What is the Role of Spatial Attention in Statistical Learning During Visual Search?

Our ability to learn the regularities embedded in our environment is a fundamental aspect of our cognitive system. Does such statistical learning depend on attention? Research on this topic is scarce and has yielded mixed findings. In this preregistered study, we examined the role of spatial attention in statistical learning, and specifically in learned distractor-location suppression. This phenomenon refers to the finding that during visual search, participants are better at ignoring a salient distractor at a high-probability location than at low-probability locations - a bias persisting long after the probability imbalance has ceased. Participants searched for a shape-singleton target and a color-singleton distractor was sometimes present. During the learning phase, the color-singleton distractor was more likely to appear in the high-probability location than in the low-probability locations. Crucially, we manipulated spatial attention by having the experimental group focus their attention on the target's location in advance of the search display, using a 100%-informative spatial precue, while the control group was presented with a neutral, uninformative cue. During the subsequent test phase, the color-singleton distractor was equally likely to appear at any location and there were no cues. As expected, the results for the neutral-cue group replicated previous findings. Crucially, for the informative-cue group, interference from the distractor was minimal when attention was diverted from it (during learning) and no statistical learning was observed during test. Intertrial priming accounted for the small statistical-learning effect found during learning. These findings show that statistical learning in visual search requires attention.

On the timing of overt attention deployment: Eye-movement evidence for the priority accumulation framework.

Most visual-search theories assume that our attention is automatically allocated to the location with the highest priority at any given moment. The Priority Accumulation Framework (PAF) challenges this assumption. It suggests that the priority weight at each location accumulates across sequential events and that evidence for the presence of action-relevant information contributes to determining when attention is deployed to the location with the highest accumulated priority. Here, we tested these hypotheses for overt attention by recording first saccades in a free-viewing spatial-cueing task. We manipulated search difficulty (Experiments 1 and 2) and cue salience (Experiment 2). Standard theories posit that when oculomotor capture by the cue occurs, it is initiated before the search display appears; therefore, these theories predict that the cue's impact on the distribution of first saccades should be independent of search difficulty but influenced by the cue's saliency. By contrast, PAF posits that the cue can bias competition later, after processing of the search display has already started, and therefore predicts that such late impact should increase with both search difficulty and cue salience. The results fully supported PAF's predictions. Our account suggests a distinction between attentional capture and attentional-priority bias that resolves enduring inconsistencies in the attentional-capture literature. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Terms of debate: Consensus definitions to guide the scientific discourse on visual distraction.

Hypothesis-driven research rests on clearly articulated scientific theories. The building blocks for communicating these theories are scientific terms. Obviously, communication - and thus, scientific progress - is hampered if the meaning of these terms varies idiosyncratically across (sub)fields and even across individual researchers within the same subfield. We have formed an international group of experts representing various theoretical stances with the goal to homogenize the use of the terms that are most relevant to fundamental research on visual distraction in visual search. Our discussions revealed striking heterogeneity and we had to invest much time and effort to increase our mutual understanding of each other's use of central terms, which turned out to be strongly related to our respective theoretical positions. We present the outcomes of these discussions in a glossary and provide some context in several essays. Specifically, we explicate how central terms are used in the distraction literature and consensually sharpen their definitions in order to enable communication across theoretical standpoints. Where applicable, we also explain how the respective constructs can be measured. We believe that this novel type of adversarial collaboration can serve as a model for other fields of psychological research that strive to build a solid groundwork for theorizing and communicating by establishing a common language. For the field of visual distraction, the present paper should facilitate communication across theoretical standpoints and may serve as an introduction and reference text for newcomers.

Attentional guidance by target-location probability cueing is largely inflexible, long-lasting, and distinct from inter-trial priming.

