Motivation reduces positive and negative emotional distractions

<p>Attention is biased toward emotional stimuli, which are often important for our biologically-determined goals of survival and reproduction. But to succeed in our daily tasks we must sometimes ignore emotional stimuli that are not relevant to current goals. In four experiments, I examine the extent to which we can ignore emotional stimuli if we are motivated to do so. I draw on the Dual Mechanisms of Control (DMC) framework which proposes that we use two modes of control to deal with distraction: reactive control, which shifts attention back to a task after distraction has occurred; and proactive control, which allows us to anticipate and control distraction before it occurs. In non-emotional contexts, task motivation encourages use of more effective, but more effortful, proactive control to ignore emotionally-neutral distractions. But, little is known about how we can control our attention to ignore highly distracting emotional stimuli. In all experiments, participants completed a simple visual task while attempting to ignore task-irrelevant negative (mutilation scenes), positive (erotic scenes), and neutral images (scenes of people). Distraction was indexed by slowing on distractor trials relative to a scrambled distractor, or no distractor, baseline. To manipulate motivation, half the participants completed the task with no performance-contingent reward; the other half completed the task with the opportunity to earn points and/or money for fast and accurate performance. In Experiment 1 the images were presented centrally, so attention must be shifted from the distractor location to complete the task. Reward reduced distraction by both positive and negative emotional images. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1, and measured pupil dilation to index the timecourse of cognitive effort. The aim of Experiment 2 was to determine whether motivation elicits a shift to proactive control to reduce emotional distraction, as it does in non-emotional contexts. Again, reward reduced positive and negative distraction. Pupil findings indicated that reward dynamically enhanced proactive control prior to stimulus-onset, facilitating rapid disengagement from distractors, regardless of their expected emotional value. In contrast, a sustained proactive strategy was used across blocks in which emotional distractors were expected, relative to blocks in which neutral distractors were expected. In the final two experiments, the distractors were presented peripherally and so must capture attention away from the central targets to impair performance. In Experiment 3, and in Experiment 4 – in which the points did not represent money – reward reduced attentional capture by positive and negative emotional distractors. Together, findings show that motivation can enhance control of positive and negative distractions that appear both centrally, and peripherally. Findings extend the DMC framework to an emotional context; motivation elicits a shift to proactive control, even when distractors are high arousal emotional stimuli. Further, in three out of four experiments, reward reduced emotional to a greater extent than neutral distraction, consistent with reward altering the outcome of goal-driven attentional competition between the targets and distractors. Understanding the complex interactions between motivation, emotion, and cognitive control will help to elucidate how we successfully navigate the world to achieve our goals.</p>

Motivation reduces positive and negative emotional distractions

<p>Attention is biased toward emotional stimuli, which are often important for our biologically-determined goals of survival and reproduction. But to succeed in our daily tasks we must sometimes ignore emotional stimuli that are not relevant to current goals. In four experiments, I examine the extent to which we can ignore emotional stimuli if we are motivated to do so. I draw on the Dual Mechanisms of Control (DMC) framework which proposes that we use two modes of control to deal with distraction: reactive control, which shifts attention back to a task after distraction has occurred; and proactive control, which allows us to anticipate and control distraction before it occurs. In non-emotional contexts, task motivation encourages use of more effective, but more effortful, proactive control to ignore emotionally-neutral distractions. But, little is known about how we can control our attention to ignore highly distracting emotional stimuli. In all experiments, participants completed a simple visual task while attempting to ignore task-irrelevant negative (mutilation scenes), positive (erotic scenes), and neutral images (scenes of people). Distraction was indexed by slowing on distractor trials relative to a scrambled distractor, or no distractor, baseline. To manipulate motivation, half the participants completed the task with no performance-contingent reward; the other half completed the task with the opportunity to earn points and/or money for fast and accurate performance. In Experiment 1 the images were presented centrally, so attention must be shifted from the distractor location to complete the task. Reward reduced distraction by both positive and negative emotional images. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1, and measured pupil dilation to index the timecourse of cognitive effort. The aim of Experiment 2 was to determine whether motivation elicits a shift to proactive control to reduce emotional distraction, as it does in non-emotional contexts. Again, reward reduced positive and negative distraction. Pupil findings indicated that reward dynamically enhanced proactive control prior to stimulus-onset, facilitating rapid disengagement from distractors, regardless of their expected emotional value. In contrast, a sustained proactive strategy was used across blocks in which emotional distractors were expected, relative to blocks in which neutral distractors were expected. In the final two experiments, the distractors were presented peripherally and so must capture attention away from the central targets to impair performance. In Experiment 3, and in Experiment 4 – in which the points did not represent money – reward reduced attentional capture by positive and negative emotional distractors. Together, findings show that motivation can enhance control of positive and negative distractions that appear both centrally, and peripherally. Findings extend the DMC framework to an emotional context; motivation elicits a shift to proactive control, even when distractors are high arousal emotional stimuli. Further, in three out of four experiments, reward reduced emotional to a greater extent than neutral distraction, consistent with reward altering the outcome of goal-driven attentional competition between the targets and distractors. Understanding the complex interactions between motivation, emotion, and cognitive control will help to elucidate how we successfully navigate the world to achieve our goals.</p>

