scholarly journals Endogenous cueing effects for detection can be accounted for by a decision model of selective attention

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 315-321
Author(s):  
Miranda L. Johnson ◽  
John Palmer ◽  
Cathleen M. Moore ◽  
Geoffrey M. Boynton
Keyword(s):  
Selective Attention ◽  
Decision Model ◽  
External Noise ◽  
Orientation Discrimination ◽  
Spatial Cues ◽  
Selective Perception ◽  
Sequential Condition ◽  
Cueing Effect ◽  
Temporal Intervals ◽  
Spatial Locations

AbstractSpatial cues help participants detect a visual target when it appears at the cued location. One hypothesis for this cueing effect, called selective perception, is that cueing a location enhances perceptual encoding at that location. Another hypothesis, called selective decision, is that the cue has no effect on perception, but instead provides prior information that facilitates decision-making. We distinguished these hypotheses by comparing a simultaneous display with two spatial locations to sequential displays with two temporal intervals. The simultaneous condition had a partially valid spatial cue, and the sequential condition had a partially valid temporal cue. Selective perception predicts no cueing effect for sequential displays given there is enough time to switch attention. In contrast, selective decision predicts cueing effects for sequential displays regardless of time. We used endogenous cueing of a detection-like coarse orientation discrimination task with clear displays (no external noise or postmasks). Results showed cueing effects for the sequential condition, supporting a decision account of selective attention for endogenous cueing of detection-like tasks.

scholarly journals Online Transcranial Random Noise stimulation improves perception at high levels of visual white noise

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael D. Melnick ◽  
Woon Ju Park ◽  
Sholei Croom ◽  
Shuyi Chen ◽  
Lorella Batelli ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
White Noise ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Visual Processing ◽  
Random Noise ◽  
External Noise ◽  
Orientation Discrimination ◽  
Perceptual Training ◽  
Transcranial Random Noise Stimulation ◽  
Perceptual Performance ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms

AbstractTranscranial random noise stimulation (tRNS), a relatively recent addition to the field of non-invasive, electrical brain stimulation, has been shown to improve perceptual and cognitive functions across a wide variety of tasks. However, the underlying mechanisms of visual improvements caused by tRNS remain unclear. To study this question, we employed a well-established, equivalent-noise approach, which measures perceptual performance at various levels of external noise and is formalized by the Perceptual Template Model (PTM). This approach has been used extensively to infer the underlying mechanisms behind changes in visual processing, including those from perceptual training, adaptation and attention. Here, we used tRNS during an orientation discrimination task in the presence of increasing quantities of external visual white noise and fit the PTM to gain insights into the effects of tRNS on visual processing. Our results show that tRNS improves visual processing when stimulation is applied during task performance, but only at high levels of external visual white noise—a signature of improved external noise filtering. There were no significant effects of tRNS on task performance after the stimulation period. Of interest, the reported effects of tRNS on visual processing mimic those previously reported for endogenous spatial attention, offering a potential area of investigation for future work.

scholarly journals Temporal attention selectively enhances target features

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis D. Ramirez ◽  
Joshua J Foster ◽  
Sam Ling
Keyword(s):  
Formal Model ◽  
External Noise ◽  
Signal Enhancement ◽  
Orientation Discrimination ◽  
Temporal Attention ◽  
Noise Levels ◽  
Stimulus Enhancement ◽  
Divisive Normalization ◽  
Perceptual Performance ◽  
Improved Performance

Here, we examined the computations by which temporal attention, the allocation of attention to a moment in time, improves perception, under a divisive normalization framework. Under this framework, attention can improve perception of a target signal in three ways: stimulus enhancement (increasing gain across all sensory channels), signal enhancement (selectively increasing gain in channels that encode the target stimulus), or external noise exclusion (reducing the gain in channels that encode irrelevant features). These mechanisms make diverging predictions when a target is embedded in varying levels of noise: stimulus enhancement improves performance only when noise is low, signal enhancement improves performance at all noise intensities, and external noise exclusion improves performance only when noise is high. To date, temporal attention studies have used noise-free displays. Therefore, it is unclear whether temporal attention acts via stimulus enhancement (amplifying both target features and noise) or signal enhancement (selectively amplifying target features) because both mechanisms predict improved performance in the absence of noise. To tease these mechanisms apart, we manipulated temporal attention using an auditory cue while parametrically varying external noise in a fine-orientation discrimination task. Temporal attention improved performance across all noise levels. Formal model comparisons revealed that this cueing effect was best accounted for by a combination of signal enhancement and stimulus enhancement, suggesting that temporal attention improves perceptual performance, in part, by selectively increasing gain for target features.

scholarly journals Speech-in-Speech Recognition and Spatially Selective Attention in Children and Adults

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Stacey G. Kane ◽  
Kelly M. Dean ◽  
Emily Buss
Keyword(s):  
Speech Recognition ◽  
Word Recognition ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Selective Attention ◽  
Target Location ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Noise Burst ◽  
Spatial Cues ◽  
The One ◽  
Child Age

Purpose Knowing target location can improve adults' speech-in-speech recognition in complex auditory environments, but it is unknown whether young children listen selectively in space. This study evaluated masked word recognition with and without a pretrial cue to location to characterize the influence of listener age and masker type on the benefit of spatial cues. Method Participants were children (5–13 years of age) and adults with normal hearing. Testing occurred in a 180° arc of 11 loudspeakers. Targets were spondees produced by a female talker and presented from a randomly selected loudspeaker; that location was either known, based on a pretrial cue, or unknown. Maskers were two sequences comprising spondees or speech-shaped noise bursts, each presented from a random loudspeaker. Speech maskers were produced by one male talker or by three talkers, two male and one female. Results Children and adults benefited from the pretrial cue to target location with the three-voice masker, and the magnitude of benefit increased with increasing child age. There was no benefit of location cues in the one-voice or noise-burst maskers. Incorrect responses in the three-voice masker tended to correspond to masker words produced by the female talker, and in the location-known condition, those masker intrusions were more likely near the cued loudspeaker for both age groups. Conclusions Increasing benefit of the location cue with increasing child age in the three-voice masker suggests maturation of spatially selective attention, but error patterns do not support this idea. Differences in performance in the location-unknown condition could play a role in the differential benefit of the location cue.

scholarly journals Efficiency, Equality, and Labeling: An Experimental Investigation of Focal Points in Explicit Bargaining

2014 ◽  
Vol 104 (10) ◽  
pp. 3256-3287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Isoni ◽  
Anders Poulsen ◽  
Robert Sugden ◽  
Kei Tsutsui
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Investigation ◽  
Continuous Time ◽  
Strong Tendency ◽  
Focal Points ◽  
Bargaining Games ◽  
Spatial Cues ◽  
Or Efficiency ◽  
Distributional Effects ◽  
Experimental Games ◽  
Spatial Locations

We investigate Schelling's hypothesis that payoff-irrelevant labels (“cues”) can influence the outcomes of bargaining games with communication. In our experimental games, players negotiate over the division of a surplus by claiming valuable objects that have payoff-irrelevant spatial locations. Negotiation occurs in continuous time, constrained by a deadline. In some games, spatial cues are opposed to principles of equality or efficiency. We find a strong tendency for players to agree on efficient and minimally unequal payoff divisions, even if spatial cues suggest otherwise. But if there are two such divisions, cues are often used to select between them, inducing distributional effects. (JEL C78, D63, D83)

Modulation of Selective Attention by Sequential Effects in Visual Search Tasks

1979 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Rabbitt ◽  
Geoffrey Cumming ◽  
Subhash Vyas
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Selective Attention ◽  
Sequential Effects ◽  
Serial Search ◽  
Search Tasks ◽  
Spatial Locations

In visual search detection of a target on one display facilitates its subsequent recognition on the next (Rabbitt, Cumming and Vyas, 1977). Experiment I shows that facilitation also occurs when a different display intervenes between two displays containing targets. Two further experiments show that detection of target letters among background letters is also facilitated if the same background letters recur on successive displays. Facilitation is greatest if background letters reappear in identical left-to-right spatial locations, but is also evident when the same background letters recur in different locations on successive displays. The results suggest modifications to models for the ways in which selective attention is continuously modulated by successive events during serial search.

scholarly journals Sensorineural hearing loss degrades behavioral and physiological measures of human spatial selective auditory attention

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (14) ◽  
pp. E3286-E3295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lengshi Dai ◽  
Virginia Best ◽  
Barbara G. Shinn-Cunningham
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Selective Attention ◽  
Sensorineural Hearing Loss ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Auditory Attention ◽  
Sensorineural Hearing ◽  
Spatial Cues ◽  
Attentional Modulation ◽  
Attention Task ◽  
Cortical Responses