There is growing consensus that selection history strongly guides spatial attention and is distinct from current goals and physical salience. Here, we focused on target-location probability cueing: when the target is more likely to appear in one region, search performance gradually improves for targets appearing in that region. Probability cueing is thought to reflect a long-lasting, inflexible and implicit attentional bias. However, strong evidence for these claims is lacking. We re-examined them in four experiments. The target was more likely to appear in one than in the other regions during the learning phase, whereas all regions were equiprobable during the extinction phase. We manipulated set size in all experiments. Probability cueing reduced search slopes during learning and extinction, suggesting that the bias is attentional and long-lasting. Although intertrial priming from several previous trials had an influence, it did not account for all the effects. We also found the bias to be largely inflexible: informing participants that the probability imbalance during learning would be discontinued during extinction did not reduce the bias. Moreover, the acquired bias remained the default determinant of attentional priority when goal-directed guidance failed (i.e., when a cue instructing participants to start their search in a given region during the extinction phase was omitted or invalid). Finally, many more participants than predicted by chance showed awareness of the probability manipulation, although we could not establish whether awareness was associated with the bias. We conclude that probability cueing is a long-lasting and inflexible attentional bias, distinct from intertrial priming. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The Distractor Positivity Component and the Inhibition of Distracting Stimuli.

There has been a long-lasting debate about whether salient stimuli, such as uniquely colored objects, have the ability to automatically distract us. To resolve this debate, it has been suggested that salient stimuli do attract attention but that they can be suppressed to prevent distraction. Some research supporting this viewpoint has focused on a newly discovered ERP component called the distractor positivity (PD), which is thought to measure an inhibitory attentional process. This collaborative review summarizes previous research relying on this component with a specific emphasis on how the PD has been used to understand the ability to ignore distracting stimuli. In particular, we outline how the PD component has been used to gain theoretical insights about how search strategy and learning can influence distraction. We also review alternative accounts of the cognitive processes indexed by the PD component. Ultimately, we conclude that the PD component is a useful tool for understanding inhibitory processes related to distraction and may prove to be useful in other areas of study related to cognitive control.

Feature intertrial priming biases attentional priority: Evidence from the capture-probe paradigm.

Prior experience has a strong impact on search performance, and most recent models of attention incorporate selection history as an important source of attentional guidance. Here, we focused on feature intertrial priming, a robust effect showing that responses to a singleton target are considerably faster when its unique feature repeats versus changes across successive trials. Previous studies showed that such target repetition does not reliably reduce the interference exerted by a salient distractor. This finding has been taken to indicate that target repetition does not enhance the target's competitive edge relative to the salient distractor. Therefore, it challenges the notion that intertrial priming modulates attentional priority. Here, we suggest that this inference may be misguided because the interpretation of distractor interference as a measure of the attentional priority of the salient distractor relative to the target is incorrect. To obtain a more direct measure of the impact of feature intertrial priming on the target's priority relative to a salient distractor and nontargets, we used the capture-probe paradigm. Across two experiments, probe reports from the target location increased at the expense of the salient distractor and nontarget locations when the target feature repeated versus changed, whereas distractor interference was unaffected. These findings show that feature intertrial repetition influences attentional priority. They also clearly illustrate that distractor interference indexes the priority of the salient distractor relative to the nontarget it replaces, not relative to the target-a reinterpretation that has important implications for the field of attentional capture. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Distractor's salience does not determine feature suppression: A commentary on Wang and Theeuwes (2020).

There is ongoing debate as to whether distraction by salient irrelevant objects can be avoided by suppressing their salient features. Lamy suggested that a central reason for this stalemate is methodological: researchers often base their conclusions on whether the presence of the salient distractor yields net interference (interpreted as capture) or benefit (interpreted as suppression), instead of investigating how manipulating inhibitory suppression modulates these effects. Here, we validate this observation by revisiting Wang and Theeuwes' findings showing that a color singleton distractor produced a net cost with dense search displays and a net benefit with sparse displays. They concluded that only mildly salient distractors can be suppressed. In two experiments, we orthogonally manipulated distractor salience and feature-based suppression. Participants searched for a shape and a color singleton was sometimes present. Search displays were either sparse or dense and the singleton's color changed on each block. Distractor feature-based suppression was measured as a reduction in distractor interference in the second relative to the first half of each block. We replicated Wang and Theeuwes' findings but invalidated their interpretation by showing that participants learned to suppress the color singleton equally well when displays were sparse and when they were dense. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The go no-go reviewing paradigm: A reliable method for measuring perceptual object-file updating.