Surprisingly inflexible: Statistically learned suppression of distractors generalizes across contexts

The present study investigates the flexibility of statistically learned distractor suppression between different contexts. Participants performed the additional singleton task searching for a unique shape, while ignoring a uniquely colored distractor. Crucially, we created two contexts within the experiments, and each context was assigned its own high-probability distractor location, so that the location where the distractor was most likely to appear depended on the context. Experiment 1 signified context through the color of the background. In Experiment 2, we aimed to more strongly differentiate between the contexts using an auditory or visual cue to indicate the upcoming context. In Experiment 3, context determined the appropriate response ensuring that participants engaged the context in order to be able to perform the task. Across all experiments, participants learned to suppress both high-probability locations, even if they were not aware of these spatial regularities. However, these suppression effects occurred independent of context, as the pattern of suppression reflected a de-prioritization of both high-probability locations which did not change with the context. We employed Bayesian analyses to statistically quantify the absence of context-dependent suppression effects. We conclude that statistically learned distractor suppression is robust and generalizes across contexts.

Diversion of Attention Leads to Conflict between Concurrently Attended Stimuli, Not Delayed Orienting to the Object of Interest

The control processes that guide attention to a visual-search target can result in the selection of an irrelevant object with similar features (a distractor). Once attention is captured by such a distractor, search for a subsequent target is momentarily impaired if the two stimuli appear at different locations. The textbook explanation for this impairment is based on the notion of an indivisible focus of attention that moves to the distractor, illuminates a nontarget that subsequently appears at that location, and then moves to the target once the nontarget is rejected. Here, we show that such delayed orienting to the target does not underlie the behavioral cost of distraction. Observers identified a color-defined target appearing within the second of two stimulus arrays. The first array contained irrelevant items, including one that shared the target's color. ERPs were examined to test two predictions stemming from the textbook serial-orienting hypothesis. Namely, when the target and distractor appear at different locations, (1) the target should elicit delayed selection activity relative to same-location trials, and (2) the nontarget search item appearing at the distractor location should elicit selection activity that precedes selection activity tied to the target. Here, the posterior contralateral N2 component was used to track selection of each of these search-array items and the previous distractor. The results supported neither prediction above, thereby disconfirming the serial-orienting hypothesis. Overall, the results show that the behavioral costs of distraction are caused by perceptual and postperceptual competition between concurrently attended target and nontarget stimuli.

Spatial suppression due to statistical regularities in a visual detection task

Increasing evidence demonstrates that observers can learn the likely location of salient singleton distractors during visual search. To date, the reduced attentional capture at high-probability distractor locations has typically been examined using so called compound search, in which by design a target is always present. Here, we explored whether statistical distractor learning can also be observed in a visual detection task, in which participants respond target present if the singleton target is present and respond target absent when the singleton target is absent. If so, this allows us to examine suppression of the location that is likely to contain a distractor both in the presence, but critically also in the absence, of a priority signal generated by the target singleton. In an online variant of the additional singleton paradigm, observers had to indicate whether a unique shape was present or absent, while ignoring a colored singleton, which appeared with a higher probability in one specific location. We show that attentional capture was reduced, but not absent, at high-probability distractor locations, irrespective of whether the display contained a target or not. By contrast, target processing at the high-probability distractor location was selectively impaired on distractor-present displays. Moreover, all suppressive effects were characterized by a gradient such that suppression scaled with the distance to the high-probability distractor location. We conclude that statistical distractor learning can be examined in visual detection tasks, and discuss the implications for attentional suppression due to statistical learning.

Impaired selection of a previously ignored singleton: Evidence for salience map plastic changes

Spatial suppression of a salient colour distractor is achievable via statistical learning. Distractor suppression attenuates unwanted capture, but at the same time target selection at the most likely distractor location is impaired. This result corroborates the idea that the distractor salience is attenuated via inhibitory signals applied to the corresponding location in the priority map. What is less clear, however, is whether lingering impairment in target selection when the distractor is removed are due to the proactive strategic maintenance of the suppressive signal at the previous most likely distractor location or result from the fact that suppression has induced plastic changes in the priority map, probably changing input weights. Here, we provide evidence that supports the latter possibility, as we found that impairment in target selection persisted even when the singleton distractor in the training phase became the target of search in a subsequent test phase. This manipulation rules out the possibility that the observed impairments at the previous most likely distractor location were caused by a signal suppression maintained at this location. Rather, the results reveal that the inhibitory signals cause long-lasting changes in the priority map, which affect future computation of the target salience at the same location, and therefore the efficiency of attentional selection.

