Using eye movements as a measure of selective attention: Evidence from a spatial negative priming paradigm

Background. Impaired distractor inhibition may contribute to the selective attention deficits observed in depressed patients, but studies to date have not tested the distractor inhibition theory against the possibility that processes such as transient memory review processes may account for the observed deficits. A negative priming paradigm can dissociate inhibition from such a potentially confounding process called object review. The negative priming task also isolates features of the distractor such as colour and location for independent examination.Method. A computerized negative priming task was used in which colour, identification and location features of a stimulus and distractor were systematically manipulated across successive prime and probe trials. Thirty-two unmedicated subjects with DSM-IV diagnoses of non-psychotic unipolar depression were compared with 32 age, sex and IQ matched controls.Results. Depressed subjects had reduced levels of negative priming for conditions where the colour feature of the stimulus was repeated across prime and probe trials but not when identity or location was the repeated feature. When both the colour and location feature were the repeated feature across trials, facilitation in response was apparent.Conclusions. The pattern of results supports studies that found reduced distractor inhibition in depressed subjects, and suggests that object review is intact in these subjects. Greater impairment in negative priming for colour versus location suggests that subjects may have greater impairment in the visual stream associated with processing colour features.

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Selective Attention to Specific Features within Objects: Behavioral and Electrophysiological Evidence

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn.2006.18.4.539 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 18 (4) ◽

pp. 539-561 ◽

Cited By ~ 41

Author(s):

Anna Christina Nobre ◽

Anling Rao ◽

Leonardo Chelazzi

Keyword(s):

Selective Attention ◽

Negative Priming ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Motion Processing ◽

Neural Modulation ◽

Priming Paradigm ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Physical Stimuli ◽

Feature Dimension

Evidence regarding the ability of attention to bias neural processing at the level of single features has been gathering steadily, but most of the experiments to date used arrays with multiple objects and locations, making it difficult to rule out indirect influences from object or spatial attention. To investigate feature-specific selective attention, we have assessed the ability to select and ignore individual features within the same object. We used a negative-priming paradigm in which the color or the direction of internal motion of the object could determine the relevant response. Bidimensional (colored and moving) and unidimensional (colored and stationary, or gray and moving) stimuli appeared in unpredictable order. In successive blocks, participants were instructed that one feature dimension was dominant. During that block, participants responded according to the dominant dimension for bidimensional stimuli. For unidimensional stimuli, participants responded to the only dimension of the stimulus that afforded a response, regardless of the instruction for the block. The ability to inhibit irrelevant task information at the level of specific features (negative priming for features) was indexed by a decrease in performance to detect one particular feature value (e.g., red) if the same feature value (red) but not another color value (green) had been ignored in the previous bidimensional stimulus. Behavioral results confirmed the existence of inhibitory, negative-priming mechanisms at the singlefeature level for both color and motion dimensions of stimuli. Event-related potentials recorded during task performance revealed the dynamics of neural modulation by feature attention. Comparisons were made using the identical physical stimuli under different conditions of attention to isolate purely attentional effects. Processing of identical bidimensional stimuli was compared as a function of the dimension of attention (color, motion). Processing of identical unidimensional stimuli that followed bidimensional stimuli was also compared to identify possible effects of feature-specific negative priming. The electrophysiological effects revealed that inhibition of irrelevant features leads to modulation of brain activity during early stages of perceptual analysis.

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Selection and inhibition in infancy: evidence from the spatial negative priming paradigm

Cognition ◽

10.1016/j.cognition.2004.08.006 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 95 (2) ◽

pp. B27-B36 ◽

Cited By ~ 36

Author(s):

Dima Amso ◽

Scott P. Johnson

Keyword(s):

Negative Priming ◽

Spatial Negative Priming ◽

Priming Paradigm

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Visual Selective Attention Is Impaired in Children Prenatally Exposed to Opioid Agonist Medication

European Addiction Research ◽

10.1159/000366018 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 21 (2) ◽

pp. 63-70 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Carolien Konijnenberg ◽

Annika Melinder

Keyword(s):

