Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2024-04-03
Abstract： Feature binding of visual working memory(VWM) has been a hot topic in cognitive psychology and neuroscience in recent decades. Regarding the time course of objects’ feature encoding and binding in VWM, two controversial viewpoints have been proposed: the two-stage feature binding theory and the three-stage feature processing theory. After careful analysis, it is found that these two different conclusions are mainly based on different experimental materials and the types of features contained in them. Therefore, the feature encoding and binding time of dual-feature objects in VWM need to be further verified. In this study, meaningless objects and meaningful objects composed of two different types of features are selected to explore the specific encoding time course of their features in VWM, and compare the differences between the feature encoding and binding time course of them. Experiment 1 used a mixed design of 3 (memorizing item presentation time: 100ms, 500ms, 1000ms, internal variables of subjects) ×2 (object types: meaningful object, meaningless object, inter-subject variables) ×3 (detection methods: shape change, color change, feature exchange, internal variables of subjects). Its material is a color-shape pattern composed of two basic features. 52 college students were randomly divided into two groups to complete the task of detecting the feature changes of meaningless objects and meaningful objects respectively. The experimental procedure was as follows: First, the subjects were asked to remember the features and binding forms of 4 meaningful or meaningless objects presented on the screen. After 900ms of empty screen, a detection item appeared, and the subjects were asked to press the button as soon as possible to judge whether this detection item had appeared in the memory item on the premise of ensuring correctness. The design and procedure of experiment 2 is the same as that of experiment 1, except that the memory material is changed to a shape-texture pattern composed of one basic feature and one detailed feature. In experiment 3, based on experiment 2, the number of memorized items was reduced to 3, and the third level of presentation time was changed to 1500ms. The number of subjects in experiment 2 and 3 was 52 and 42 respectively. The dependent variable of all experiments was the correct rate of change detection. The results of experiment 1 show that the correct rate of color change is higher than shape change and feature exchange, but there is no difference between shape change and feature exchange. The results of experiment 2 and experiment 3 show that the detection results of shape change are higher than those of texture change and feature exchange, and there is no difference between texture change and feature exchange change. The accuracy of meaningful object was higher than that of meaningless object (1 and 3 of the experiment). With the increase of the time of memorizing items, the results of color-shape object change detection did not change, but the results of shape-texture object decreased significantly. In summary, there is a significant time history effect in encoding two-dimensional dual-feature objects in VWM. In particular, whether the object is composed of two basic features or one basic feature and one detail feature, its process conforms to the two-stage theory of feature binding. From the perspective of time history comparison between objects, the process of feature coding conforms to the three-stage theory of feature processing. These results to a large extent resolve the debate on whether feature encoding and binding in visual working memory is two-stage or three-stage. Object meaningfulness has an effect on feature coding, and the processing of meaningful objects is faster than that of meaningless objects under normal load conditions. In general, objects composed of basic features are processed faster than objects composed of basic features and detailed features.
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2023-12-01
Abstract： Is visual consciousness a discrete or continuous pattern? The attentional blink paradigm from the perspective of attentional blindness is an important tool for answering this question. Attentional blink paradigm refers to the rapid presentation of stimulus (approximately 10 per second) in a fixed spatial position, where participants need to report one or more targets among several distractions. This paradigm can effectively weaken consciousness to varying degrees by controlling the lag time, avoiding confusion in subjective judgments and errors caused by exogenous attention. Based on the perspective of integrated theory, the coexistence of two patterns in attentional blink is demonstrated, providing a compatible theoretical framework for different perspectives on this issue, and helping to further explore the reasons why measurement methods, stimulus materials, participants' reaction modes, processing levels, and attentional load affect visual consciousness patterns. Future research can optimize experimental methods and operations based on the above factors, thereby conducting in-depth empirical exploration of this issue from the perspective of attentional blink.
Subjects: Other Disciplines >> Synthetic discipline submitted time 2023-10-09 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Visual working memory (VWM) and selective attention are two essential topics of investigation in the field of cognitive psychology. Previous studies have suggested that object-based attention selection modes may be present during the VWM encoding stage, and feature-based attention selection modes may be present during the maintenance stage. Nonetheless, these conclusions are based on different research paradigms, object feature dimensions, and response indicators, so it is prudent to exercise caution when inferring the existence of distinct attention selection modes during different stages of VWM processing. The aim of the present study is to evaluate this hypothesis and provide empirical support.In Experiment 1a, 30 college students were recruited to complete a change-detection task. Participants were instructed to memorize the features of the objects presented in the memory display by means of a pre-cue or retro-cue presented prior to or following the memory display. Specifically, in pre-cue trials, participants were asked to memorize only the cueing task-relevant feature while ignoring the task-irrelevant feature. In retro-cue trials, participants needed to memorize the entire object so that they could select the task-relevant feature according to the retro-cue. The present study examined the “irrelevant-change distracting effect” by comparing memory performance between the condition of task-irrelevant feature changes and no-changes on the memory probe test display. Experiment 1b had a similar procedure, except that the cue types were block designs. Based on the design of Experiment 1b, Experiments 2 and 3 increased the number of memory items to test whether the memory load would modulate the attention selection modes. Twenty-eight participants were recruited for Experiment 1b, Experiment 2, and Experiment 3. All experiments were 2 (cue types: pre-cue, retro-cue) × 2 (task-irrelevant feature change types: change, no-change) within-subjects designs, participants' response times (RTs) and correct rates were recorded, and the sensitivity and criteria of the participants were calculated by signal detection theory (SDT).The results of the three experiments showed that the change in task-irrelevant features had an impact on task performance in the pre-cue trials, with longer RTs and lower criteria in the task-irrelevant feature change condition than in the no-change condition. This distracting effect was not modulated by the memory load. This suggests the existence of robust object-based attentional selection during the encoding stage in VWM. In contrast, in the retro-cue trials, the distracting effect was present only in the low memory load condition (Experiment 1a/1b) and disappeared when the memory load increased (Experiment 2/3). This suggests that during the maintenance stage, task-irrelevant features are processed only under low memory load conditions, and insufficient resources lead to their inability to be processed as the demand for attentional resources for task-relevant features increases.In summary, the present study provides further evidence for the hypothesis that different modes of attentional selection exist in the encoding and maintenance stages of VWM, specifically that the attention selection mode during the VWM encoding stage is object-based, while the attention selection mode during the maintenance stage is feature-based and regulated by memory load. This study has important implications for resolving the controversy surrounding the attention selection mode of multifeature objects in VWM.
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2023-04-12
Pang, Chao
Chen, Yanzhang
Wang, Li
Yang, Xiduan
He, Ya
Li, Zhiying
Ouyang, Xiaoyu
Fu, Shimin
Nan, Weizhi
Abstract： Visual working memory (VWM) and selective attention are two essential topics of investigation in the field of cognitive psychology. Previous studies have suggested that object-based attention selection modes may be present during the VWM encoding stage, and feature-based attention selection modes may be present during the maintenance stage. Nonetheless,these conclusions are based on different research paradigms, object feature dimensions, and response indicators, so it is prudent to exercise caution when inferring the existence of distinct attention selection modes during different stages of VWM processing. The aim of the present study is to evaluate this hypothesis and provide empirical support. In Experiment 1a, 30 college students were recruited to complete a change-detection task. Participants were instructed to memorize the features of the objects presented in the memory display by means of a pre-cue or retro-cue presented prior to or following the memory display. Specifically, in pre-cue trials, participants were asked to memorize only the cueing task-relevant feature while ignoring the task-irrelevant feature. In retro-cue trials, participants needed to memorize the entire object so that they could select the task-relevant feature according to the retro-cue. The present study examined the “irrelevant-change distracting effect” by comparing memory performance between the condition of task-irrelevant feature changes and no-changes on the memory probe test display. Experiment 1b had a similar procedure, except that the cue types were block designs. Based on the design of Experiment 1b, Experiments 2 and 3 increased the number of memory items to test whether the memory load would modulate the attention selection modes. Twenty-eight participants were recruited for Experiment 1b, Experiment 2, and Experiment 3. All experiments were 2 (cue types: pre-cue, retro-cue) × 2 (task-irrelevant feature change types: change, no-change) within-subjects designs, participants’ response times (RTs) and correct rates were