scholarly journals How can we learn what attention is? Response gating via multiple direct routes kept in check by inhibitory control processes

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 238-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sven Panis
Keyword(s):  
Time Course ◽  
Reference Frames ◽  
Uncued Location ◽  
Target Onset ◽  
Premature Response ◽  
Channel Activation ◽  
Control Processes ◽  
Selection Processes ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
Response Channel

AbstractTo explore the time course of space- and object-based attentional selection processes I analysed the shapes of the response time (RT) and accuracy distributions of left/right arrow identification responses in the two-rectangle paradigm. After cueing one of the four ends of two horizontally or vertically oriented rectangles the arrow typically appears at the cued location (valid), or sometimes at an uncued location in the same (invalid-same) or other rectangle (invalid-different). The data point to a multiple-route model in which (a) an informative cue generates response channel activation before arrow signals emerge, (b) the task-irrelevant arrow location is represented in multiple egocentric and allocentric reference frames around 150 ms after target onset, with the former including a reference frame centered on the currently attended location, (c) the task-irrelevant spatial codes activate premature response tendencies that are actively inhibited to allow gating of arrow direction signals, (d) after an invalid cue the onset of the arrow triggers an “attention shift” – acting between 150 and 240 ms after target onset – that strongly interferes with task performance in certain conditions (invalid-same cueing with horizontal rectangles, and invalid-different cueing with vertical rectangles), and (e) participants differ in which task-irrelevant codes they preferentially inhibit. These results pave the way for future confirmatory studies to temporally characterize and disentangle the contributions of different types of response channel activation processes, from those of reactive cognitive control processes including active and selective response suppression.

scholarly journals What is causing “inhibition of return” in spatial cueing tasks? Temporally disentangling multiple cue-triggered effects on multiple time scales using response history and conditional accuracy analyses.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sven Panis ◽  
Thomas Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Inhibition Of Return ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
Multiple Time Scales ◽  
Multiple Time ◽  
Target Onset ◽  
Channel Activation ◽  
Spatial Cueing ◽  
Response Channel

Research on spatial cueing has shown that uninformative cues often facilitate mean response time (RT) performance in valid- compared to invalid-cueing conditions at short cue-target stimulus-onset-asynchronies (SOAs), and robustly generate a reversed or inhibitory cueing effect at longer SOAs that is widely known as inhibition-of-return (IOR). To study the within-trial time course of IOR we employ discrete-time hazard and conditional accuracy analyses to describe and model the shapes of the RT and accuracy distributions measured in two experimental tasks. In contrast to the mean performance measures, our distributional analyses show that (a) the uninformative cue generates response channel activation, (b) which continues during the cue-target interval so that the cue location must be stored in spatial working memory, (c) the premature cue-triggered response is selectively inhibited before target onset, (d) the IOR effect (valid versus invalid cueing) emerges around 160 ms after target onset in the hazard functions when cue-target SOA exceeds ~200 ms, quickly increases and decreases in size, and is gone within 120 ms, (e) the inhibitory component does not diminish over the course of the experiment, and (f) the location of an additional central cue relative to the current focus of spatial attention can generate response channel activation as well. These distributional data show that mean performance patterns conceal crucial information about behavioral dynamics, and suggest that sensory IOR is the direct result of encoding the cue location in spatial working memory to promote change detection, instead of attention leaving an inhibitory tag to promote visual search.

scholarly journals Distraction by deviant sounds during reading: An eye-movement study

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (7) ◽  
pp. 1863-1875 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin R Vasilev ◽  
Fabrice BR Parmentier ◽  
Bernhard Angele ◽  
Julie A Kirkby
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Lexical Processing ◽  
Repeated Sequence ◽  
Reading Performance ◽  
Sequence Capture ◽  
Fixation Durations ◽  
Movement Study ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
Target Words

