scholarly journals Involuntary attentional orienting to counterproductive exogenous cues

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarina Evens ◽  
Gilles Pourtois ◽  
Antonio Schettino
Keyword(s):  
Bayes Factor ◽  
Stimulus Onset ◽  
Attentional Orienting ◽  
Factor Analyses ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Task Set ◽  
Endogenous Factors ◽  
Exogenous Cues ◽  
Temporal Order Judgement

ABSTRACT: In the literature, there is an ongoing debate regarding the nature of attentional orienting towards non-reportable exogenous cues. Some argue that even though bottom-up orienting can occur towards conscious stimuli, it is consistently modulated by endogenous factors in the case of unconscious stimuli. This would suggest that there may be no purely exogenous shifts of attention towards unconscious stimuli. In this thesis, we set out to provide compelling evidence for an automatic nature of attentional orienting towards non-reportable cues, independent from endogenous factors (e.g., attentional task set). To investigate this, an experiment employing the temporal order judgement (TOJ) paradigm was conducted, in which two line gratings of opposite orientation were presented on each side of a fixation, separated by various stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs). Participants were required to report the orientation of the line grating that was presented first. In two-thirds of the trials, a non-reportable exogenous cue was presented on the opposite location of the first line grating, making it counterproductive to attend to the cue. Cue awareness was assessed in addition to performance on the TOJ task. Data were analysed using parametric and non-parametric procedures, supplemented by Bayes factor analyses. Results from these procedures converged in showing a robust bias towards the cued line gratings, suggesting that bottom-up orienting towards non-reportable exogenous cues occurs independently from attentional task set.

Proprioceptive Precision and Degree of Visuo-Proprioceptive Discrepancy Do Not Influence the Strength of the Rubber Hand Illusion

Perception ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (9) ◽  
pp. 882-891 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paweł Motyka ◽  
Piotr Litwin
Keyword(s):  
Multiple Regression ◽  
Bayes Factor ◽  
Rubber Hand Illusion ◽  
Physiological Measures ◽  
Factor Analyses ◽  
Rubber Hand ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Sense Of Ownership

Rubber hand illusion is caused by spatiotemporally congruent visuotactile stimulation which induces a sense of ownership towards a fake limb. We tested two predictions of the Bayesian bottom-up model; namely, that the strength of the illusion is inversely proportional to (a) the distance separating hands and (b) the precision of proprioceptive signals. To manipulate distance, we displaced participants’ hands to either a position close to (8 cm) or far from (24 cm) the rubber hand. Before manipulation, we assessed proprioceptive abilities in a task requiring active reproduction of one’s arm’s position. Proprioceptive precision was operationalised as inversely related to the variance of the estimations. Multiple regression showed that both for subjective and physiological measures neither distance, nor proprioceptive precision, nor their interaction were predictors of illusion strength. Bayes factor analyses provided evidence for null effects. Our findings suggest the limited relevance of proprioception for the strength of visuo-haptically induced rubber hand illusion.

scholarly journals Do Bilingual Children Have an Executive Function Advantage? Results From Inhibition, Shifting, and Updating Tasks

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 356-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Genesis D. Arizmendi ◽  
Mary Alt ◽  
Shelley Gray ◽  
Tiffany P. Hogan ◽  
Samuel Green ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Executive Function ◽  
Bayes Factor ◽  
Second Graders ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Bilingual Advantage ◽  
School Aged Children ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Potential Factors

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine differences in performance between monolingual and Spanish–English bilingual second graders (aged 7–9 years old) on executive function tasks assessing inhibition, shifting, and updating to contribute more evidence to the ongoing debate about a potential bilingual executive function advantage. Method One hundred sixty-seven monolingual English-speaking children and 80 Spanish–English bilingual children were administered 7 tasks on a touchscreen computer in the context of a pirate game. Bayesian statistics were used to determine if there were differences between the monolingual and bilingual groups. Additional analyses involving covariates of maternal level of education and nonverbal intelligence, and matching on these same variables, were also completed. Results Scaled-information Bayes factor scores more strongly favored the null hypothesis that there were no differences between the bilingual and monolingual groups on any of the executive function tasks. For 2 of the tasks, we found an advantage in favor of the monolingual group. Conclusions If there is a bilingual advantage in school-aged children, it is not robust across circumstances. We discuss potential factors that might counteract an actual advantage, including task reliability and environmental influences.