recorded, and the sensitivity and criteria of the participants were calculated by signal detection theory (SDT). The results of the three experiments showed that the change in task-irrelevant features had an impact on task performance in the pre-cue trials, with longer RTs and lower criteria in the task-irrelevant feature change condition than in the no-change condition. This distracting effect was not modulated by the memory load. This suggests the existence of robust object-based attentional selection during the encoding stage in VWM. In contrast, in the retro-cue trials, the distracting effect was present only in the low memory load condition (Experiment 1a/1b) and disappeared when the memory load increased (Experiment 2/3). This suggests that during the maintenance stage, task-irrelevant features are processed only under low memory load conditions, and insufficient resources lead to their inability to be processed as the demand for attentional resources for task-relevant features increases.In summary, the present study provides further evidence for the hypothesis that different modes of attentional selection exist in the encoding and maintenance stages of VWM, specifically that the attention selection mode during the VWM encoding stage is object-based, while the attention selection mode during the maintenance stage is feature-based and regulated by memory load. This study has important implications for resolving the controversy surrounding the attention selection mode of multifeature objects in VWM.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： In the event-related potential (ERP) studies of visual attention, there is a debate regarding whether the C1 component, originated in V1, is modulated by spatial attention. The majority view suggests that C1 is not directly modulated by spatial attention; however, there is a delayed-feedback in V1. The minority view, on the other hand, implies that the C1 component can be directly modulated by spatial attention at the early feed-forward processing stage. Recently there was a debate regarding this issue. In this review, we first summarize the main points and evidence for each side. Second, we listed the factors that may affect the C1 attentional effects. Third, we review and comments on the recent discussions on three aspects, including the repeatability of C1 attentional effect, the role of perceptual and attentional load in eliciting this effect, and the relationship between C1 polarity reversal and its V1-origin. Finally we proposed two points of view: the first is that we should be open and cautious towards the minority view, and the second, there are some techniques and methods that may help to reveal the potential C1 attentional effect. In conclusion, the majority view has been supported by many previous studies and the minority view needs more decisive evidence, and this debate will continue.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Orienting network is an important part of attention system and it includes two major tasks: visual orienting and visual search. For these two tasks, typically developed group shows similar neural mechanisms. However, from a perspective of attention to non-social information, different behavioral patterns were observed between visual orienting and visual search in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) group. Regarding visual orienting, the consensus is that ASD individuals are intact in attentional shift but have difficulty in attentional disengagement; however, this conclusion is still controversial. Regarding visual search, ASD individuals have superior search ability, but its time sequence and reasons deserves further exploration. Future studies should identify the hemispherical symmetry of ASD individuals in visual orienting task, the underlying mechanisms of visual search advantage, and the relationships between visual orienting and visual search in ASD populations.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： According to object-based attention (OBA) theory, attention processes object as a unit. When attention is directed to a certain part of an object, the processing of other features of the object will be promoted. Object-based attention has been confirmed by many studies. However, most of the previous studies are based on static objects, and there are few studies on how object-based attention changes for dynamic objects. However, information in the real world is always changing, using dynamic objects for OBA research is more ecologically valid and necessary. For the attentional allocation of dynamic objects, there are two theoretical assumptions: the cued object hypothesis and the dynamic updating hypothesis. The cued object hypothesis proposes that object-based attention follows the original cued object, while the dynamic updating hypothesis assumes that object-based attention is determined by the changed object. The study of attention on dynamic objects also found the instantaneous object effect, which means the object-based attention follows the instantaneous object. We propose that experiments supporting the two theoretical hypotheses have differences in the experimental manipulation, which lead to changes in the relative strength between object representations of the cued object and the instantaneous object, resulting in the two seemingly contradictory points of view. As to whether attention is based on the cued object or the instantaneous object, we proposes that the relative strength between object representations of the cued and instantaneous objects plays a critical role. That is, when the cued object representation is stronger than the instantaneous object representation, the object-based attention follows the original cued object, vice versa. The concept of object representation strength is of great significance in OBA research. It is found that object representation