1
|
Krause A, Poth CH. Maintaining eye fixation relieves pressure of cognitive action control. iScience 2023; 26:107520. [PMID: 37636052 PMCID: PMC10457444 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107520] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2023] [Revised: 06/23/2023] [Accepted: 07/31/2023] [Indexed: 08/29/2023] Open
Abstract
Cognitive control enables humans to behave guided by their current goals and intentions. Cognitive control in one task generally suffers when humans try to engage in another task on top. However, we discovered an additional task that supports conflict resolution. In two experiments, participants performed a spatial cognitive control task. For different blocks of trials, they either received no instruction regarding eye movements or were asked to maintain the eyes fixated on a stimulus. The additional eye fixation task did not reduce task performance, but selectively ameliorated the adverse effects of cognitive conflicts on reaction times (Experiment 1). Likewise, in urgent situations, the additional task reduced performance impairments due to stimulus-driven processing overpowering cognitive control (Experiment 2). These findings suggest that maintaining eye fixation locks attentional resources that would otherwise induce spatial cognitive conflicts. This reveals an attentional disinhibition that boosts goal-directed action by relieving pressure from cognitive control.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Anika Krause
- Biopsychology and Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany
- Neuro-Cognitive Psychology, Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany
- Center for Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC), Bielefeld University, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany
| | - Christian H. Poth
- Neuro-Cognitive Psychology, Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany
- Center for Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC), Bielefeld University, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Dietze N, Recker L, Poth CH. Warning signals only support the first action in a sequence. Cogn Res Princ Implic 2023; 8:29. [PMID: 37171646 PMCID: PMC10182231 DOI: 10.1186/s41235-023-00484-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/15/2022] [Accepted: 04/30/2023] [Indexed: 05/13/2023] Open
Abstract
Acting upon target stimuli from the environment becomes faster when the targets are preceded by a warning (alerting) cue. Accordingly, alerting is often used to support action in safety-critical contexts (e.g., honking to alert others of a traffic situation). Crucially, however, the benefits of alerting for action have been established using laboratory tasks assessing only simple choice reactions. Real-world actions are considerably more complex and mainly consist of sensorimotor sequences of several sub-actions. Therefore, it is still unknown if the benefits of alerting for action transfer from simple choice reactions to such sensorimotor sequences. Here, we investigated how alerting affected performance in a sequential action task derived from the Trail-Making-Test, a well-established neuropsychological test of cognitive action control (Experiment 1). In addition to this task, participants performed a classic alerting paradigm including a simple choice reaction task (Experiment 2). Results showed that alerting sped up responding in both tasks, but in the sequential action task, this benefit was restricted to the first action of a sequence. This was the case, even when multiple actions were performed within a short time (Experiment 3), ruling out that the restriction of alerting to the first action was due to its short-lived nature. Taken together, these findings reveal the existence of an interface between phasic alertness and action control that supports the next action.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Niklas Dietze
- Department of Psychology, Neuro-Cognitive Psychology and Center for Cognitive Interaction Technology, Bielefeld University, P.O. box 10 01 31, 33501, Bielefeld, Germany.
| | - Lukas Recker
- Department of Psychology, Neuro-Cognitive Psychology and Center for Cognitive Interaction Technology, Bielefeld University, P.O. box 10 01 31, 33501, Bielefeld, Germany
| | - Christian H Poth
- Department of Psychology, Neuro-Cognitive Psychology and Center for Cognitive Interaction Technology, Bielefeld University, P.O. box 10 01 31, 33501, Bielefeld, Germany
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Laurin AS, Bleau M, Gedjakouchian J, Fournet R, Pisella L, Khan AZ. Post-saccadic changes disrupt attended pre-saccadic object memory. J Vis 2021; 21:8. [PMID: 34347017 PMCID: PMC8340665 DOI: 10.1167/jov.21.8.8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Trans-saccadic memory consists of keeping track of objects’ locations and features across saccades; pre-saccadic information is remembered and compared with post-saccadic information. It has been shown to have limited resources and involve attention with respect to the selection of objects and features. In support, a previous study showed that recognition of distinct post-saccadic objects in the visual scene is impaired when pre-saccadic objects are relevant and thus already encoded in memory (Poth, Herwig, Schneider, 2015). Here, we investigated the inverse (i.e. how the memory of pre-saccadic objects is affected by abrupt but irrelevant changes in the post-saccadic visual scene). We also modulated the amount of attention to the relevant pre-saccadic object by having participants either make a saccade to it or elsewhere and observed that pre-saccadic attentional facilitation affected how much post-saccadic changes disrupted trans-saccadic memory of pre-saccadic objects. Participants identified a flashed symbol (d, b, p, or q, among distracters), at one of six placeholders (figures “8”) arranged in circle around fixation while planning a saccade to one of them. They reported the identity of the symbol after the saccade. We changed the post-saccadic scene in Experiment one by removing the entire scene, only the placeholder where the pre-saccadic symbol was presented, or all other placeholders except this one. We observed reduced identification performance when only the saccade-target placeholder disappeared after the saccade. In Experiment two, we changed one placeholder location (inward/outward shift or rotation re. saccade vector) after the saccade and observed that identification performance decreased with increased shift/rotation of the saccade-target placeholder. We conclude that pre-saccadic memory is disrupted by abrupt attention-capturing post-saccadic changes of visual scene, particularly when these changes involve the object prioritized by being the goal of a saccade. These findings support the notion that limited trans-saccadic memory resources are disrupted when object correspondence at saccadic goal is broken through removal or location change.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Anne-Sophie Laurin