The object-file framework explains how object continuity is maintained as objects move: it stipulates that when we focus our attention on an object, we automatically retrieve this object's recent history. Supporting evidence comes from the object-specific preview benefit (OSPB): participants are faster to name a target letter when the same letter appeared in the same versus a different object in a preceding (preview) display. Although this framework has been very influential, replicating the OSPB has proved difficult, presumably because observers could ignore the preview display. To address this problem, a modified object-reviewing paradigm was suggested, which became the standard paradigm: participants are required to report whether the target letter matches one of the preview display's letters. However, as this paradigm makes retrieval of the object's history task-relevant, it is a useful method for studying the structure of object representations for memory but does not capture the automaticity of the object-reviewing process, which is the heart of the object-file account of perception. Here, we suggest an alternative go/no-go object-reviewing paradigm that is specifically tailored to study object-files for perception: it requires participants to attend to the preview display, yet does not require explicit retrieval of the object history. Using our new paradigm, we reliably replicate the OSPB. As a proof of concept, we revisit the persistence of the OSPB, previously investigated with the modified paradigm.

The role of conscious perception in semantic processing: Testing the action trigger hypothesis.

Finding that invisible primes affect categorization of visible targets (response priming) is held to demonstrate that semantic processing does not require conscious perception. However, the effects are typically very small, they do not indicate whether conscious perception enhances response priming and they often reflect visuo-motor rather than semantic processing. Here, we compared response priming elicited by liminal words when these were clearly seen vs missed, while participants categorized target animals' names. We varied task demands to induce visuo-motor vs semantic processing. Conscious perception strongly enhanced both visuo-motor and semantic response priming. In line with the Action Trigger Hypothesis, task demands modulated processing of both missed and consciously perceived primes. Finally, conscious and unconscious response priming showed diverging patterns on fast and on slow trials, a dissociation suggesting that priming was not contaminated by conscious priming. We conclude that the impact of unconscious stimuli is small and task-dependent.

The Scientific Study of Consciousness Cannot and Should Not Be Morally Neutral.

A target question for the scientific study of consciousness is how dimensions of consciousness, such as the ability to feel pain and pleasure or reflect on one's own experience, vary in different states and animal species. Considering the tight link between consciousness and moral status, answers to these questions have implications for law and ethics. Here we point out that given this link, the scientific community studying consciousness may face implicit pressure to carry out certain research programs or interpret results in ways that justify current norms rather than challenge them. We show that because consciousness largely determines moral status, the use of nonhuman animals in the scientific study of consciousness introduces a direct conflict between scientific relevance and ethics-the more scientifically valuable an animal model is for studying consciousness, the more difficult it becomes to ethically justify compromises to its well-being for consciousness research. Finally, in light of these considerations, we call for a discussion of the immediate ethical corollaries of the body of knowledge that has accumulated and for a more explicit consideration of the role of ideology and ethics in the scientific study of consciousness.

Is Statistical Learning of a Salient Distractor's Color Implicit, Inflexible and Distinct From Inter-Trial Priming?

Being able to overcome distraction by salient distractors is critical in order to allocate our attention efficiently. Previous research showed that observers can learn to ignore salient distractors endowed with some regularity, such as a high-probability location or feature - a phenomenon known as distractor statistical learning. Unlike goal-directed attentional guidance, the bias induced by statistical learning is thought to be implicit, long-lasting and inflexible. We tested these claims with regard to statistical learning of distractor color in a high-power (N = 160) pre-registered experiment. Participants searched for a known-shape singleton target and a color singleton distractor, when present, appeared most often in one color during the learning phase, but equally often in all possible colors during the extinction phase. We used a sensitive measure of participants' awareness of the probability manipulation. The awareness test was administered after the extinction phase for one group, and after the leaning phase for another group - which was informed that the probability imbalance would be discontinued in the upcoming extinction phase. Participants learned to suppress the high-probability distractor color very fast, an effect partly due to intertrial priming. Crucially, there was only little evidence that the bias survived during extinction. Awareness of the manipulation was associated with reduced color suppression, suggesting that the bias was implicit. Finally, results showed that the awareness test was more sensitive when administered early vs. late. We conclude that learnt color suppression is an implicit bias that emerges and decays rapidly, and discuss the methodological implications of our findings.

Validity of the lever sign test for the clinical diagnosis of anterior cruciate ligament tears: Assessments in ski resorts.

INTRODUCTION: The clinical diagnosis of an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear is based on 3 tests: anterior drawer, pivot shift and Lachman. The latter is the most commonly used test. The "lever sign" is a new clinical test that was first described by Lelli et al. in 2014. The primary objective of this study was to determine the sensitivity of the lever sign test for the clinical diagnosis of ACL tears, in the primary care setting of patients with acute knee injuries. Primary care being the first point of contact between patients and the healthcare system (general practitioners in this study). The secondary objective was to calculate the positive predictive value (PPV) of the lever sign test, by comparing it to the PPV of the Lachman test and its sensitivity. The working hypothesis was that the sensitivity of the lever sign test was equal to or greater than 80%. METHODS: This prospective cohort study included patients with ski-related knee injuries which occurred in French ski resorts between December 1, 2019, and March 15, 2020. The Lachman test and the lever sign test were performed by 36 mountain physicians and were compared to the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings. The lever sign test involved placing a closed fist under the patient's calf in the supine position and applying downward pressure over the quadriceps. Depending on whether the ACL was intact or not, the patient's heel would either rise off the examination table or remain still. This study included 258 patients: 190 women and 68 men. RESULTS: The MRIs found 219 ACL tears and 36 intact ACLs. Three MRIs were deemed uninterpretable. The sensitivity of the lever sign test was 61.2% and the PPV was 83.8%. The sensitivity of the Lachman test was 99.1% and the PPV was 86.5%. CONCLUSION: This study determined the sensitivity of the lever sign test for the clinical diagnosis of ACL tears during real-life situations encountered by mountain physicians. This sensitivity was lower than expected. The Lachman test, on the other hand, showed a very high sensitivity. It remains the test of choice for the clinical diagnosis of ACL tears in patients with knee injuries. Therefore, the lever sign test can complement the Lachman test but is not a substitute for it. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: II.

Does feature intertrial priming guide attention? The jury is still out.

Our search performance is strongly influenced by our past experience. In the lab, this influence has been demonstrated by investigating a variety of phenomena, including intertrial priming, statistical learning, and reward history, and collectively referred to as selection history. The resulting findings have led researchers to claim that selection history guides attention, thereby challenging the prevailing dichotomy, according to which top-down and bottom-up factors alone determine attentional priority. Here, we re-examine this claim with regard to one selection-history phenomenon, feature intertrial priming (aka priming of pop-out). We evaluate the evidence that specifically pertains to the role of feature intertrial priming in attentional guidance, rather than in later selective processes occurring after the target is found. We distinguish between the main experimental rationales, while considering the extent to which feature intertrial priming, as studied through different protocols, shares characteristics of top-down attention. We show that there is strong evidence that feature intertrial priming guides attention when the experimental protocol departs from the canonical paradigm and encourages observers to maintain the critical feature in visual working memory or to form expectations about the upcoming target. By contrast, the current evidence regarding the standard feature intertrial priming phenomenon is inconclusive. We propose directions for future research and suggest that applying the methodology used here in order to re-evaluate of the role of other selection history phenomena in attentional guidance should clarify the mechanisms underlying the strong impact of past experience on visual search performance.

What processes are disrupted during the attentional blink? An integrative review of event-related potential research.

Reporting the second of two targets is impaired when these appear in close succession, a phenomenon known as the attentional blink (AB). Despite decades of research, what factors limit our ability to process multiple sequentially presented events remains unclear. Specifically, two central issues remain open: does failure to report the second target (T2) reflect a structural limitation in working memory (WM) encoding or a disruption to attentional processes? And is perceptual processing of the stimulus that we fail to report impaired, or only processes that occur after this stimulus is identified? We address these questions by reviewing event-related potential (ERP) studies of the AB, after providing a brief overview of the theoretical landscape relevant to these debates and clarifying key concepts essential for interpreting ERP studies. We show that failure to report the second target is most often associated with disrupted attentional engagement (associated with a smaller and delayed N2pc component). This disruption occurs after early processing of T2 (associated with an intact P1 component), weakens its semantic processing (typically associated with a smaller N400 component), and prevents its encoding into WM (associated with absent P3b). However, failure to encode T2 in WM can occur despite intact attentional engagement and semantic processing. We conclude that the AB phenomenon, which reflects our limited ability to process sequential events, emerges from the disruption of both attentional engagement and WM encoding.