strength can affect OBA, and stronger object representation can capture attention more easily. The factors that affect the object representation strength, such as the object presentation time, the factors that affect the surface consistency of an object (such as the object color, texture, continuous contour, etc.) and the top-down factors, will also indirectly affect OBA through affecting the object representation strength. For these reasons, introduces the concept of object representation strength to the discussion of the theory of attending dynamic objects is necessary, but previous studies did not pay attention to the effects of the object representation strength on dynamic objects. In this paper, we introduced the concept of relative object representation strength and analyze the attention theory based on dynamic objects and its experimental basis. This approach can further improve the attention theory based on dynamic objects, get a unified explanation for previous contradictory results, and explain the cause of the cued and instantaneous object effects from a new perspective. The concept of the relative strength of object representation may be critical for understanding how object-based attention is allocated under the circumstance of processing dynamic objects and resolving the conflict of related theories. At present, the research of attention based on dynamic objects mainly focuses on the determination of cued and instantaneous objects, ignoring the important role of relative object representation strength, and most of the results are compared by the reaction time. Further study could focus on the relative object representation strength to test the influence of the relative object representation strength on dynamic object-based attention and explore its underlying mechanisms. At the same time, since the OBA effect is small descriptively, the method of recording the reaction time may lead to replication issue for some results. More sensitive psychophysical methods can be used in future studies to obtain more stable and repeatable results and help to better clarify the mechanisms of the dynamic object theory.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Spatial-numerical associations (SNAs), showing that small numbers have stronger associations with left space and large numbers have stronger associations with right space, are a hot topic in the field of cognitive psychology. An important index to explore SNAs is the spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC) effect (i.e., faster responses to small numbers using left effectors, and the inverse for large numbers), which provides strong evidence for the existence of SNAs. Previous studies have verified the universality of the SNARC effect. This effect could be observed across a wide range of numbers, diversified materials, different sensory channels, different ways participants react, and various reaction indexes. Importantly, the SNARC effect is also flexible in direction and the processing stage at which it occurs. First, the direction of the SNARC effect is flexible. Previous studies showed that the direction of the SNARC effect could be influenced by different reading habits (e.g., left-to-right or right-to-left), varying ranges of numbers (e.g., 1~9, 0~4, and 4~9), different representations (e.g., ruler or alarm clock), serial position in working memory, and reference numbers for comparison. The mental number line, working memory account and other theories have been proposed to explain the directional flexibility of the SNARC effect. Second, the processing stage in which the SNARC effect occurs is flexible. Researchers have tried to determine the processing stage in which the SNARC effect occurs from three perspectives: the relationship between the SNARC effect and other effects occurring at different stages (e.g., the Simon effect, Stroop effect, numerical distance effect, and switch cost), changes in the SNARC effect in different response effectors (e.g., hand response and eye movement), and the event-related potentials (ERPs) components induced by the SNARC effect. Three views of the processing stage in which the SNARC effect occurs have been proposed, but the conclusions are still discordant. The first view supports that the SNARC effect occurs at the semantic representation stage, the second view supports that it occurs at the response selection stage, and some recent studies have proposed a third view that the SNARC effect occurs flexibly at both stages. This dispute may be caused by the following four reasons: (1) disparities in the comprehension of additive-factor logic, which led to indirect inference; (2) observation from a single point, which led to indirect inference; (3) different types of Simon effects were adopted as the measure index, which led to different results; and (4) different tasks were adopted, which led to different results. Combining the above reasons, a new two-stage processing (spatial representation of magnitude, spatial representation to response selection) model was proposed. This model distinguished the different processing pathways of magnitude information in the magnitude comparison task (task-relevant) and in the parity judgment task (task-irrelevant). Also, it was proposed that different interference factors acting on the two stages might be the core reason for the flexibility of the SNARC effect. This model covered and explained the flexible variation in the SNARC effect observed in most previous studies. Future research could focus on comparisons of different tasks and the adoption of various interference factors to verify the two-stage processing model and combine cognitive neuroscience technologies to further elucidate the neural mechanism underlying the flexibility of SNAs.