Dataset Information

Dissociable effects of salience on attention and goal-directed action.

ABSTRACT: Everyday behavior frequently involves encounters with multiple objects that compete for selection. For example, driving a car requires constant shifts of attention between oncoming traffic, rearview mirrors, and traffic signs and signals, among other objects. Behavioral goals often drive this selection process [1, 2]; however, they are not the sole determinant of selection. Physically salient objects, such as flashing, brightly colored hazard signs, or objects that are salient by virtue of learned associations with reward, such as pictures of food on a billboard, often capture attention regardless of the individual's goals [3-6]. It is typically thought that strongly salient distractor objects capture more attention and are more disruptive than weakly salient distractors [7, 8]. Counterintuitively, though, we found that this is true for perception, but not for goal-directed action. In a visually guided reaching task [9-11], we required participants to reach to a shape-defined target while trying to ignore salient distractors. We observed that strongly salient distractors produced less disruption in goal-directed action than weakly salient distractors. Thus, a strongly salient distractor triggers suppression during goal-directed action, resulting in enhanced efficiency and accuracy of target selection relative to when weakly salient distractors are present. In contrast, in a task requiring no goal-directed action, we found greater attentional interference from strongly salient distractors. Thus, while highly salient stimuli interfere strongly with perceptual processing, increased physical salience or associated value attenuates action-related interference.

SUBMITTER: Moher J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4526432 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Dissociable effects of salience on attention and goal-directed action.

Moher Jeff J Anderson Brian A BA Song Joo-Hyun JH

Current biology : CB 20150716 15

Everyday behavior frequently involves encounters with multiple objects that compete for selection. For example, driving a car requires constant shifts of attention between oncoming traffic, rearview mirrors, and traffic signs and signals, among other objects. Behavioral goals often drive this selection process [1, 2]; however, they are not the sole determinant of selection. Physically salient objects, such as flashing, brightly colored hazard signs, or objects that are salient by virtue of learn ...[more]

PMID: 26190076

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundAttentional processes are modulated by current goal pursuit. While pursuing salient cognitive goals, individuals prioritize goal-related information and suppress goal-irrelevant ones. This occurs in the context of pain too, where nonpain cognitive goal pursuit was found to have inhibitory effects on pain-related attention. Crucially, how pursuing nonpain motor goals affects pain-related somatosensory attention is still unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate whether nonpain motor goal pursuit would attenuate pain-related somatosensory attention.MethodsHealthy volunteers (N = 45) performed a robotic arm conditioning task where movements were paired with conflicting (pain and reward), threatening (only pain) or neutral (no pain and no reward) outcomes. To increase the motivational value of pursuing the nonpain motor goal, in the conflicting condition participants could receive a reward for a good motor performance. To examine somatosensory attention during movement, somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs; N120 and P200) were obtained in response to innocuous tactile stimuli administered on a pain-relevant or pain-irrelevant body location. We expected that the threat of pain would enhance somatosensory attention. Furthermore, we expected that the possibility of getting a reward would inhibit this effect, due to pain-reward interactions.ResultsAgainst our predictions, the amplitude of the N120 did not differ across movement types and locations. Furthermore, the P200 component showed significantly larger SEPs for conflicting and threat movements compared to neutral, suggesting that the threat of pain increased somatosensory attention. However, this effect was not modulated by nonpain motor goal pursuit, as reflected by the lack of modulation of the N120 and P200 in the conflicting condition as compared to the threat condition. This study corroborates the idea that pain-related somatosensory attention is enhanced by threat of pain, even when participants were motivated to move to obtain a reward.

Dataset Information

Dissociable effects of salience on attention and goal-directed action.

Publications

Dissociable effects of salience on attention and goal-directed action.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets