialist and diversified roles for maintenance foremen which are now emerging in the process industry.

scholarly journals Developmental Increase in Top–Down and Bottom–Up Processing in a Phonological Task: An Effective Connectivity, fMRI Study

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 1135-1145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tali Bitan ◽  
Jimmy Cheon ◽  
Dong Lu ◽  
Douglas D. Burman ◽  
James R. Booth
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Effective Connectivity ◽  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Control Process ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Task Irrelevant

We examined age-related changes in the interactions among brain regions in children performing rhyming judgments on visually presented words. The difficulty of the task was manipulated by including a conflict between task-relevant (phonological) information and task-irrelevant (orthographic) information. The conflicting conditions included pairs of words that rhyme despite having different spelling patterns (jazz–has), or words that do not rhyme despite having similar spelling patterns (pint–mint). These were contrasted with nonconflicting pairs that have similar orthography and phonology (dime–lime) or different orthography and phonology (press–list). Using fMRI, we examined effective connectivity among five left hemisphere regions of interest: fusiform gyrus (FG), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), intraparietal sulcus (IPS), lateral temporal cortex (LTC), and medial frontal gyrus (MeFG). Age-related increases were observed in the influence of the IFG and FG on the LTC, but only in conflicting conditions. These results reflect a developmental increase in the convergence of bottom–up and top–down information on the LTC. In older children, top–down control process may selectively enhance the sensitivity of the LTC to bottom–up information from the FG. This may be evident especially in situations that require selective enhancement of task-relevant versus task-irrelevant information. Altogether these results provide a direct evidence for a developmental increase in top–down control processes in language processing. The developmental increase in bottom–up processing may be secondary to the enhancement of top–down processes.

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 The road to long-term memory: Top-down attention is more effective than bottom-up attention for forming long-term memories

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edyta Sasin ◽  
Daryl Fougnie
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Attentional Capture ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
The Road ◽  
Memory Traces ◽  
Better Than

AbstractDoes the strength of representations in long-term memory (LTM) depend on which type of attention is engaged? We tested participants’ memory for objects seen during visual search. We compared implicit memory for two types of objects—related-context nontargets that grabbed attention because they matched the target defining feature (i.e., color; top-down attention) and salient distractors that captured attention only because they were perceptually distracting (bottom-up attention). In Experiment 1, the salient distractor flickered, while in Experiment 2, the luminance of the salient distractor was alternated. Critically, salient and related-context nontargets produced equivalent attentional capture, yet related-context nontargets were remembered far better than salient distractors (and salient distractors were not remembered better than unrelated distractors). These results suggest that LTM depends not only on the amount of attention but also on the type of attention. Specifically, top-down attention is more effective in promoting the formation of memory traces than bottom-up attention.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document