Oddball studies have shown that sounds unexpectedly deviating from an otherwise repeated sequence capture attention away from the task at hand. While such distraction is typically regarded as potentially important in everyday life, previous work has so far not examined how deviant sounds affect performance on more complex daily tasks. In this study, we developed a new method to examine whether deviant sounds can disrupt reading performance by recording participants’ eye movements. Participants read single sentences in silence and while listening to task-irrelevant sounds. In the latter condition, a 50-ms sound was played contingent on the fixation of five target words in the sentence. On most occasions, the same tone was presented (standard sound), whereas on rare and unexpected occasions it was replaced by white noise (deviant sound). The deviant sound resulted in significantly longer fixation durations on the target words relative to the standard sound. A time-course analysis showed that the deviant sound began to affect fixation durations around 180 ms after fixation onset. Furthermore, deviance distraction was not modulated by the lexical frequency of target words. In summary, fixation durations on the target words were longer immediately after the presentation of the deviant sound, but there was no evidence that it interfered with the lexical processing of these words. The present results are in line with the recent proposition that deviant sounds yield a temporary motor suppression and suggest that deviant sounds likely inhibit the programming of the next saccade.

scholarly journals Systemic Effects of Selection History on Learned Ignoring

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy Jeesu Kim ◽  
Brian A. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Reaction Time ◽  
Young Adult ◽  
High Probability ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Systemic Effects ◽  
Reduced Frequency ◽  
Selection History ◽  
Adult Participants ◽  
Task Irrelevant

Despite our best intentions, physically salient but entirely task-irrelevant stimuli can sometimes capture our attention. With learning, it is possible to more efficiently ignore such stimuli, although specifically how the visual system accomplishes this remains to be clarified. Using a sample of young-adult participants, we examined the time course of eye movements to targets and distractors. We replicate a reduced frequency of eye movements to the distractor when appearing in a location at which distractors are frequently encountered. This reduction was observed even for the earliest saccades, when selection tends to be most stimulus-driven. When the distractor appeared at the high-probability location, saccadic reaction time was slowed specifically for distractor-going saccades, suggesting a slowing of priority accumulation at this location. In the event that the distractor was fixated, disengagement from the distractor was also faster when it appeared in the high-probability location. Both proactive and reactive mechanisms of distractor suppression work together to minimize attentional capture by frequently-encountered distractors.

scholarly journals Early and Late Modulation of Saccade Deviations by Target Distractor Similarity

2009 ◽  
Vol 102 (3) ◽  
pp. 1451-1458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manon Mulckhuyse ◽  
Stefan Van der Stigchel ◽  
Jan Theeuwes
Keyword(s):  
Time Course ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Dependent Measure ◽  
Saccade Latency ◽  
Oculomotor Control ◽  
Opposite Pattern ◽  
Selection Processes ◽  
Time Courses ◽  
Saccade Trajectory ◽  
Rule Out

In this study, we investigated the time course of oculomotor competition between bottom-up and top-down selection processes using saccade trajectory deviations as a dependent measure. We used a paradigm in which we manipulated saccade latency by offsetting the fixation point at different time points relative to target onset. In experiment 1, observers made a saccade to a filled colored circle while another irrelevant distractor circle was presented. The distractor was either similar (i.e., identical) or dissimilar to the target. Results showed that the strength of saccade deviation was modulated by target distractor similarity for short saccade latencies. To rule out the possibility that the similar distractor affected the saccade trajectory merely because it was identical to the target, the distractor in experiment 2 was a square shape of which only the color was similar or dissimilar to the target. The results showed that deviations for both short and long latencies were modulated by target distractor similarity. When saccade latencies were short, we found less saccade deviation away from a similar than from a dissimilar distractor. When saccade latencies were long, the opposite pattern was found: more saccade deviation away from a similar than from a dissimilar distractor. In contrast to previous findings, our study shows that task-relevant information can already influence the early processes of oculomotor control. We conclude that competition between saccadic goals is subject to two different processes with different time courses: one fast activating process signaling the saliency and task relevance of a location and one slower inhibitory process suppressing that location.

The Time-Course of the Cross-Modal Semantic Modulation of Visual Picture Processing by Naturalistic Sounds and Spoken Words

2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 371-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi-Chuan Chen ◽  
Charles Spence
Keyword(s):  
Time Course ◽  
Inhibitory Effect ◽  
Stimulus Onset ◽  
Noise Condition ◽  
Semantic Congruency ◽  
Spoken Words ◽  
Processing Pathways ◽  
Time Courses ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
Modal Semantic