scholarly journals Barriers to Financial Innovation—Corporate Finance Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 273
Author(s):  
Joanna Błach
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Finance ◽  
Financial Innovation ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Financial Strategy ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Endogenous Factors ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Financial Innovations ◽  
Complex Construction ◽  
Nonfinancial Firms

This paper addresses the application of financial innovations from the corporate finance perspective. The objective is to identify and prioritize the main types of barriers to the implementation of financial innovations by nonfinancial firms. The motivation behind the study lies in the importance of financial innovations for the firms’ ability to create value. As proven by the extensive literature review, comprehensive studies on financial innovation applications by nonfinancial firms are relatively rare. To cover this cognitive gap, the theoretical argumentation followed by the discussion of results of the empirical research are presented in this paper. The paper provides the results of two-stage survey research, aiming to find opinions of financial managers (end-users) and experts (creators of innovation) on the main barriers to financial innovations in Poland. According to managers, the most important are exogenous barriers, including: (1) Unclear tax and accounting regulations, (2) complex construction of financial innovations, and (3) transaction costs related to their application. On the other side, the experts from financial institutions recognized the greater importance of endogenous factors such as: (1) Lack of sufficient knowledge about financial innovations and (2) the reluctance to change observable in many firms. This study contributes to the ongoing debate on financial innovations by adding the perspective of corporate financial strategy. It also offers insights into the potential actions (at the institutional and individual level) aiming to reduce the barriers and support the implementation of financial innovations by nonfinancial firms.

scholarly journals ‘Spontaneous’ visual perspective-taking mediated by attention orienting that is voluntary and not reflexive

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 1020-1029 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark R Gardner ◽  
Zainabb Hull ◽  
Donna Taylor ◽  
Caroline J Edmonds
Keyword(s):  
Perspective Taking ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Stimulus Onset ◽  
General Purpose ◽  
Visual Perspective ◽  
Attentional Orienting ◽  
Efficient Manner ◽  
Reflexive Attention ◽  
Attention Orienting ◽  
Visual Perspective Taking

Experiments revealing ‘spontaneous’ visual perspective-taking are conventionally interpreted as demonstrating that adults have the capacity to track simple mental states in a fast and efficient manner (‘implicit mentalising’). A rival account suggests that these experiments can be explained by the general purpose mechanisms responsible for reflexive attentional orienting. Here, we report two experiments designed to distinguish between these competing accounts. In Experiment 1, we assessed whether reflexive attention orienting was sufficient to yield findings interpreted as spontaneous perspective-taking in the ‘avatar task’ when the protocol was adapted so that participants were unaware that they were taking part in a perspective-taking experiment. Results revealed no evidence for perspective-taking. In Experiment 2, we employed a Posner paradigm to investigate the attentional orienting properties of the avatar stimuli. This revealed cue-validity effects only for longer stimulus onset asynchronies, which indicates a voluntary rather than reflexive shift in spatial attention. Taken together, these findings suggest that attentional orienting does indeed contribute to performance in the Samson et al. avatar task. However, attention orienting appears to be voluntary rather than reflexive, indicating that the perspective-taking phenomenon measured may be less spontaneous than first reported.

Dissociable Neural Mechanisms for Encoding Predictable and Unpredictable Events

2006 ◽  
Vol 18 (7) ◽  
pp. 1120-1132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Summerfield ◽  
Jennifer A. Mangels
Keyword(s):  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Study Phase ◽  
Neural Synchrony ◽  
Attentional Orienting ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Episodic Memories ◽  
Gamma Band Activity ◽  
Band Activity ◽  
Attentional Mechanisms

Attention is a necessary condition for the formation of new episodic memories, yet little is known about how dissociable attentional mechanisms for “top-down” and “bottom-up” orienting contribute to encoding. Here, subjects performed an intentional encoding task in which to-be-learned items were interspersed with irrelevant stimuli such that subjects could anticipate the appearance of some study items but not others. Subjects were more likely to later remember stimuli whose appearance was predictable at encoding. Electroencephalographic data were acquired during the study phase of the experiment to assess how synchronous neural activity related to later memory for predictable stimuli (to which attention could be oriented in a top-down fashion) and unpredictable stimuli (which rely to a greater extent on bottom-up attentional orienting). Over left frontal regions, gamma-band activity (25–55 Hz) early (∼150 msec) in the epoch was a robust predictor of later memory for predictable items, consistent with an emerging view that links high-frequency neural synchrony to top-down attention. By contrast, later (∼400 msec) theta-band activity (4–8 Hz) over the left and midline frontal cortex predicted subsequent memory for unpredictable items, suggesting a role in bottom-up attentional orienting. These results reveal for the first time the contribution of dissociable attentional mechanisms to successful encoding and contribute to a growing literature dedicated to understanding the role of neural synchrony in cognition.

