Zivony, A. orcid.org/0000-0001-7166-9439 and Eimer, M. (2024) A dissociation between the effects of expectations and attention in selective visual processing. Cognition, 250. 105864. ISSN 0010-0277
Abstract
It is often claimed that probabilistic expectations affect visual perception directly, without mediation by selective attention. However, these claims have been disputed, as effects of expectation and attention are notoriously hard to dissociate experimentally. In this study, we used a new approach to separate expectations from attention. In four experiments (N = 60), participants searched for a target in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream and had to identify a digit or a letter defined by a low-level cue (colour or shape). Expectations about the target's alphanumeric category were probabilistically manipulated. Since category membership is a high-level feature and since the target was embedded among many distractors that shared its category, targets from the expected category should not attract attention more than targets from the unexpected category. In the first experiment, these targets were more likely to be identified relative to targets from the unexpected category. Importantly, in the following experiments, we also included behavioural and electrophysiological indices of attentional guidance and engagement. This allowed us to examine whether expectations also modulated these or earlier attentional processes. Results showed that category-based expectations had no modulatory effects on attention, and only affected processing at later encoding-related stages. Alternative interpretation of expectation effects in terms of repetition priming or response bias were also ruled out. These observations provide new evidence for direct attention-independent expectation effects on perception. We suggest that expectations can adjust the threshold required for encoding expectations-congruent information, thereby affecting the speed with which target objects are encoded in working memory.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
Keywords: | Attention; Attentional engagement; Encoding; Expectations; Prediction; Working memory; Humans; Attention; Male; Female; Adult; Young Adult; Visual Perception; Electroencephalography; Anticipation, Psychological; Pattern Recognition, Visual |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Psychology (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 29 Nov 2024 11:49 |
Last Modified: | 29 Nov 2024 11:49 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier BV |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105864 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:220191 |