Spatial cueing effects do not always index attentional capture: evidence for a priority accumulation framework.

The spatial cueing paradigm is a popular tool to investigate under what conditions irrelevant objects capture attention against the observer's intention. In this paradigm, finding better visual search performance when the target appears at the location of an irrelevant cue is taken to indicate that this cue summoned attention to its location, before the search display appeared. Here, we provide evidence challenging this canonical interpretation of spatial-cueing (or cue-validity) effects and supporting the priority accumulation framework (PAF). According to PAF, the cue can bias attention but such bias takes effect only when the relevant context for selection (the search display) appears: attentional priority accumulates over time at each location until the search context triggers selection of the location that has accumulated the highest priority. We used a spatial-cueing paradigm with abruptly onset cues and search displays varying in target-distractor similarity. We found that search performance on valid-cue trials deteriorates the more difficult the search (Experiment 1), and showed that this finding is explained by PAF but cannot be accommodated within the standard interpretation of spatial-cueing effects (Experiment 2). Finally, we assessed the priority accumulated at each location by using a combination of the spatial-cueing and dot-probe paradigms (Experiment 3). We showed that the similarity of the cued object to the target modulates probe detection performance, a finding that is at odds with the standard interpretation of cueing effects and supports PAF's predictions. We discuss the implications of the findings in resolving existing controversies on the determinants of attentional priority.

Mangrove microbiota along the urban-to-rural gradient of the Cayenne estuary (French Guiana, South America): Drivers and potential bioindicators.

The microbial communities inhabiting the Atlantic-East Pacific (AEP) mangroves have been poorly studied, and mostly comprise chronically polluted mangroves. In this study, we characterized changes in the structure and diversity of microbial communities of mangroves along the urban-to-rural gradient of the Cayenne estuary (French Guiana, South America) that experience low human impact. The microbial communities were assigned into 50 phyla. Proteobacteria, Chloroflexi, Acidobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Planctomycetes were the most abundant taxa. The environmental determinants found to significantly correlated to the microbial communities at these mangroves were granulometry, dieldrin concentration, pH, and total carbon (TC) content. Furthermore, a precise analysis of the sediment highlights the existence of three types of anthropogenic pressure among the stations: (i) organic matter (OM) enrichment due to the proximity to the city and its wastewater treatment plant, (ii) dieldrin contamination, and (iii) naphthalene contamination. These forms of weak anthropogenic pressure seemed to impact the bacterial population size and microbial assemblages. A decrease in Bathyarchaeota, "Candidatus Nitrosopumilus", and Nitrospira genera was observed in mangroves subjected to OM enrichment. Mangroves polluted with organic contaminants were enriched in Desulfobacteraceae, Desulfarculaceae, and Acanthopleuribacteraceae (with dieldrin or polychlorobiphenyl contamination), and Chitinophagaceae and Geobacteraceae (with naphthalene contamination). These findings provide insights into the main environmental factors shaping microbial communities of mangroves in the AEP that experience low human impact and allow for the identification of several potential microbial bioindicators of weak anthropogenic pressure.

Space oddity: musical syntax is mapped onto visual space.

