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

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.

Download Full-text

Top-down or bottom-up? The selection of shadow rapporteurs in the European Parliament

European Union Politics ◽

10.1177/1465116520934865 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 21 (4) ◽

pp. 706-727

Author(s):

Frank M Häge ◽

Nils Ringe

Keyword(s):

European Parliament ◽

Third Party ◽

Top Down ◽

Bottom Up ◽

Principal Agent Theory ◽

Policy Positions ◽

Competing Demands ◽

Group Members ◽

Selection Of

Shadow rapporteurs play an important role in developing the European Parliament’s collective policy positions and in defending them in inter-institutional negotiations. This study sheds light on the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of shadow rapporteur selection. Qualitative insights from practitioner interviews and a quantitative analysis of shadow rapporteur data from the 7th European Parliament (2009–2014) indicate that the appointment process is primarily one of bottom-up self-selection by group members based on their policy interests. The party group leadership, in the form of group coordinators, plays an important coordinating role when there is competition for a shadow rapporteurship. However, the role of group coordinators is more akin to a third-party arbiter of competing demands than a mechanism of top-down control by the leadership, as suggested by principal-agent theory.

Download Full-text

Oxytocin reduces top-down control of attention by increasing bottom-up attention allocation to social but not non-social stimuli – A randomized controlled trial

Psychoneuroendocrinology ◽

10.1016/j.psyneuen.2019.06.004 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 108 ◽

pp. 62-69 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Xiaolei Xu ◽

Jialin Li ◽

Zhuo Chen ◽

Keith M. Kendrick ◽

Benjamin Becker

Keyword(s):

Randomized Controlled Trial ◽

Controlled Trial ◽

Attention Allocation ◽

Top Down ◽

Social Stimuli ◽

Bottom Up ◽

Randomized Controlled

Download Full-text

Attentional Control in Young Drivers: Does Training Impact Hazard Anticipation in Dynamic Environments?

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting ◽

10.1177/1071181320641478 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 64 (1) ◽

pp. 1986-1990

Author(s):

Sarah Yahoodik ◽

Yusuke Yamani

Keyword(s):

Attentional Control ◽

Driving Simulator ◽

Potential Interaction ◽

Risk Awareness ◽

Top Down ◽

Bottom Up ◽

Young Drivers ◽

Simulated Environments ◽

Training Impact ◽

Perception Training

The interaction between top-down and bottom-up processing is a way to characterize control of visual attention, but it has not been extensively applied to the driving domain. The Risk Awareness and Perception Training (RAPT) has been effective in improving drivers’ latent hazard anticipation, a top-down process. However, it is unclear whether RAPT protects drivers from being distracted by salient items on the roadway, diminishing latent hazard anticipation. The current driving simulator study examines the potential interaction between bottom-up and top-down processes by having RAPT-and Placebo-trained drivers navigate simulated environments with latent hazards and a stationary or dynamically moving pedestrian. While RAPT-trained drivers were better able to anticipate latent hazards than Placebo-trained drivers, presence of salient, bottom-up stimuli did not negatively impact hazard anticipation performance in either group. This implies RAPT-trained drivers were able to successfully divide their attention, anticipating latent hazards even in the presence of dynamic, driving-relevant objects.

Download Full-text

Explicit and implicit Need for Cognition and bottom-up/top-down attention allocation

Journal of Research in Personality ◽

10.1016/j.jrp.2014.11.002 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 55 ◽

pp. 10-13 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Alexander Strobel ◽

Monika Fleischhauer ◽

Sören Enge ◽

Anja Strobel

Keyword(s):

Need For Cognition ◽

Attention Allocation ◽

Top Down ◽

Bottom Up

Download Full-text

Oxytocin reduces top-down control of attention by increasing bottom-up attention allocation to social but not non-social stimuli

10.1101/519918 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Xiaolei Xu ◽

Jialin Li ◽

Zhuo Chen ◽

Keith M. Kendrick ◽

Benjamin Becker

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Processing ◽

Behavioral Inhibition ◽

Early Stage ◽

Attention Allocation ◽

Top Down ◽

Social Stimuli ◽

Double Blind ◽

Potential Conflict ◽

Bottom Up ◽

Attentional Processing

AbstractThe neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) may facilitate attention to social stimuli by influencing early stage bottom-up processing although findings in relation to different emotional expressions are inconsistent and its influence on top-down cognitive processing mechanisms unclear. In the current double-blind, placebo (PLC) controlled, between subject design study we therefore recruited 71 male subjects to investigate the effects of intranasal OXT (24IU) on both bottom-up attention allocation and top-down attention inhibition using a visual antisaccade paradigm with concurrent eye movement acquisition. Our results show that OXT increased antisaccade errors for social stimuli (all types of emotional faces), but not shapes. This effect of OXT was modulated by trait behavioral inhibition and there was also evidence for reduced state anxiety after OXT treatment. Antisaccades are under volitional control and therefore this indicates that OXT treatment produced reduced top-down inhibition. However, the overall findings are consistent with OXT acting to reduce top-down control of attention as a result of increasing bottom-up early attentional processing of social, but not non-social, stimuli in situations where the two systems are in potential conflict. This effect of OXT is also modulated by individual levels of trait behavioral inhibition possibly as a result of an anxiolytic action.

Download Full-text