The time-course of cross-modal semantic interactions between pictures and either naturalistic sounds or spoken words was compared. Participants performed a speeded picture categorization task while hearing a task-irrelevant auditory stimulus presented at various stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) with respect to the visual picture. Both naturalistic sounds and spoken words gave rise to cross-modal semantic congruency effects (i.e., facilitation by semantically congruent sounds and inhibition by semantically incongruent sounds, as compared to a baseline noise condition) when the onset of the sound led that of the picture by 240 ms or more. Both naturalistic sounds and spoken words also gave rise to inhibition irrespective of their semantic congruency when presented within 106 ms of the onset of the picture. The peak of this cross-modal inhibitory effect occurred earlier for spoken words than for naturalistic sounds. These results therefore demonstrate that the semantic priming of visual picture categorization by auditory stimuli only occurs when the onset of the sound precedes that of the visual stimulus. The different time-courses observed for naturalistic sounds and spoken words likely reflect the different processing pathways to access the relevant semantic representations.

Response Channel Activation and the Temporoparietal Junction

1998 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 461-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Ro ◽  
Asher Cohen ◽  
Richard B. Ivry ◽  
Robert D. Rafal
Keyword(s):  
Channel Activation ◽  
Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
Response Channel

Covert orienting to the locations of targets and distractors: Effects on response channel activation in a flanker task

2002 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 917-936 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Ro ◽  
Liana Machado ◽  
Nancy Kanwisher ◽  
Robert D. Rafal
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Attention ◽  
Flanker Task ◽  
Channel Activation ◽  
Covert Orienting ◽  
Exogenous Cues ◽  
Colour Patch ◽  
Target Locations ◽  
Response Channel ◽  
Flanker Interference

The role of covert orienting of attention in response channel activation was examined using the flanker interference and precueing paradigms. Four experiments assessed the influence of distractors on the discrimination of a target colour patch under cueing conditions (three with non-informative, exogenous cues and one with informative, endogenous cues) that modulated attention at the flanker or target locations. Across all of the experiments, the amount of interference generated by the distractors was not modulated by the facilitation and inhibition of return induced by spatial attention precues. These results are consistent with previous reports of patients with neglect, which demonstrated that flanker interference proceeds at unattended locations (Audet, Bub, & Lecours, 1991; Cohen, Ivry, Rafal, & Kohn, 1995), and they suggest that response channel activation can occur independently from spatial attention.

scholarly journals Molecular mechanism of BK channel activation by the smooth muscle relaxant NS11021

2020 ◽  
Vol 152 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael E. Rockman ◽  
Alexandre G. Vouga ◽  
Brad S. Rothberg
Keyword(s):  
Smooth Muscle ◽  
Muscle Relaxant ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Bk Channels ◽  
Bk Channel ◽  
Neurological Deficits ◽  
Open Probability ◽  
Channel Activation ◽  
Voltage Sensors ◽  
Smooth Muscle Relaxant

Large-conductance Ca2+-activated K+ channels (BK channels) are activated by cytosolic calcium and depolarized membrane potential under physiological conditions. Thus, these channels control electrical excitability in neurons and smooth muscle by gating K+ efflux and hyperpolarizing the membrane in response to Ca2+ signaling. Altered BK channel function has been linked to epilepsy, dyskinesia, and other neurological deficits in humans, making these channels a key target for drug therapies. To gain insight into mechanisms underlying pharmacological modulation of BK channel gating, here we studied mechanisms underlying activation of BK channels by the biarylthiourea derivative, NS11021, which acts as a smooth muscle relaxant. We observe that increasing NS11021 shifts the half-maximal activation voltage for BK channels toward more hyperpolarized voltages, in both the presence and nominal absence of Ca2+, suggesting that NS11021 facilitates BK channel activation primarily by a mechanism that is distinct from Ca2+ activation. 30 µM NS11021 slows the time course of BK channel deactivation at −200 mV by ∼10-fold compared with 0 µM NS11021, while having little effect on the time course of activation. This action is most pronounced at negative voltages, at which the BK channel voltage sensors are at rest. Single-channel kinetic analysis further shows that 30 µM NS11021 increases open probability by 62-fold and increases mean open time from 0.15 to 0.52 ms in the nominal absence of Ca2+ at voltages less than −60 mV, conditions in which BK voltage sensors are largely in the resting state. We could therefore account for the major activating effects of NS11021 by a scheme in which the drug primarily shifts the pore-gate equilibrium toward the open state.

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