Increasing evidence has uncovered associations between the cognition of abstract schemas and spatial perception. Here we examine such associations for Western musical syntax, tonality. Spatial metaphors are ubiquitous when describing tonality: stable, closural tones are considered to be spatially central and, as gravitational foci, spatially lower. We investigated whether listeners, musicians and nonmusicians, indeed associate tonal relationships with visuospatial dimensions, including spatial height, centrality, laterality, and size, implicitly or explicitly, and whether such mappings are consistent with established metaphors. In the explicit paradigm, participants heard a tonality-establishing prime followed by a probe tone and coupled each probe with a subjectively appropriate location (Exp.1) or size (Exp.4). The implicit paradigm used a version of the Implicit Association Test to examine associations of tonal stability with vertical position (Exp.2), lateral position (Exp3) and size (Exp.5). Tonal stability was indeed associated with perceived physical space: the spatial distances between the locations associated with different scale-degrees significantly correlated with the tonal stability differences between these scale-degrees. However, inconsistently with musical discourse, stable tones were associated with leftward (instead of central) and higher (instead of lower) spatial positions. We speculate that these mappings are influenced by emotion, embodying the "good is up" metaphor, and by the spatial structure of music keyboards. Taken together, the results demonstrate a new type of cross-modal correspondence and a hitherto under-researched connotative function of musical structure. Importantly, the results suggest that the spatial mappings of an abstract domain may be independent of the spatial metaphors used to describe that domain.

Spatial cueing effects are not what we thought: On the timing of attentional deployment.

Extensive research has shown that objects that are salient or match our task goals are most likely to capture our attention. But are we at the mercy of the constant changes occurring in our environment, and automatically move our attention to the ever-changing location with the highest priority? Or do we wait for clues that the appropriate moment has arrived to deploy our attention? We addressed this hitherto neglected issue in three experiments. Using a spatial-cuing paradigm, we examined whether attention is deployed as soon as a salient change occurs (the cue), or only when the context signaling that attention should be deployed appears (the search display). The cue matched the target color and was expected to enjoy high attentional priority. We used two separate response compatibility manipulations, one pertaining to the cue, in the cuing display, and the other to the cued distractor, in the search display. Neutral conditions allowed us to disentangle the respective effects of these manipulations. Participants deployed their attention in the search display when they could rely on contextual information, and in the cue display when such information was absent. These findings challenge the traditional interpretation of spatial-cuing effects. They are discussed within the Priority Accumulation Framework (PAF) that we confront to other attention models. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The attentional blink unveils the interplay between conscious perception, spatial attention and working memory encoding.

Our ability to perceive two events in close temporal succession is severely limited, a phenomenon known as the attentional blink. While the blink has served as a popular tool to prevent conscious perception, there is less research on its causes, and in particular on the role of conscious perception of the first event in triggering it. In three experiments, we disentangled the roles of spatial attention, conscious perception and working memory (WM) in causing the blink. We show that while allocating spatial attention to T1 is neither necessary nor sufficient for eliciting a blink, consciously perceiving it is necessary but not sufficient. When T1 was task irrelevant, consciously perceiving it triggered a blink only when it matched the attentional set for T2. We conclude that consciously perceiving a task-relevant event causes the blink, possibly because it triggers encoding of this event into WM. We discuss the implications of these findings for the relationship between spatial attention, conscious perception and WM, as well as for the distinction between access and phenomenal consciousness.

Crossmodal Correspondence Between Tonal Hierarchy and Visual Brightness: Associating Syntactic Structure and Perceptual Dimensions Across Modalities.

Crossmodal correspondences (CMC) systematically associate perceptual dimensions in different sensory modalities (e.g., auditory pitch and visual brightness), and affect perception, cognition, and action. While previous work typically investigated associations between basic perceptual dimensions, here we present a new type of CMC, involving a high-level, quasi-syntactic schema: music tonality. Tonality governs most Western music and regulates stability and tension in melodic and harmonic progressions. Musicians have long associated tonal stability with non-auditory domains, yet such correspondences have hardly been investigated empirically. Here, we investigated CMC between tonal stability and visual brightness, in musicians and in non-musicians, using explicit and implicit measures. On the explicit test, participants heard a tonality-establishing context followed by a probe tone, and matched each probe to one of several circles, varying in brightness. On the implicit test, we applied the Implicit Association Test to auditory (tonally stable or unstable sequences) and visual (bright or dark circles) stimuli. The findings indicate that tonal stability is associated with visual brightness both explicitly and implicitly. They further suggest that this correspondence depends only partially on conceptual musical knowledge, as it also operates through fast, unintentional, and arguably automatic processes in musicians and non-musicians alike. By showing that abstract musical structure can establish concrete connotations to a non-auditory perceptual domain, our results open a hitherto unexplored avenue for research, associating syntactical structure with connotative meaning.