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Optimal tuning of attention refers to shifts in goal-driven attention that increase the difference between the representation of the target and nontarget features. Evidence for optimal tuning comes from studies measuring the memory representation of the target and, to a lesser degree, from studies measuring attentional selectivity. In one study on attentional selectivity, cueing effects were found to be greater for cue colors deviating away from the nontarget color compared to cue colors deviating toward the nontarget color, suggesting that participants’ search goal was optimally tuned. To address alternative accounts, we measured event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by different cue colors at posterior electrodes PO7/PO8. We found that ERPs associated with attentional orienting (N1pc) or selection (N2pc) were larger for cue colors deviating away from the nontarget color, which is consistent with the optimal tuning of attention. In contrast, the results are difficult to reconcile with alternative accounts such as rapid disengagement or object updating. Further, we aimed to evaluate contributions from sensory adaptation by analyzing the Ppc component, a lateralized ERP in the P1 time range. Two control conditions, however, suggested that the Ppc was more likely driven by imbalanced saliency than sensory adaptation.

Recently, working memory (WM) has been conceptualized as a limited resource, distributed flexibly and strategically between an unlimited number of representations. In addition to improving the precision of representations in WM, the allocation of resources may also shape how these representations act as attentional templates to guide visual search. Here, we reviewed recent evidence in favor of this assumption and proposed three main principles that govern the relationship between WM resources and template-guided visual search. First, the allocation of resources to an attentional template has an effect on visual search, as it may improve the guidance of visual attention, facilitate target recognition, and/or protect the attentional template against interference. Second, the allocation of the largest amount of resources to a representation in WM is not sufficient to give this representation the status of attentional template and thus, the ability to guide visual search. Third, the representation obtaining the status of attentional template, whether at encoding or during maintenance, receives an amount of WM resources proportional to its relevance for visual search. Thus defined, the resource hypothesis of visual search constitutes a parsimonious and powerful framework, which provides new perspectives on previous debates and complements existing models of template-guided visual search.

Evolutionary psychology suggests that we are attuned to relevant information in the environment. For example, attention may be attracted by physical beauty because it is important for finding a partner with good reproductive health. Consistently, previous studies found that attention stayed longer on attractive than unattractive faces. We asked whether this tendency was automatic and varied participants’ implicit search intentions to be either consistent or inconsistent with the presumably automatic tendency to attend to attractive faces. To create an implicit intention to look at attractive faces, participants searched for a happy face in an array of neutral faces because happy faces are rated as more attractive than neutral faces. To create the opposite intention to look at unattractive faces, participants searched for a disgusted or sad face because disgusted or sad faces are rated as less attractive than neutral faces. We found longer fixation durations on attractive faces when participants searched for happy faces. When participants searched for disgusted or sad faces, however, fixation durations were longer on unattractive faces. Thus, the search task determined whether attractive faces were looked at longer. The tendency to attend to attractive faces is therefore not automatic but can be overruled by search intentions.

Even in sparse visual environments, observers may not be able to report features of objects they have just encountered in a surprise question. Attribute amnesia and seeing without knowing describe report failures for irrelevant features of objects that have been processed to some extent in the primary task. Both phenomena are attributed to the exclusive selection of relevant information for memory consolidation or for awareness, respectively. While attribute amnesia was found even for irrelevant attributes of the target in the primary task, seeing without knowing was not observed when a single object was presented foveally. To elucidate this discrepancy, we examined report failures for irrelevant attributes of single target objects, which were presented either in the fovea or in the periphery, and either at cued or uncued locations. On a surprise trial, observers were able to report the irrelevant shape and color of the target object when it was presented foveally. However, presenting the same object just slightly away from the fovea led to report failures for shape. Introducing a valid peripheral cue prior to target presentation reduced report failures for shape when the cue was predictive of the target location, suggesting that the pre-allocation of endogenous spatial attention promoted the processing of irrelevant shape information. In accordance with previous research, we suggest that these modulations are due to differences in late selection for conscious awareness or consolidation in working memory.

Seeber (2011) recently introduced a series of analytical cognitive load models, providing a detailed illustration of conjectured cognitive resource allocation during simultaneous interpreting. In this article, the authors set out to compare these models with data gathered in an experiment using task-evoked pupillary responses to measure online cognitive load during simultaneous interpreting when embedded in single-sentence context and discourse context. Verb-final and verb-initial constructions were analysed in terms of the load they cause to an inherently capacity-limited system when interpreted simultaneously into a verb-initial language like English. The results show larger pupil dilation with verb-final than with verb-initial constructions, suggesting higher cognitive load with asymmetrical structures. A tendency for reduced cognitive load in the discourse context compared to the sentence context was also found. These data support the models’ prediction of an increase in cognitive load towards (and beyond) the end of verb-final constructions.