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： The automatic detection of facial emotion changes is crucial for survival. Numerous studies using the event-related potential (ERP) technique have found that the amplitude of emotion-related visual mismatch negativity (EMMN) could be used to test the automatic processing of facial emotion. Previous studies suggested that deviant - standard stimulus (D-S) pair (different/same) and emotion type (negative/non- negative) might modulate the EMMN effect, however, the evidence so far was mixed. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis to analyze the findings of 35 studies (involving 721 healthy participants) on EMMN, among them, 26 (K = 43), 30 (K = 50), 22 (K = 24), and 24 (K = 26) studies (Kis the number of effect sizes) were used to analyze early EMMN effect, late EMMN effect, the negative bias of early EMMN effect and EMMN effect. Results showed that: (1) EMMN effects emerged at both the early- (0~200 ms) and late- (200~400 ms) stages, demonstrating that infrequently presented deviant stimulus elicited more negative ERPs at both the early- and late-stages(early: g = -0.66, 95% CI: [-0.77 -0.56]; late:g= -0.61, 95% CI: [-0.76 -0.47]). This suggests that EMMN reflects the probability effect of early- and late- stages emotion-related ERP components; (2) the type of D-S pair moderated the EMMN effect at the early-(Q(1) = 8.58, p < 0.01) but not the late-stages( Q(1) = 2.92, p = 0.09). Specifically, the EMMN effect of different D-S pairs(g = -0.83, 95% CI: [-0.98 -0.68]) was significantly larger than that of the same D-S pairs(g = -0.52, 95% CI: [-0.66 -0.37]) at the early-stage; (3) in the studies of same D-S pairs, the evidence between equiprobable and non-equiprobable paradigm showed no significant differences in EMMN at both stages(early:Q(1) = 1.29, p = 0.26; late: Q(1) = 0.79, p = 0.38); (4) a negative bias was found in both early(g = -0.28, 95% CI: [-0.48 -0.09]) and late EMMN(g = -0.32, 95% CI: [-0.54 -0.10]), i.e., the EMMN elicited by the angry, fearful, angry faces was significantly larger than that of happy faces. These results indicate that the EMMN effect is affected by experimental manipulations such as D-S pair type and emotion type. The influence of D-S pair type on the EMMN effect indicated that a low level of physical information would affect the early EMMN effect, which suggested that we should avoid using the traditional oddball paradigm to study the EMMN effect; In the study of the same D-S pair, the probability difference of D-S pair did not affect the EMMN effect, which indicated that visual refractoriness did not affect the EMMN effect. This suggests that it is feasible to study the EMMN effect by using the reverse oddball paradigm and the equiprobable paradigm. However, more evidence is needed for this conclusion, as the number of studies with the equiprobable(2) is far less than that of non-equiprobable(11). In addition, the EMMN effect is sensitive to emotion type, which negative emotion induces a greater EMMN effect. These results indicate that the EMMN is a crucial electrophysiological index for automatic facial emotion processing.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： The current study reports three experiments to test whether and how unconscious activation of distractors with subliminal presentation, especially at stimulus level, affects response to targets in a letter flanker task. In each experiment, the flanker letters were made unconscious using visually backward masking letters. As classic Flanker tasks, the congruency between target letters and flankers were manipulated to form three conditions – conflicting at stimulus level, conflicting at response level, and non-conflicting. Stimulus conflict referred to trials in which the target and the flankers differed but linked to the same response key, indicating that the competition between the target and flankers occurs at stimulus level. In contrast, response conflict referred to trials where the target and flankers were not only different but also associated with distinct response keys, indicating that the competition between the target and flankers emerges at both the stimulus and response levels. Non-conflict referred to congruent target and flankers trials, used as a baseline condition. Accordingly, the stimulus conflict effect was the difference between stimulus conflict and non-conflict conditions, while the response conflict effect was the difference between response conflict and non-conflict condition. A total of fifty seven participants this study. Experiment 1A was a baseline experiment with supraliminal flankers, in which the classical effects of stimulus conflict and response conflict were observed. However, when the flankers were made unconscious in Experiment 1B using subliminal flankers, a reversed stimulus conflict effect emerged but the response conflict effect maintained. These results were replicated in Experiment 2 when symbolic stimuli were used to reduce the difficulty in forming a stimulus-response association. Likewise, the effects were observed in Experiment 3 with more stimuli and response types were introduced. Crucially, the effect of stimulus conflict dynamically varied along different time windows, while the effect of response conflict was stable across time windows. Altogether, the results provided systematically behavioral evidence for the subliminal activation of distractors that affects target performance at both the stimulus and response levels in a flanker task. The data indicated that the unconscious representation of distractors dynamically influences stimulus processing of targets over time but exerts a stable impact on responses. Our findings, especially the unconscious representation at stimulus level can clarify the mechanism and integrate previous contradicting conclusions of unconscious processing.