Visual attention amplifies response priming of pointing movements to color targets

T. SCHMIDT; A. SEYDELL

doi:10.3758/pp.70.3.443

Anticipatory Defocusing of Attention and Contextual Response Priming but No Role of Aesthetic Appreciation in Simple Symmetry Judgments when Switching between Tasks

Symmetry ◽

10.3390/sym12040577 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (4) ◽

pp. 577

Author(s):

Svantje T. Kähler ◽

Thomas Jacobsen ◽

Stina Klein ◽

Mike Wendt

Keyword(s):

Visual Attention ◽

Aesthetic Appreciation ◽

Response Priming ◽

Strong Response ◽

Task Requirements ◽

Anticipatory Adjustment ◽

The Aesthetic ◽

Response Congruency

Visual attention can be adjusted to task requirements. We asked participants to switch between judging the symmetry of vertically presented three-letter strings and identifying the central stimulus (i.e., Eriksen task) to investigate anticipatory adjustment of attention. Our experiments provide evidence for anticipatory adjustment of visual attention, depending on the cued task (i.e., focusing and defocusing of attention after the Eriksen task cue and after the symmetry task cue, respectively). Although, symmetry judgments were, overall, considerably slower than the identification of the central letter, the effects of response congruency between tasks were comparable in the two tasks, which suggested strong response priming from concurrent symmetry judgment in Eriksen task trials. Symmetry judgment performance was best for homogeneous letter strings (e.g., HHH), worst for strings that were symmetrical and inhomogeneous (e.g., XHX), and intermediate for asymmetrical strings (e.g., HHX). The difficulty of categorizing symmetrical-inhomogeneous items markedly deviated from the aesthetic ratings of the stimuli, displaying a pronounced preference for symmetrical strings, but only little difference among the symmetrical items, and might be accounted by conflict with response priming based on inhomogeneity detection. Although our study provides little evidence for an effect of aesthetic appreciation in simple symmetry judgments, it demonstrates the strong role of contextual dependencies.

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Disentangling visual attention and motor response contributions in response priming with gender categorization task: an HDDM approach

10.31234/osf.io/b5nsf ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Lara Todorova ◽

David Neville

Keyword(s):

Visual Attention ◽

Visual Information ◽

Neutral Word ◽

Reaction Times ◽

Facilitatory Effect ◽

Prime Type ◽

Response Priming ◽

Categorization Task ◽

Gender Categorization ◽

Response Execution

Words can either boost or hinder the processing of visual information, which can lead to facilitation or interference of the behavioural response. We investigated the stage (response execution or target processing) of verbal interference/facilitation in the response priming paradigm with a gender categorization task. Participants in our study were asked to judge whether the presented stimulus was a female or male face that was briefly preceded by a gender word either congruent (prime: ‘man’, target: ‘man’), incongruent (prime: ‘woman’, target: ‘man’) or neutral (prime: ‘day’, target: ‘man’) with respect to the face stimulus. We investigated whether related word-picture pairs resulted in faster reaction times in comparison to the neutral word-picture pairs (facilitation) and whether unrelated word-picture pairs resulted in slower reaction times in comparison to neutral word-picture pairs (interference). We further examined whether these effects (if any) map onto response conflict or aspects of target processing. In addition, identity (‘man’, ‘woman’) and associative (‘tie’, ‘dress’) primes were introduced to investigate the cognitive mechanisms of semantic and Stroop-like effects in response priming (introduced respectively by associations and identity words). We analyzed responses and reaction times using the drift diffusion model to examine the effect of facilitation and/or interference as a function of the prime type. We found that regardless of prime type words introduce a facilitatory effect, which maps to the processes of visual attention and response execution.

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Visual Spatial Attention in Migraine Sufferers in Postictal and Interictal Phases: An Event-Related Potential Study

Journal of Psychophysiology ◽

10.1027//0269-8803.15.1.22 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 15 (1) ◽

pp. 22-34 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

D.H. de Koning ◽

J.C. Woestenburg ◽

M. Elton

Keyword(s):

Cerebral Cortex ◽

Visual Attention ◽

Migraine Attack ◽

Spatial Attention ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

Significant Enhancement ◽

Pathophysiological Mechanism ◽

Attention Task ◽

Visual Spatial Attention ◽

Visual Spatial

Migraineurs with and without aura (MWAs and MWOAs) as well as controls were measured twice with an interval of 7 days. The first session of recordings and tests for migraineurs was held about 7 hours after a migraine attack. We hypothesized that electrophysiological changes in the posterior cerebral cortex related to visual spatial attention are influenced by the level of arousal in migraineurs with aura, and that this varies over the course of time. ERPs related to the active visual attention task manifested significant differences between controls and both types of migraine sufferers for the N200, suggesting a common pathophysiological mechanism for migraineurs. Furthermore, migraineurs without aura (MWOAs) showed a significant enhancement for the N200 at the second session, indicating the relevance of time of measurement within migraine studies. Finally, migraineurs with aura (MWAs) showed significantly enhanced P240 and P300 components at central and parietal cortical sites compared to MWOAs and controls, which seemed to be maintained over both sessions and could be indicative of increased noradrenergic activity in MWAs.

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What Does It Take to Activate Stereotypes? Simple Primes Don’t Seem Enough

Social Psychology ◽

10.1027/1864-9335/a000183 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 45 (3) ◽

pp. 187-193 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Florian Müller ◽

Klaus Rothermund

Keyword(s):

Social Cognition ◽

Semantic Priming ◽

Response Priming ◽

Priming Effects ◽

Stereotype Activation

According to social cognition textbooks, stereotypes are activated automatically if appropriate categorical cues are processed. Although many studies have tested effects of activated stereotypes on behavior, few have tested the process of stereotype activation. Blair and Banaji (1996) demonstrated that subjects were faster to categorize first names as male or female if those were preceded by gender congruent attribute primes. The same, albeit smaller, effects emerged in a semantic priming design ruling out response priming by Banaji and Hardin (1996) . We sought to replicate these important effects. Mirroring Blair and Banaji (1996) we found strong priming effects as long as response priming was possible. However, unlike Banaji and Hardin (1996) , we did not find any evidence for automatic stereotype activation, when response priming was ruled out. Our findings suggest that automatic stereotype activation is not a reliable and global phenomenon but is restricted to more specific conditions.

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