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The spatial dynamics of mouse-tracking reveal that attention capture is stimulus-driven rather than contingent upon top-down goals.

ABSTRACT: There has been a longstanding debate over why stimuli capture attention. Some argue that capture is driven by stimulus salience, while others believe that capture only occurs when the features of a stimulus match what we are searching for. This debate has recently focused on attentional disengagement, with the stimulus-driven camp claiming that all salient stimuli capture attention but attention is quickly disengaged from items dissimilar from our target, producing little cost in terms of response time. We used mouse-tracking to examine the spatial effect of cues that either matched or mismatched an observer's target. Experiment 1 demonstrated that a cue mismatching the feature defining the target initially produced a spatial effect that was rapidly resolved, consistent with quick disengagement. Experiment 2 was a preregistered replication with double the sample size that replicated the results of Experiment 1. Overall, computer mouse-tracking provided a direct observation of attentional disengagement, supporting stimulus-driven capture. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

SUBMITTER: Dieciuc MA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6763391 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The spatial dynamics of mouse-tracking reveal that attention capture is stimulus-driven rather than contingent upon top-down goals.

Dieciuc Michael A MA Roque Nelson A NA Boot Walter R WR

Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance 20190701 10

There has been a longstanding debate over why stimuli capture attention. Some argue that capture is driven by stimulus salience, while others believe that capture only occurs when the features of a stimulus match what we are searching for. This debate has recently focused on attentional disengagement, with the stimulus-driven camp claiming that all salient stimuli capture attention but attention is quickly disengaged from items dissimilar from our target, producing little cost in terms of respon ...[more]

PMID: 31259583

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Project description:To investigate the relation between attention and awareness, we manipulated visibility/awareness and stimulus-driven attention capture among metacontrast-masked visual stimuli. By varying the time interval between target and mask, we manipulated target visibility measured as target discrimination accuracies (ACCs; Experiments 1 and 2) and as subjective awareness ratings (Experiment 3). To modulate stimulus-driven attention capture, we presented the masked target either as a color-singleton (the target stands out by its unique color among homogeneously colored non-singletons), as a non-singleton together with a distractor singleton elsewhere (an irrelevant distractor has a unique color, whereas the target is colored like the other stimuli) or without a singleton (no stimulus stands out; only in Experiment 1). As color singletons capture attention in a stimulus-driven way, we expected target visibility/discrimination performance to be best for target singletons and worst with distractor singletons. In Experiments 1 and 2, we confirmed that the masking interval and the singleton manipulation influenced ACCs in an independent way and that attention capture by the singletons, with facilitated performance in target-singleton compared to distractor-singleton conditions, was found regardless of the interval-induced (in-)visibility of the targets. In Experiment 1, we also confirmed that attention capture was the same among participants with worse and better visibility/discrimination performance. In Experiment 2, we confirmed attention capture by color singletons with better discrimination performance for probes presented at singleton position, compared to other positions. Finally, in Experiment 3, we found that attention capture by target singletons also increased target awareness and that this capture effect on subjective awareness was independent of the effect of the masking interval, too. Together, results provide new evidence that stimulus-driven attention and awareness operate independently from one another and that stimulus-driven attention capture can precede awareness.

Dataset Information

The spatial dynamics of mouse-tracking reveal that attention capture is stimulus-driven rather than contingent upon top-down goals.

Publications

The spatial dynamics of mouse-tracking reveal that attention capture is stimulus-driven rather than contingent upon top-down goals.

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