Listeners with sensorineural hearing loss often have trouble understanding speech amid other voices. While poor spatial hearing is often implicated, direct evidence is weak; moreover, studies suggest that reduced audibility and degraded spectrotemporal coding may explain such problems. We hypothesized that poor spatial acuity leads to difficulty deploying selective attention, which normally filters out distracting sounds. In listeners with normal hearing, selective attention causes changes in the neural responses evoked by competing sounds, which can be used to quantify the effectiveness of attentional control. Here, we used behavior and electroencephalography to explore whether control of selective auditory attention is degraded in hearing-impaired (HI) listeners. Normal-hearing (NH) and HI listeners identified a simple melody presented simultaneously with two competing melodies, each simulated from different lateral angles. We quantified performance and attentional modulation of cortical responses evoked by these competing streams. Compared with NH listeners, HI listeners had poorer sensitivity to spatial cues, performed more poorly on the selective attention task, and showed less robust attentional modulation of cortical responses. Moreover, across NH and HI individuals, these measures were correlated. While both groups showed cortical suppression of distracting streams, this modulation was weaker in HI listeners, especially when attending to a target at midline, surrounded by competing streams. These findings suggest that hearing loss interferes with the ability to filter out sound sources based on location, contributing to communication difficulties in social situations. These findings also have implications for technologies aiming to use neural signals to guide hearing aid processing.

scholarly journals The link between reading ability and visual spatial attention across development

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex L. White ◽  
Geoffrey M. Boynton ◽  
Jason D. Yeatman
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Attention ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Reading Ability ◽  
Dynamic Environment ◽  
Attentional Selection ◽  
Orientation Discrimination ◽  
Childhood And Adolescence ◽  
Visual Spatial ◽  
Cueing Effect ◽  
Wide Range

Interacting with a cluttered and dynamic environment requires making decisions about visual information at relevant locations while ignoring irrelevant locations. Typical adults can do this with covert spatial attention: prioritizing particular visual field locations even without moving the eyes. Deficits of covert spatial attention have been implicated in developmental dyslexia, a specific reading disability. Previous studies of children with dyslexia, however, have been complicated by group differences in overall task ability that are difficult to distinguish from selective spatial attention. Here, we used a single-fixation visual search task to estimate orientation discrimination thresholds with and without an informative spatial cue in a large sample (N=123) of people ranging in age from 5 to 70 years and with a wide range of reading abilities. We assessed the efficiency of attentional selection via the cueing effect: the difference in log thresholds with and without the spatial cue. Across our whole sample, both absolute thresholds and the cueing effect gradually improved throughout childhood and adolescence. Compared to typical readers, individuals with dyslexia had higher thresholds (worse orientation discrimination) as well as smaller cueing effects (weaker attentional selection). Those differences in dyslexia were especially pronounced prior to age 20, when basic visual function is still maturing. Thus, in line with previous theories, literacy skills are associated with the development of selective spatial attention.

scholarly journals Impoverished auditory cues fail to engage brain networks controlling spatial selective attention

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuqi Deng ◽  
Inyong Choi ◽  
Barbara Shinn-Cunningham ◽  
Robert Baumgartner
Keyword(s):  
Selective Attention ◽  
Spatial Attention ◽  
Transfer Functions ◽  
Auditory Attention ◽  
Sensory Response ◽  
Spatial Cues ◽  
Auditory Cues ◽  
Oscillatory Power ◽  
Interaural Differences ◽  
Natural Settings

AbstractSpatial selective attention enables listeners to process a signal of interest in natural settings. However, most past studies on auditory spatial attention used impoverished spatial cues: presenting competing sounds to different ears, using only interaural differences in time (ITDs) and/or intensity (IIDs), or using non-individualized head-related transfer functions (HRTFs). Here we tested the hypothesis that impoverished spatial cues impair spatial auditory attention by only weakly engaging relevant cortical networks. Eighteen normal-hearing listeners reported the content of one of two competing syllable streams simulated at roughly +30 ° and −30° azimuth. The competing streams consisted of syllables from two different-sex talkers. Spatialization was based on natural spatial cues (individualized HRTFs), individualized IIDs, or generic ITDs. We measured behavioral performance as well as electroencephalographic markers of selective attention. Behaviorally, subjects recalled target streams most accurately with natural cues. Neurally, spatial attention significantly modulated early evoked sensory response magnitudes only for natural cues, not in conditions using only ITDs or IIDs. Consistent with this, parietal oscillatory power in the alpha band (8-14 Hz; associated with filtering out distracting events from unattended directions) showed significantly less attentional modulation with isolated spatial cues than with natural cues. Our findings support the hypothesis that spatial selective attention networks are only partially engaged by impoverished spatial auditory cues. These results not only suggest that studies using unnatural spatial cues underestimate the neural effects of spatial auditory attention, they also illustrate the importance of preserving natural spatial cues in assistive listening devices to support robust attentional control.

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