Gaze is one of the most important cues for human communication and social interaction. In particular, gaze contact is the most primary form of social contact and it is thought to capture attention. A very early-differentiated brain response to direct versus averted gaze has been hypothesized. Here, we used high-density electroencephalography to test this hypothesis. Topographical analysis allowed us to uncover a very early topographic modulation (40-80 ms) of event-related responses to faces with direct as compared to averted gaze. This modulation was obtained only in the condition where intact broadband faces-as opposed to high-pass or low-pas filtered faces-were presented. Source estimation indicated that this early modulation involved the posterior parietal region, encompassing the left precuneus and inferior parietal lobule. This supports the idea that it reflected an early orienting response to direct versus averted gaze. Accordingly, in a follow-up behavioural experiment, we found faster response times to the direct gaze than to the averted gaze broadband faces. In addition, classical evoked potential analysis showed that the N170 peak amplitude was larger for averted gaze than for direct gaze. Taken together, these results suggest that direct gaze may be detected at a very early processing stage, involving a parallel route to the ventral occipito-temporal route of face perceptual analysis.

Abstract Salient vocalizations, especially aggressive voices, are believed to attract attention due to an automatic threat detection system. However, studies assessing the temporal dynamics of auditory spatial attention to aggressive voices are missing. Using event-related potential markers of auditory spatial attention (N2ac and LPCpc), we show that attentional processing of threatening vocal signals is enhanced at two different stages of auditory processing. As early as 200 ms post-stimulus onset, attentional orienting/engagement is enhanced for threatening as compared to happy vocal signals. Subsequently, as early as 400 ms post-stimulus onset, the reorienting of auditory attention to the center of the screen (or disengagement from the target) is enhanced. This latter effect is consistent with the need to optimize perception by balancing the intake of stimulation from left and right auditory space. Our results extend the scope of theories from the visual to the auditory modality by showing that threatening stimuli also bias early spatial attention in the auditory modality. Attentional enhancement was only present in female and not in male participants.

Visual selection of target objects relies on representations of their known features in visual working memory. These representations are referred to as attentional templates . We asked how the capacity of visual working memory relates to the maximal number of attentional templates that can simultaneously guide visual selection. To measure the number of active attentional templates, we used the contingent capture paradigm where cues matching the attentional template have larger effects than cues in a non-matching color. We found larger cueing effects for matching than non-matching cues in one-, two-, and also three-color searches, suggesting that participants can establish up to three attentional templates. However, scrutiny of matching cue trials showed that with three attentional templates, larger cueing effects only occurred when the matching cue had the same color as the actual target. When the matching cue had a possible target color that was different from the actual target color, cueing effects were similar to non-matching cue colors. We assume that processing of a matching cue activates one of the three templates, which inhibits the remaining templates to the level of non-matching colors. With two colors, the inhibition from the activated template is less complete because the initial template activation is higher. Overall, only a maximum of two attentional templates can operate successfully in the contingent capture paradigm. The capacity of template-guided search is therefore far below the capacity of visual working memory.

Peripheral cues reduce reaction times (RTs) to targets at the cued location with short cue-target SOAs (cueing benefits) but increase RTs at long SOAs (cueing costs or inhibition of return). In detection tasks, cueing costs occur at shorter SOAs and are larger compared with identification tasks. To account for effects of task, detection cost theory claims that the integration of cue and target into an object file makes it more difficult to detect the target as a new event, which is the principal task-requirement in detection tasks. The integration of cue and target is expected to increase when cue and target are similar. We provided evidence for detection cost theory in the modified spatial cueing paradigm. Two types of cues (onset, color) were paired with two types of targets (onset, color) in separate blocks of trials. In the identification task, we found cueing benefits with matching (i.e., similar) cue-target pairs (onset-onset, color-color) and no cueing effects with nonmatching cue-target pairs (onset-color, color-onset), which replicates previous work. In the detection task, cueing effects with matching cues were reduced and even turned into cueing costs for onset cues with onset targets, suggesting that cue-target integration made it more difficult to detect targets at the cued location as new events. In contrast, the results for nonmatching cue-target pairs were not affected by task. Furthermore, the pattern of false alarms in the detection task provides a measure of similarity that may explain the size of cueing benefits and costs.

Visual attention is often inadvertently captured by salient stimuli. It was suggested that it is possible to prevent attentional capture in some search tasks by suppressing salient stimuli below baseline. Evidence for attentional suppression comes from a probe task that was interleaved with the main search task. In the probe task of Gaspelin et al. (Psychol Sci 26(11):1740–1750, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615597913), letters were shown on the stimuli of the search display and participants had to identify as many letters as possible. Performance was found to be worse for letters shown on the distractor compared to non-salient non-target stimuli, suggesting that distractor processing was suppressed below baseline. However, it is unclear whether suppression occurred at the level of perception or decision-making because participants may have reported letters on the distractor less frequently than letters on nontargets. This decision-level bias may have degraded performance for letters on distractor compared to nontarget stimuli without changing perception. After replicating the original findings, we conducted two experiments where we avoided report bias by cueing only a single letter for report. We found that the difference between distractor and nontarget stimuli was strongly reduced, suggesting that decision-level processes contribute to attentional suppression. In contrast, the difference between target and non-target stimuli was unchanged, suggesting that it reflected perceptual-level enhancement of the target stimuli.