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- Title
Capturing attention is not that simple: Different mechanisms for stimulus-driven and contingent capture.
- Authors
Liao, Hsin-I; Yeh, Su-Ling
- Abstract
Attentional orienting can be involuntarily directed to task-irrelevant stimuli, but it remains unsolved whether such attentional capture is contingent on top-down settings or could be purely stimulus-driven. We propose that attentional capture depends on the stimulus property because transient and static features are processed differently; thus, they might be modulated differently by top-down controls. To test this hybrid account, we adopted a spatial cuing paradigm in which a noninformative onset or color cue preceded an onset or color target with various stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs). Results showed that the onset cue captured attention regardless of target type at short—but not long—SOAs. In contrast, the color cue captured attention at short and long SOAs, but only with a color target. The overall pattern of results corroborates our hypothesis, suggesting that different mechanisms are at work for stimulus-driven capture (by onset) and contingent capture (by color). Stimulus-driven capture elicits reflexive involuntary orienting, and contingent capture elicits voluntary feature-based enhancement.
- Subjects
ATTENTION; DIFFERENTIAL psychology; ORIENTATION physiology; HYBRID systems; HYPOTHESIS; CONTROL (Psychology)
- Publication
Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 2013, Vol 75, Issue 8, p1703
- ISSN
1943-3921
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3758/s13414-013-0537-7