scholarly journals The effects of high versus low talker variability and individual aptitude on phonetic training of Mandarin lexical tones

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanyu Dong ◽  
Meghan Clayards ◽  
Helen Brown ◽  
Elizabeth Wonnacott
Keyword(s):  
Bayes Factor ◽  
High Variability ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Factor Analyses ◽  
Substantial Evidence ◽  
Talker Variability ◽  
Effectiveness Of Training ◽  
Phonetic Contrasts ◽  
Mandarin Tones ◽  
And Training

High variability training has been found to be more effective than low variability training when learning various non-native phonetic contrasts. However, little research has considered whether this applies to the learning of tone contrasts. The only two relevant studies suggested that the effect of high variability training depends on the perceptual aptitude of participants (Perrachione, Lee, Ha, & Wong, 2011; Sadakata & McQueen, 2014). The present study extends these findings by examining the interaction between individual aptitude and input variability using natural, meaningful second language input (both previous studies used pseudowords). Sixty English speakers took part in an eight session phonetic training paradigm. They were assigned to high/low/high-blocked variability training groups and learned real Mandarin tones and words. Individual aptitude was measured following previous work. Learning was measured using one discrimination task, one identification task and two production tasks. All tasks assessed generalisation. All groups improved in both the production and perception of tones which transferred to untrained voices and items, demonstrating the effectiveness of training despite the increased complexity compared with previous research. Although the low variability group exhibited an advantage with the training stimuli, there was no evidence for a benefit of high-variability in any of the tests of generalisation. Moreover, although aptitude significantly predicted performance in discrimination, identification and training tasks, no interaction between individual aptitude and variability was revealed. Additional Bayes Factor analyses indicated substantial evidence for the null for the hypotheses of a benefit of high-variability in generalisation, however the evidence regarding the interaction was ambiguous. We discuss these results in light of previous findings.

Bayes factor analyses of heritability for serum and muscle lipid traits in Duroc pigs1

2010 ◽  
Vol 88 (7) ◽  
pp. 2246-2254 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Casellas ◽  
J. L. Noguera ◽  
J. Reixach ◽  
I. Díaz ◽  
M. Amills ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bayes Factor ◽  
Factor Analyses ◽  
Muscle Lipid

scholarly journals Involuntary Attentional Capture is Determined by Task Set: Evidence from Event-related Brain Potentials

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 1423-1433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Eimer ◽  
Monika Kiss
Keyword(s):  
Attentional Capture ◽  
Alternative Interpretation ◽  
Color Singleton ◽  
Attentional Orienting ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Task Set ◽  
Visual Objects ◽  
Current Task ◽  
Physically Identical

To find out whether attentional capture by irrelevant but salient visual objects is an exogenous bottom–up phenomenon, or can be modulated by current task set, two experiments were conducted where the N2pc component was measured as an electrophysiological marker of attentional selection in response to spatially uninformative color singleton cues that preceded target arrays. When observers had to report the orientation of a uniquely colored target bar among distractor bars (color task), behavioral spatial cueing effects were accompanied by an early cue-induced N2pc, indicative of rapid attentional capture by color singleton cues. In contrast, when they reported the orientation of target bars presented without distractors (onset task), no behavioral cueing effects were found and no early N2pc was triggered to physically identical cue arrays. Experiment 2 ruled out an alternative interpretation of these N2pc differences in terms of distractor inhibition. These results do not support previous claims that attentional capture is initially unaffected by top–down intention, and demonstrate the central role of task set in involuntary attentional orienting.

Online Connective Representation in China

Asian Survey ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 391-415
Author(s):  
Thomas Heberer ◽  
Anna Shpakovskaya
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
New Information ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Private Entrepreneurs

In this article, we join an ongoing debate among Western scholars on political representation and argue that political representation is undergoing a transformation stimulated by the rapid proliferation of the new information and communication technologies. We propose that in China, the new social media have stimulated a shift from representation by official organizations to bottom-up self-representation, and from mandate political representation to embodiment. To grasp this change, we select private entrepreneurs as our focus of study and propose the concept of “connective representation.” Drawing on fieldwork in China from 2015 through 2019 and on analysis of online materials, we demonstrate how private entrepreneurs in China form and advance their collective interests through online connectivity. The concept of connective representation adds to the conventional perspectives on political representation, particularly in the authoritarian setting.

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