Proportional Context of Distracters alters Top-Down Sets during Contingent Attention Capture
Year: 2017
Type: article
Abstract: Attention is a filter through which sensory information is restricted to only what is relevant. It's easy for us to find our friend wearing a green shirt in a crowd; we simply "look" for the color green. The instantiation of this filter to prioritize a search for green is called the top-down set. One may think a top-down set for green would be unaffected by the presence of other items in the visual scene, but evidence suggests that top-down sets may be malleable in certain conditions. However, the variables affecting this malleability are currently poorly understood. We examined whether context can drive top-down set malleability by manipulating the proportion of critical colored distracters in a contingent attention capture paradigm. We presented subjects three rapidly changing streams of colored letters, one central target stream and a distractor stream on either side, and asked them to identify a green letter within the target stream.The distracter streams contained four types of letters: neutral (gray), target colored, non-target colored, or threshold colored. We varied the proportion of four distracter types in three conditions: equal occurrence of threshold and target colored distracters, double occurrence of threshold versus target colored distracters, or one-half occurrence of threshold versus target colored distracters. If proportional context affects the malleability of top-down sets, this will appear as a difference in threshold distracter accuracy between the two unequally proportioned conditions. Alternatively, if top-down sets are unaffected by proportional context, threshold distracter accuracy in these conditions should match the equally proportioned condition. Results were consistent with the former prediction: threshold colored distracters captured attention differentially in conditions 2 versus 3. Thus, proportional context leads to top-down set malleability; or, your top-down set for green is different depending on the crowd your friend runs with.
Source: Journal of Vision
DOI: 10.1167/17.10.947
Authors: Dick Dubbelde, Adam Greenberg
Institution: University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,850
OpenAlex ID: W2626599666