Selective Attention ◽

Prenatal Exposure ◽

Negative Priming ◽

Child Behavior Checklist ◽

Attention Problems ◽

Exposed Group ◽

Visual Selective Attention ◽

Prenatally Exposed ◽

Opioid Agonist ◽

Spatial Negative Priming

Aims: To examine whether prenatal exposure to opioid agonist medication is associated with visual selective attention and general attention problems in early childhood. Method: Twenty-two children (mean age = 52.17 months, SD = 1.81) prenatally exposed to methadone, 9 children (mean age = 52.41 months, SD = 1.42) prenatally exposed to buprenorphine and 25 nonexposed comparison children (mean age = 51.44 months, SD = 1.31) were tested. Visual selective attention was measured with a Tobii 1750 Eye Tracker using a spatial negative priming paradigm. Attention problems were measured using the Child Behavior Checklist. Results: The comparison group demonstrated a larger spatial negative priming effect (mean = 23.50, SD = 45.50) than the exposed group [mean = -6.84, SD = 86.39, F(1,50) = 5.91, p = 0.019, η2 = 0.11]. No difference in reported attention problems was found [F(1,51) = 1.63, p = 0.21, η2 = 0.03]. Neonatal abstinence syndrome and prenatal exposure to marijuana were found to predict slower saccade latencies in the exposed group (b = 54.55, SE = 23.56, p = 0.03 and b = 88.86, SE = 32.07, p = 0.01, respectively). Conclusion: Although exposed children did not appear to have attention deficits in daily life, lower performance on the SNP task indicates subtle alteration in the attention system.

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Turning the negative into something positive: Investigating emotion word processing in the negative priming paradigm

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e520562012-401 ◽

2009 ◽

Author(s):

Tina M. Sutton ◽

Jeanette Altarriba

Keyword(s):

Negative Priming ◽

Word Processing ◽

Emotion Word ◽

Priming Paradigm

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Selective attention biases of people with depression: Positive and negative priming of depression-related information

Psychiatry Research ◽

10.1016/j.psychres.2007.10.022 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 165 (3) ◽

pp. 241-251 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

Kwok-Keung Leung ◽

Tatia M.C. Lee ◽

Paul Yip ◽

Leonard S.W. Li ◽

Michael M.C. Wong

Keyword(s):

Selective Attention ◽

Negative Priming ◽

Related Information

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Adults’ Selective Attention and Eye Movements as a Function of Birth Experience

Journal of Vision ◽

10.1167/19.10.116c ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 19 (10) ◽

pp. 116c

Author(s):

Scott A Adler ◽

Kyle J Comishen ◽

Audrey M B Wong-Kee-You

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Selective Attention ◽

Birth Experience

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Isolating stereotypical gender in a grammatical gender language: Evidence from eye movements

Applied Psycholinguistics ◽

10.1017/s0142716414000010 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 36 (4) ◽

pp. 977-1006 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

CHIARA REALI ◽

YULIA ESAULOVA ◽

LISA VON STOCKHAUSEN

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Grammatical Gender ◽

Gender Typicality ◽

Gender Attitude ◽

Anaphor Resolution ◽

Priming Paradigm ◽

Anaphoric Pronoun ◽

Attitude Measures ◽

Reliable Correlation ◽

Mismatch Effect

ABSTRACTThe present study investigates the effects of stereotypical gender during anaphor resolution in German. The study aims at isolating the effects of gender-stereotypical cues from the effects of grammatical gender. Experiment 1 employs descriptions of typically male, female, and neutral occupations that contain no grammatical cue to the referent gender, followed by a masculine or feminine role noun, in a reaction time priming paradigm. Experiment 2 uses eye-tracking methodology to examine how the gender typicality of these descriptions affects the resolution of a matching or mismatching anaphoric pronoun. Results show a mismatch effect manifest at very early stages of processing. Both experiments also reveal asymmetries in the processing of the two genders suggesting that the representation of female rather than male referents is more flexible in counterstereotypical contexts. No systematic relation is found between eye movements and individual gender attitude measures, whereas a reliable correlation is found with gender typicality ratings.

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