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Both attention and expectation are important mechanisms to help the brain filter and process information in a complex environment. However, there is still no unified conclusion about whether they act interactively or additively on perception. Previous studies that used the spatial cueing paradigm to address this issue might have confounded attention and expectation. Recently, researchers have made efforts to define attention and expectation orthogonally. Using ERP and fMRI techniques, they explored the relationship between endogenous attention and probabilistic expectation in a way that defining attention by task relevance and defining expectation by probability. In the present study, we explored the relationship between exogenous attention and probabilistic expectation, by making clear orthogonal definitions for them. Moreover, previous studies mainly considered the relationship between target expectation and attention. Considering the possible difference between expectation on a target and expectation on a distractor, we also focus on the influence of expected subject in the relationship between expectation and attention. In the present study, double peripheral cuing combined with visual search paradigm were used to explore the relationship between expectation and attention. We defined attention using peripheral cues without probabilistic information. Attended was defined when a peripheral cue was consistent with the location of the target, and unattended was defined when the peripheral cue was inconsistent with the location of the target. Expectations were defined by using spatial probabilities, and the participants were told beforehand where the stimulus would be more likely to occur through instruction. Four experiments were carried out in this study, and each experiment included 24 valid participants. Before the formal experiment, the participants were told which locations the target would appear more frequently (the distractor was randomly presented) or which locations the distractor will appear more frequently (the target was randomly presented). In a formal trial, the participants were presented with a 500 ms fixation point first, and then there were 50 ms double-cues without any validity probability. After the double-cues disappeared for 150 ms, a target array (consisted of a target and a distractor) appeared for 1000 ms. Participants were asked to find the target and to perform a discrimination task by pressing corresponding keys. In experiment 1, the double-cues were presented randomly in the left or right visual field, such that attention was manipulated in left or right visual field. In contrast, the participants were expected the targets or distractors to occur more in the upper or lower visual field, that is, expectation was manipulated in the upper or lower visual filed, orthogonal to the manipulation of attention. In Experiment 1, we found that when the expected subject is different (on the target or on the distractor), the relationship between expectation and attention was different. When the target is the expected, expectation and attention influenced performance in an interactive way. However, when the distractor is the expected, they influenced performance in an additive way. In experiment 2, the double-cues were randomly presented in the upper or lower visual field, while the participants were expected the targets or distractors to occur more frequently in the left or right visual field. Contrary to our prediction, under this manipulation of attention, the main effect of attention was not significant. We suspected that this was due to the presence of attention cues across the left and right visual field. Therefore, we improved Experiment 3 by presenting the attention cues with diagonal locations centered on the fixation point, and manipulating the expectation on the orthogonal diagonal location to the attention cues. We replicated the basic findings of Experiment 1 in Experiment 3, that is, when the target was expected, expectation and attention interactively influenced performance. However, when the distractor was expected, expectation and attention influenced performance separately. Furthermore, in order to explore whether task difficulty affects the relationship between expectation and attention, we increased the number of stimuli in Experiment 4. Again, we found that when the target was expected, expectation and attention were interacted in Experiment 4. Moreover, by comparing with Experiment 1, we found that the relationship between expectation and attention did not change as a function of task difficulty. Our results suggested that when the expected subject is different (on the target or on the distractor), the relationship between expectation and attention was different. Previous studies have suggested that in the process of visual search, the promotion of the target and the inhibition of the distractor are controlled by two different neural mechanisms. Therefore, the relationship between expectation and attention is different when target is the expected subject relative to when distractor is the expected subject.When the target is expected, the interaction between expectation and attention on performance can be explained by predictive coding theory. Under the expected condition, the prediction error is small and there is no need to update the prediction model in the brain, so the efficiency of attention is higher. Under unexpected conditions, the prediction model needs to be updated, which leads to relatively low efficiency of attention. When the distractor is expected, expectation and attention affect performance additively, which may be due to the low correlation between the distractor expectation and the target task, or the processing of the distractor and the target are completed by different neural mechanisms. In conclusion, we believe that when expectation is anchored to different subjects, the relationship between expectation and attention are different. Specifically, when expectation is anchored to the distractor, they influence performance independently, and when expectation is anchored to the target, they are influence performance interactively.