Investigating attentional control sets: evidence for the compilation of multi-feature control sets
Top-down control over stimulus-driven attentional capture, as postulated by the contingent capture hypothesis, has been a topic of lively scientific debate for a number of years now. According to the latter hypothesis, a stimulus has to match the feature of a top-down established control set in orde...
Main Authors: | , , , , |
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Format: | Journal article |
Language: | English |
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Springer
2022
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_version_ | 1797109877952217088 |
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author | Merz, S Beege, F Schöpper, L-M Spence, CJ Frings, C |
author_facet | Merz, S Beege, F Schöpper, L-M Spence, CJ Frings, C |
author_sort | Merz, S |
collection | OXFORD |
description | Top-down control over stimulus-driven attentional capture, as postulated by the contingent capture hypothesis, has been a topic of lively scientific debate for a number of years now. According to the latter hypothesis, a stimulus has to match the feature of a top-down established control set in order to be selected automatically. Today, research on the topic of contingent capture has focused mostly on the manipulation of only a single feature separating the target from the distractors (the selection feature). The research presented here examined the compilation of top-down attentional control sets having multiple selection features. We report three experiments in which the feature overlap between the distractor and the top-down sets was manipulated on different perceptual features (e.g., colour, orientation and location). Distractors could match three, two or one of the features of the top-down sets. In line with our hypotheses, the strength of the distractor interference effects decreased linearly as the feature overlap between the distractor and the participants' top-down sets decreased. These results therefore suggest a decline in the efficiency with which distractors involuntarily capture attention as the target-similarity decreases. The data support the idea of multi-feature attentional control sets and are discussed in light of prominent contemporary theories of visual attention. |
first_indexed | 2024-03-07T07:47:29Z |
format | Journal article |
id | oxford-uuid:c470390b-c1cf-4a67-8904-25b127459b73 |
institution | University of Oxford |
language | English |
last_indexed | 2024-03-07T07:47:29Z |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Springer |
record_format | dspace |
spelling | oxford-uuid:c470390b-c1cf-4a67-8904-25b127459b732023-06-19T08:45:46ZInvestigating attentional control sets: evidence for the compilation of multi-feature control setsJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:c470390b-c1cf-4a67-8904-25b127459b73EnglishSymplectic ElementsSpringer2022Merz, SBeege, FSchöpper, L-MSpence, CJFrings, CTop-down control over stimulus-driven attentional capture, as postulated by the contingent capture hypothesis, has been a topic of lively scientific debate for a number of years now. According to the latter hypothesis, a stimulus has to match the feature of a top-down established control set in order to be selected automatically. Today, research on the topic of contingent capture has focused mostly on the manipulation of only a single feature separating the target from the distractors (the selection feature). The research presented here examined the compilation of top-down attentional control sets having multiple selection features. We report three experiments in which the feature overlap between the distractor and the top-down sets was manipulated on different perceptual features (e.g., colour, orientation and location). Distractors could match three, two or one of the features of the top-down sets. In line with our hypotheses, the strength of the distractor interference effects decreased linearly as the feature overlap between the distractor and the participants' top-down sets decreased. These results therefore suggest a decline in the efficiency with which distractors involuntarily capture attention as the target-similarity decreases. The data support the idea of multi-feature attentional control sets and are discussed in light of prominent contemporary theories of visual attention. |
spellingShingle | Merz, S Beege, F Schöpper, L-M Spence, CJ Frings, C Investigating attentional control sets: evidence for the compilation of multi-feature control sets |
title | Investigating attentional control sets: evidence for the compilation of multi-feature control sets |
title_full | Investigating attentional control sets: evidence for the compilation of multi-feature control sets |
title_fullStr | Investigating attentional control sets: evidence for the compilation of multi-feature control sets |
title_full_unstemmed | Investigating attentional control sets: evidence for the compilation of multi-feature control sets |
title_short | Investigating attentional control sets: evidence for the compilation of multi-feature control sets |
title_sort | investigating attentional control sets evidence for the compilation of multi feature control sets |
work_keys_str_mv | AT merzs investigatingattentionalcontrolsetsevidenceforthecompilationofmultifeaturecontrolsets AT beegef investigatingattentionalcontrolsetsevidenceforthecompilationofmultifeaturecontrolsets AT schopperlm investigatingattentionalcontrolsetsevidenceforthecompilationofmultifeaturecontrolsets AT spencecj investigatingattentionalcontrolsetsevidenceforthecompilationofmultifeaturecontrolsets AT fringsc investigatingattentionalcontrolsetsevidenceforthecompilationofmultifeaturecontrolsets |