Strong Conscious Cues Suppress Preferential Gaze Allocation to Unconscious Cues
Visual attention allows relevant information to be selected for further processing. Both conscious and unconscious visual stimuli can bias attentional allocation, but how these two types of visual information interact to guide attention remains unclear. In this study, we explored attentional allocat...
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Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2018-10-01
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Series: | Frontiers in Human Neuroscience |
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Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2018.00427/full |
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author | Andrea Alamia Oleg Solopchuk Alexandre Zénon Alexandre Zénon |
author_facet | Andrea Alamia Oleg Solopchuk Alexandre Zénon Alexandre Zénon |
author_sort | Andrea Alamia |
collection | DOAJ |
description | Visual attention allows relevant information to be selected for further processing. Both conscious and unconscious visual stimuli can bias attentional allocation, but how these two types of visual information interact to guide attention remains unclear. In this study, we explored attentional allocation during a motion discrimination task with varied motion strength and unconscious associations between stimuli and cues. Participants were instructed to report the motion direction of two colored patches of dots. Unbeknown to participants, dot colors were sometimes informative of the correct response. We found that subjects learnt the associations between colors and motion direction but failed to report this association using the questionnaire filled at the end of the experiment, confirming that learning remained unconscious. The eye movement analyses revealed that allocation of attention to unconscious sources of information occurred mostly when motion coherence was low, indicating that unconscious cues influence attentional allocation only in the absence of strong conscious cues. All in all, our results reveal that conscious and unconscious sources of information interact with each other to influence attentional allocation and suggest a selection process that weights cues in proportion to their reliability. |
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format | Article |
id | doaj.art-02f227a592c8433ca51c31515c85507b |
institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
issn | 1662-5161 |
language | English |
last_indexed | 2024-12-22T01:46:28Z |
publishDate | 2018-10-01 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | Article |
series | Frontiers in Human Neuroscience |
spelling | doaj.art-02f227a592c8433ca51c31515c85507b2022-12-21T18:43:03ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Human Neuroscience1662-51612018-10-011210.3389/fnhum.2018.00427414499Strong Conscious Cues Suppress Preferential Gaze Allocation to Unconscious CuesAndrea Alamia0Oleg Solopchuk1Alexandre Zénon2Alexandre Zénon3Institute of Neuroscience, Université catholique de Louvain, Brussels, BelgiumInstitute of Neuroscience, Université catholique de Louvain, Brussels, BelgiumInstitute of Neuroscience, Université catholique de Louvain, Brussels, BelgiumUMR5287 Institut de Neurosciences Cognitives et Intégratives d’Aquitaine (INCIA), CNRS, Bordeaux, FranceVisual attention allows relevant information to be selected for further processing. Both conscious and unconscious visual stimuli can bias attentional allocation, but how these two types of visual information interact to guide attention remains unclear. In this study, we explored attentional allocation during a motion discrimination task with varied motion strength and unconscious associations between stimuli and cues. Participants were instructed to report the motion direction of two colored patches of dots. Unbeknown to participants, dot colors were sometimes informative of the correct response. We found that subjects learnt the associations between colors and motion direction but failed to report this association using the questionnaire filled at the end of the experiment, confirming that learning remained unconscious. The eye movement analyses revealed that allocation of attention to unconscious sources of information occurred mostly when motion coherence was low, indicating that unconscious cues influence attentional allocation only in the absence of strong conscious cues. All in all, our results reveal that conscious and unconscious sources of information interact with each other to influence attentional allocation and suggest a selection process that weights cues in proportion to their reliability.https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2018.00427/fullunconscious learningeye movementsvisual attentioneye trackingimplicit learning |
spellingShingle | Andrea Alamia Oleg Solopchuk Alexandre Zénon Alexandre Zénon Strong Conscious Cues Suppress Preferential Gaze Allocation to Unconscious Cues Frontiers in Human Neuroscience unconscious learning eye movements visual attention eye tracking implicit learning |
title | Strong Conscious Cues Suppress Preferential Gaze Allocation to Unconscious Cues |
title_full | Strong Conscious Cues Suppress Preferential Gaze Allocation to Unconscious Cues |
title_fullStr | Strong Conscious Cues Suppress Preferential Gaze Allocation to Unconscious Cues |
title_full_unstemmed | Strong Conscious Cues Suppress Preferential Gaze Allocation to Unconscious Cues |
title_short | Strong Conscious Cues Suppress Preferential Gaze Allocation to Unconscious Cues |
title_sort | strong conscious cues suppress preferential gaze allocation to unconscious cues |
topic | unconscious learning eye movements visual attention eye tracking implicit learning |
url | https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2018.00427/full |
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