Statistical learning of frequent distractor locations in visual search involves regional signal suppression in early visual cortex

Observers can learn the locations where salient distractors appear frequently to reduce potential interference - an effect attributed to better suppression of distractors at frequent locations. But how distractor suppression is implemented in the visual cortex and frontoparietal attention networks remains unclear. We used fMRI and a regional distractor-location learning paradigm (Sauter et al. 2018, 2020) with two types of distractors defined in either the same (orientation) or a different (colour) dimension to the target to investigate this issue. fMRI results showed that BOLD signals in early visual cortex were significantly reduced for distractors (as well as targets) occurring at the frequent versus rare locations, mirroring behavioural patterns. This reduction was more robust with same-dimension distractors. Crucially, behavioural interference was correlated with distractor-evoked visual activity only for same- (but not different-) dimension distractors. Moreover, with different- (but not same-) dimension distractors, a colour-processing area within the fusiform gyrus was activated more when a colour distractor was present versus absent and with a distractor occurring at a rare versus frequent location. These results support statistical learning of frequent distractor locations involving regional suppression in the early visual cortex and point to differential neural mechanisms of distractor handling with different- versus same-dimension distractors.

Suppression of alpha-band power underlies exogenous attention to emotional distractors

Alpha-band oscillations (8-14 Hz) are essential for attention and perception processes by facilitating the selection of relevant information. Directing visuospatial endogenous (voluntary) attention to a given location consistently results in a power suppression of alpha activity over occipito-parietal areas contralateral to the attended visual field. In contrast, the neural oscillatory dynamics underlying the involuntary capture of attention, or exogenous attention, are currently under debate. By exploiting the inherent capacity of emotionally salient visual stimuli to capture attention, we aimed to investigate whether exogenous attention is characterized by either a reduction or an increase in alpha-band activity. Electroencephalographic activity was recorded while participants completed a Posner visuospatial cueing task, in which a lateralized image with either positive, negative, or neutral emotional content competed with a target stimulus presented in the opposite hemifield. Compared with trials with no distractors, alpha power was reduced over occipital regions contralateral to distracting images. This reduction of alpha activity turned out to be functionally relevant, as it correlated with impaired behavioural performance on the ongoing task and was enhanced for distractors with negative valence. Taken together, our results demonstrate that visuospatial exogenous attention is characterized by a suppression of alpha-band activity contralateral to distractor location, similar to the oscillatory underpinnings of endogenous attention. Further, these results highlight the key role of exogenous attention as an adaptive mechanism for the efficient detection of biologically salient stimuli.HighlightsExogenous attention is indexed by alpha suppression contralateral to distractors.Alpha power decrease is enhanced by distractors with negative emotional valence.Lower levels of alpha power correlate with poorer task performance accuracy.The negativity bias in exogenous attention might reflect an adaptive mechanism.

Statistical regularities cause attentional suppression with target-matching distractors

Visual search may be disrupted by the presentation of salient, but irrelevant stimuli. To reduce the impact of salient distractors, attention may suppress their processing below baseline level. While there are many studies on the attentional suppression of distractors with features distinct from the target (e.g., a color distractor with a shape target), there is little and inconsistent evidence for attentional suppression with distractors sharing the target feature. In this study, distractor and target were temporally separated in a cue–target paradigm, where the cue was shown briefly before the target display. With target-matching cues, RTs were shorter when the cue appeared at the target location (valid cues) compared with when it appeared at a nontarget location (invalid cues). To induce attentional suppression, we presented the cue more frequently at one out of four possible target positions. We found that invalid cues appearing at the high-frequency cue position produced less interference than invalid cues appearing at a low-frequency cue position. Crucially, target processing was also impaired at the high-frequency cue position, providing strong evidence for attentional suppression of the cued location. Overall, attentional suppression of the frequent distractor location could be established through feature-based attention, suggesting that feature-based attention may guide attentional suppression just as it guides attentional enhancement.

Statistical learning of frequent distractor locations in visual search: A role for post-selective distractor rejection processes?

People can learn to ignore salient distractors that occur frequently at particular locations. This distractor-location probability-cueing effect has been attributed to learnt suppression of the likely distractor locations at a pre-selective stage of attentional-priority computations. An alternative, post-selective account would be that distractors are as likely to capture attention at frequent as at rare locations, but attention can be disengaged faster from distractors at frequent locations. Eye-movement studies confirm that learnt suppression, evidenced by a reduced rate of oculomotor capture by distractors at frequent locations, is a major factor, whereas the evidence is mixed with regard to a role of rapid disengagement (pro: Wang et al., 2019; contra: Di Caro et al., 2019). However, methodological choices in these studies limited conclusions as to the contribution of a post-capture effect. Using an adjusted design, here we positively establish the rapid-disengagement effect and demonstrate further processes contributing to probability cueing beyond the oculomotor capture and disengagement dynamics. Moreover, we examine statistical-learning effects not only for distractors defined in a different visual dimension to the search target (comparable with previous work), but also for distractors defined within the same dimension, which are known to cause particularly strong attentional capture. Of theoretical importance, we corroborate our previous finding of responses being slowed (on distractor-absent trials) to targets at frequent distractor locations only in the same-, but not the different-, dimension condition. Consistent with a pre-selective origin, this target-location effect already impacted the latency of the very first saccade.