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： The neural correlates of consciousness are debatable due to the confounding effects of subjective reports. In addition, although previous studies have suggested that vMMN is relatively insensitive to the manipulation of visual attention, the relationship between vMMN and visual consciousness remains unclear. The inattentional blindness paradigm can not only effectively manipulate visual consciousness, but also explore the conscious process without relying on subjective reports. Therefore, we used this paradigm to manipulate visual consciousness. Moreover, we introduced emotional (happy and fearful) faces, which are biologically and socially significant visual stimuli, to explore the neural correlates of consciousness and the relationship between automatic detection of changes and visual consciousness. Fifty-six Chinese participants took part in the present study. We recorded electroencephalography (EEG) in three phases. In phase A, the participants needed to detect changes of the red dots. However, because they were not informed of the existence of emotional faces, some participants were unconscious of the task-irrelevant emotional faces. In phase B and C, all participants were informed about the emotional faces. Thus, they were conscious of the emotional faces. Specifically, in phase B, the participants still needed to detect changes of the red dots, and the emotional faces are task-irrelevant. However, in phase C, the participants were asked to detect changes of emotional faces, and thus they were task-relevant in phase C. To check the conscious state of emotional faces, subjects were required to fill out an awareness questionnaire after completing phases A and B. Then the participants were divided into unconscious group and conscious group according to their conscious state of emotional faces in phase A. Results can be summarized as following. (1) Two primary contrasts were made: conscious versus unconscious (equally task irrelevant) to reveal the neural correlates of consciousness and task-relevant versus task-irrelevant (equally aware) to reveal the effect of task relevance. In the early stage, the results showed that the standard emotional faces in phase B evoked significantly stronger negativity than in phase A for the unconscious group, suggesting that the conscious process of emotional faces evoked visual awareness negativity (VAN) (200~300 ms). By contrast, compared with the task-irrelevant condition (phase B), the standard emotional faces under the task-relevant condition (phase C) evoked significantly stronger negativity, suggesting that task relevance evoked selection negativity (SN) (180~250 ms). This provides evidence that VAN is a neural correlate of consciousness by separating the neural activity of visual awareness and selective attention of emotional faces. Moreover, in the late stage, the results showed that the standard emotional faces in phase B evoked significantly stronger positivity than in phase A for the unconscious group, suggesting that the conscious process of emotional faces evoked late positivity (LP) (300~400 ms) and late occipital positivity (LOP) (400~600 ms). By contrast, compared with the task-irrelevant condition (phase B), the standard emotional faces under the task-relevant condition (phase C) evoked significantly stronger positivity, suggesting that task relevance evoked LP (300~400 ms) and LOP (400~500 ms) that may reflect the post-perceptual processing of target stimuli. Therefore, this study also provides evidence that LP and LOP are neural correlates of consciousness without the confounding effects of task relevance. In short, VAN may reflect the early perceptual process of emotional faces, LP and LOP may reflect the further process of classifying and recognizing the stimulus representations of emotional faces, such as assessing the emotional valence of faces. (2) The ERP results showed that a vMMN effect was found in all three phases: compared to standard emotional faces, deviant evoked significantly stronger negativity at the 250~350 ms latency in three phases. Importantly, a vMMN effect was observed for the unconscious group in the phase A. Furthermore, no amplitude difference of vMMN was observed between the aware (phase B) and the unaware (phase A) conditions among unconscious group, suggesting that the deviance processing of emotional faces is independent of visual consciousness. Compared with Chen (2020), this study provides evidence that the deviance processing of emotional faces is independent of visual consciousness under the condition that the unconsciousness level is manipulated more effectively. (3) Compared with the task-irrelevant condition (phase B), the vMMN amplitude under the task-relevant condition (phase C) was larger, suggesting that task relevance modulates the amplitude of vMMN and the attentional effect of task relevance promotes the deviance processing of emotional faces. The conclusions of this study can be summarized as following. (1) VAN is the neural correlate of consciousness under the condition of avoiding confounding effects of visual attention, and LP and LOP are the neural correlates of consciousness under the condition of avoiding confounding effects of task relevance. (2) The visual awareness of emotional faces has different ERP indicators at different time stages. Specifically, VAN reflects the early perceptual experience, LP and LOP reflect the late conscious experience of non-perceptual information. (3) The deviance processing of emotional faces is independent of visual consciousness. (4) The attentional effect of task relevance modulates the deviance processing of emotional faces.
