1,721,051 research outputs found
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Learning to attend: the influence of gain vs. loss on attention capture for younger and older adults
No full textPrevious studies have shown that both younger and older adults exhibit similar brain activity while anticipating monetary gain but older adults exhibit less brain activity comparing to younger adults while anticipating monetary loss. In Anderson et al.’s (2011) study, they found that visual search was slower with a salient, task-irrelevant distractor previously associated with high reward than with an equally salient distractor previously associated with a smaller reward. We aim to determine if this modulation also occurs in a spatial cuing paradigm. In addition to this, we will examine effects of loss (low and high) between younger and older adults.The study was conducted in the Attention & Performance Lab
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Memory for emotional faces: Are angry faces more memorable than happy faces?
Full text linkPrevious studies have suggested that negatively valenced faces (e.g., angry faces) automatically capture attention away from faces with other emotional valences (e.g., happy faces and neutral faces). The present study evaluated whether this attentional bias enhances memory of the negative emotional faces. Participants first performed a gender discrimination task on a face expressing either an angry emotion or a happy emotion, unaware that they would later be tested on their recognition of those faces. They were then given a 20-minute distraction task, in which they played object-matching games. Finally, they were given the recognition task, judging whether a face with a neutral emotional expression was shown in the earlier task (old identity vs. new identity). We found that face recognition was not modulated by the emotional expression, suggesting that negative emotional faces do not enhance memory. Implications for false memory and eyewitness testimony will be discussed
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Without words for emotions: Is the emotional processing deficit in alexithymia caused by dissociation or suppression?
Full text linkAlexithymia is a trait where individuals have difficulty identifying feeling and finding a word to express emotion. Some studies have suggested that this deficit is due to dissociation (repression), or an inability to perceive emotions, whereas others argued that the deficit is due to suppression of emotional information after it has already been perceived. This study used both behavioral measures (response time) and electrophysiological measures (brain activity) to test these two hypotheses. Both Alexithymia group and non-Alexithymia control group were selected based on their scores on the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20). They were asked to search for either fearful or happy faces and determined the color of the box containing the target face. We measured the N2pc effect (an index of attention allocation) and the Pd effect (an index of suppression). In supporting the suppression hypothesis proposed by our earlier study, we expect that the Alexithymia group would produce similar N2pc effects as the control group but exhibit a larger Pd effect than the control group
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Visual Attention and Working Memory: Are Low Memory Capacity Individuals More Easily Distracted?
Full text linkVisual working memory (VWM) allows us temporarily hold images in our minds and manipulate them. As an example, you can remember a face you just saw, or try to imagine how a room would look with a different arrangement of furniture. Previous studies have shown that individuals with low VWM capacity (able to remember only a few visual items) are much more susceptible to distraction than high VWM individuals (e.g., Poole & Kane, 2009). Nevertheless, it is unclear whether their inability to avoid distraction occurs because their spatial attention is easily captured by distractions (the capture hypothesis) or because they have difficulty disengaging attention from distractions (the disengagement hypothesis). The present study tested between these two hypotheses
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R34D1NG W0RD5 W1TH NUMB3R5 Electrophysiological Evidence that Semantic Activation Occurs
Full text linkThe present study examined whether semantic activation for words occurs by encoding whole word shape in addition to individual letters. We used LEET stimuli, where digits were used as parts of words, such as “R34DING” instead of “READING”. Previous studies have suggested that LEET stimuli are encoded in a letter-like fashion and can automatically activate lexical information because of their physical similarity (e.g., “3” vs. “E”). We measured the N400 effect elicited by words, a measure of whether participants detected a mismatch between the word and the current semantic context (e.g., belonging to a category or not). The N400 effect can occur only if a word has been identified and processed up to the semantic level. Participants performed a categorization task – determining whether a word or LEET stimulus was related or unrelated to a given category name. We found that LEET stimuli produced a similar N400 effect as regular words, suggesting that word shape beyond individual letters is sufficient to access word meaning
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Age- related memory change for emotional faces: are older adults more prone to forget angry faces?