- University of Montreal, Department of Psychology, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.,
| | - Maxime Bleau
- University of Montreal, School of Optometry, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.,
| | | | - Romain Fournet
- University of Montreal, School of Optometry, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.,
| | - Laure Pisella
- ImpAct, INSERM UM1028, CNRS UMR 5292, University Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Lyon, France.,
| | | |
Collapse
|
4
|
Kreyenmeier P, Deubel H, Hanning NM. Theory of visual attention (TVA) in action: Assessing premotor attention in simultaneous eye-hand movements. Cortex 2020; 133:133-148. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2020.09.020] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/06/2020] [Revised: 09/10/2020] [Accepted: 09/11/2020] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
|
5
|
Oculomotor capture by search-irrelevant features in visual working memory: on the crucial role of target-distractor similarity. Atten Percept Psychophys 2020; 82:2379-2392. [PMID: 32166644 PMCID: PMC7343749 DOI: 10.3758/s13414-020-02007-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/03/2023]
Abstract
When searching for varying targets in the environment, a target template has to be maintained in visual working memory (VWM). Recently, we showed that search-irrelevant features of a VWM template bias attention in an object-based manner, so that objects sharing such features with a VWM template capture the eyes involuntarily. Here, we investigated whether target-distractor similarity modulates capture strength. Participants saccaded to a target accompanied by a distractor. A single feature (e.g., shape) defined the target in each trial indicated by a cue, and the cue also varied in one irrelevant feature (e.g., color). The distractor matched the cue's irrelevant feature in half of the trials. Nine experiments showed that target-distractor similarity consistently influenced the degree of oculomotor capture. High target-distractor dissimilarity in the search-relevant feature reduced capture by the irrelevant feature (Experiments 1, 3, 6, 7). However, capture was reduced by high target-distractor similarity in the search-irrelevant feature (Experiments 1, 4, 5, 8). Strong oculomotor capture was observed if target-distractor similarity was reasonably low in the relevant and high in the irrelevant feature, irrespective of whether color or shape were relevant (Experiments 2 and 5). These findings argue for involuntary and object-based, top-down control by VWM templates, whereas its manifestation in oculomotor capture depends crucially on target-distractor similarity in relevant and irrelevant feature dimensions of the search object.
Collapse
|
6
|
Poth CH. Prioritization in visual working memory enhances memory retention and speeds up processing in a comparison task. Cogn Process 2020; 21:331-339. [PMID: 32206936 PMCID: PMC7381449 DOI: 10.1007/s10339-020-00967-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/21/2019] [Accepted: 03/10/2020] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Visual working memory retains visual information for controlling behavior. We studied how information in visual working memory is prioritized for being used. In two experiments, participants memorized the stimuli of a memory display for a brief interval, followed by a retro-cue. The retro-cue was either valid, indicating which stimulus from the memory display was relevant (i.e., had priority) in the upcoming comparison with a probe, or was neutral (uninformative). Next, the probe was presented, terminated by a mask, and participants reported whether it matched a stimulus from the memory display. The presentation duration of the probe was varied. Assessing performance as a function of presentation duration allowed to disentangle two components of working memory: memory retention and the speed of processing the probe for the memory-based comparison. Compared with neutral retro-cues, valid retro-cues improved retention and at the same time accelerated processing of the probe. These findings show for the first time that prioritization in working memory impacts on distinct mechanisms: retrospectively, it supports memory retention, and prospectively, it enhances perceptual processing in upcoming comparison tasks.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Christian H Poth
- Neuro-cognitive Psychology, Department of Psychology, and Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Interactions Technology, Bielefeld University, P.O. Box 100131, 33501, Bielefeld, Germany.
| |
Collapse
|
7
|
Abstract
Ample evidence suggests that there is overlap between the eye-movement system and spatial working memory. Such overlapping structures or capacities may result in interference on the one hand and beneficial support on the other. We investigated eye-movement control during encoding of verbal or spatial information, keeping the display the same between tasks. Saccades to to-be-encoded items were scarce during spatial encoding in comparison with verbal encoding. However, despite replicating this difference across different tasks (serial, free recall) and presentation modalities (simultaneous, sequential presentation), we found no relation between item fixations and memory performance-that is, no costs or benefits. Inducing a change from covert to overt encoding did not affect spatial memory performance as well. In contrast, regressive fixations on prior items, that were no longer on the screen, were associated with increased spatial memory performance. Regressions occurred mainly at the end of the encoding period and were targeted at the first presented item. Our results suggest a dissociation between two types of fixations that accompany serial spatial memory: On-item fixations are epiphenomenal; regressions indicate rehearsal or output preparation.
Collapse
|
8
|
Hutchinson BT. Toward a theory of consciousness: A review of the neural correlates of inattentional blindness. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2019; 104:87-99. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.06.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/07/2018] [Revised: 03/31/2019] [Accepted: 06/03/2019] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
|