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2021-10-26
Abstract： Object-based attention has been confirmed by many studies. However, most of the previous studies are based on static objects, and there are few studies on how object-based attention changes for dynamic objects. For the attentional allocation of dynamic object, there are two theoretical assumptions: the cued object hypothesis and the dynamic updating hypothesis. The cued object hypothesis proposes that object-based attention follows the original cued object, while the dynamic updating hypothesis assumes that object-based attention is determined by the changed object. The study of attention on dynamic objects also found the instantaneous object effect, which means the object-based attention follows the instantaneous object. We propose that experiments supporting the two theoretical hypotheses have differences in the experimental manipulation, which lead to changes in the relative strength between object representations of the cued object and the instantaneous object, resulting in the two seemingly contradictory points of view. The concept of the relative strength of object representation may be critical for understanding how object-based attention is allocated under the circumstance of processing dynamic objects. " " "
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2021-07-27
Abstract： Spatial-numerical associations (SNAs) are a hot topic in the field of cognitive psychology. An important index to explore SNAs is the spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC) effect (i.e., faster responses to small numbers using left effectors, and the inverse for large numbers). Previous studies have verified the universality of the SNARC effect and its flexibility in direction, and a variety of theoretical explanations have been proposed. In addition, the SNARC effect is also flexible in the processing stage at which it occurs, which might be caused by: (1) disparities in the comprehension of additive-factor logic, (2) observation from a single point, (3) different types of Simon effects were adopted as the measure index, and (4) different tasks were adopted. Combining the above reasons, a new two-stage processing (spatial representation of magnitude, spatial representation to response selection) model was proposed. Also, it was proposed that different interference factors acting on the two stages might be the core reason for the flexibility of the SNARC effect. Future research could focus on comparisons of different tasks and the adoption of various interference factors to verify the two-stage processing model and combine cognitive neuroscience technologies to further elucidate the neural mechanism underlying the flexibility of SNAs. "
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2021-02-18
Abstract： The automatic detection of facial emotion changes is crucial for survival. Numerous studies using event-related potential (ERP) technique have found that the amplitude of emotion-related visual mismatch negativity (EMMN) could be used to test the automatic processing of facial emotion. Previous studies suggested that deviant – standard stimulus (D-S) pair (different/ same) and emotion type (negative/ non-negative) might modulate the EMMN effect, however, the evidence so far was mixed. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis to analyze the findings of 36 studies (involving 733 healthy participants) on EMMN. Results showed that: (1) EMMN effects emerged at both the early- (0 – 200ms) and late- (200 – 400ms) stages, demonstrating that infrequently presented deviant stimulus elicited more negative ERPs at both the early- and late-stages. This suggests that EMMN reflects the probability effect of early- and late-stages emotion-related ERP components; (2) the type of D-S pair moderated the EMMN effect at the early- but not the late-stages. Specifically, the EMMN effect of different D-S pairs was significantly larger than that of the same D-S pairs at the early-stage; (3) in the studies of same D-S pairs, the evidence between equiprobable and non-equiprobable paradigm showed no significant differences in EMMN at both stages; (4) a negative bias was found in both early and late EMMN, i.e., the EMMN elicited by the angry, fearful, angry faces was significantly larger than that of happy faces. These results indicate that the EMMN effect is affected by experimental manipulations such as D-S pair type and emotion type.
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2019-09-12
Abstract： Orienting network is an important part of attention system and it includes two major tasks: visual orienting and visual search. For these two tasks, typically developed group showed similar neural mechanisms. However, from a perspective of attention to non-social information, different behavioral patterns were observed between visual orienting and visual search in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) group. Regarding visual orienting, the consensus is that ASD individuals are intact in attentional shift but have difficulty in attentional disengagement; however, this conclusion is still controversial. Regarding visual search, ASD individuals have superior search ability, but its time sequence and reasons deserves further exploration. Future studies should identify the hemispherical symmetry of ASD individuals in visual orienting task, the underlying mechanisms of visual search advantage, and the relationships between visual orienting and visual search in ASD populations.
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