No full textPrevious studies have suggested that negatively valenced faces (e.g., angry faces) automatically capture attention away from faces with other emotional valences (e.g., happy faces and neutral faces). The present study evaluated two experiments with age-related differences: the first assessed recognition memory for pictures of faces and how it is modulated by emotional expression. The significance of the second study was to find whether memory facilitation by negative emotions improved general memory of a person’s identity, or only memory for the specific features of that specific image. In the first experiment, participants first performed a gender discrimination task on a face expressing either an angry emotion or a happy emotion (study phase), unaware that they would later be tested on their recognition of those faces. They were then given a 20-minute distraction task, in which they played object-matching games. Finally, they were given the recognition task, judging whether the faces shown were previously shown in the gender identification task (old identity vs. new identity). In support of results from previous studies, we found that face recognition was higher overall, and was significantly higher in young adults. In the second experiment, participants performed the same procedures as in the first experiment, except for in the recognition phase they were shown neutral faces of new and old faces instead of the emotionally valenced faces from the study phase. The findings suggested that negative emotional expressions improve memory for the specific features of those specific images, without improving general memory of the person’s identity. For older adults, however, no memory facilitation was found by angry faces in either experiment. Implications for false memory and eyewitness testimony will be discussed
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Locus of Case Mixing in Visual Word Recognition: What Do Priming Effects Tell Us?
No full textPerea, Vergara-Martínez, and Gomez (2015) claimed a late locus of case mixing in visual word recognition. In their masking priming study, participants performed a lexical-decision task on an uppercase target, which was preceded by an identity or unrelated prime (e.g., “plane” or “music” followed by “PLANE”, respectively) in lowercase or mixed case. They found similar priming effects (unrelated – identity) for lowercase and mixed-case primes, suggesting case mixing does not impede the early lexical access. In Experiment 1, we used uppercase or lowercase targets. While the uppercase target replicated Perea et al., the priming effects for the lowercase target were larger for lowercase than mixed-case primes. Experiment 2 examined whether the priming effect was caused by lexical access by using a non-lexical, font discrimination task. No priming effects were observed for both lowercase and mixed-case primes. These results suggest an earlier locus for priming caused by a pre-lexical process
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Attention Capture by Distractors Following a Switch in Search Strategy: Evidence for a Break Down of Top-Down Control
Full text linkLien, Ruthruff, and Johnston (2010) reported that the attentional control system is able to rapidly and fully switch between different search settings (e.g., red to green), with no carryover. The present study examined whether such impressive flexibility is possible even with more complicated switches, namely singleton search and the feature search. These modes seem particularly incompatible, creating a severe challenge. On each trial, participants were prompted to identify the letter that is uniquely colored (singleton search) or that has a specific color (feature search). The target display was preceded by a non-informative cue display containing an irrelevant color singleton cue. On feature search trials, the irrelevant color singleton cue was able to strongly capture attention (at least for random task sequences), contrary to the typical contingent capture findings. This breakdown indicates a limitation in the sharpness of attentional control, under conditions that might be prevalent in the real world
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R34D1NG W0RD5 W1TH NUMB3R5: Is lexical activation triggered by holistic processing or analytical processing?
Full text linkPrevious studies have suggested that LEET words can automatically activate lexical information because of their physical similarity to real words (e.g., Perea, Duñabeitia, & Carreiras, 2008). Lien, Allen, and Martin (in press) recently used electrophysiological measures (event-related brain potentials; ERPs) to show similar lexical/semantic activation (based on the N400 effect, described below) for LEET words and regular, consistent uppercase words. The present study examined whether the lexical activation in LEET words, relative to consistent-uppercase words, is the result of analytical processing (using individual letters as the basic encoding unit) or holistic processing (using whole-word shape as the basic encoding unit)
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An Electrophysiological Study of Object-Based Correspondence Effects: Is Visual Processing Modulated by the Intended Action?
Full text linkSome studies have found that responses are faster when the orientation of an object’s graspable part corresponds with the response location than when it does not (i.e., the object-based correspondence effect). We examined Goslin et al.’s (2012) claim that the effect is the result of object-based attention (visual-action binding). As in their study, participants determined the category of the centrally located object (kitchen utensil vs. tool). The handle orientation (left vs. right) did or did not correspond with the response location (left vs. right). We found no correspondence effect on response time for either category. Consistent with the behavioral data, there was no correspondence effect in lateralized readiness potentials. The effect was also not evident in P1 and N2, thought to reflect the direction of visual/spatial attention. These findings are contradictory to those of Goslin et al. and provide no evidence that an intended grasping action modulates visual/spatial attention
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