Biomedical subjects

R W Remington

Publications and source records attributed to R W Remington.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1994

The structure of attentional control: contingent attentional capture by apparent motion, abrupt onset, and color.

Five spatial cuing experiments tested 2 hypotheses regarding attentional capture: (a) Attentional capture is contingent on endogenous attentional control settings, and (b) attentional control settings are limited to the distinction between dynamic and static discontinuities (C. L. Folk, R. W. Remington, & J. C. Johnston, 1992). In Experiments 1 and 2, apparent-motion precues produced significant costs in performance for targets signaled by motion but not for targets signaled by color or abrupt onset. Experiment 3 established that this pattern is not due to differences in the difficulty of target discrimination. Experiments 4 and 5 revealed asymmetric capture effects between abrupt onset and apparent motion related to stimulus salience. The results support the hypotheses of Folk et al. (1992) and suggest that stimulus salience may also play a role in attentional capture.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1992

Involuntary attentional capture by abrupt onsets.

The extent to which brief abrupt-onset visual stimuli involuntarily capture spatial attention was examined in five experiments. The paradigm used was intended to maximize the opportunity and incentive for subjects to ignore abrupt-onset distractor stimuli in nontarget locations. Subjects made a speeded two-choice response to a target letter appearing in one of four boxes. An abrupt-onset visual stimulus, easily discriminable from the target, was flashed briefly prior to the presentation of a target. In separate blocks, the flash stimulus marked the box in which the target would subsequently appear (SAME), a different box (DIFF), fixation (CENTER), or all four boxes (ALL). Prior to each block, subjects were informed of the flash-target relationship. In all five experiments, response time was elevated in the DIFF, CENTER, and ALL conditions. The interference effect was larger for the DIFF condition and persisted for longer flash-target SOAs. These results suggest that, under appropriate conditions, spatial attention can be involuntarily drawn to abrupt-onset events despite the intention of subjects' to ignore them.

Attention↗

PubMed1992

Involuntary covert orienting is contingent on attentional control settings.

Four experiments tested a new hypothesis that involuntary attention shifts are contingent on the relationship between the properties of the eliciting event and the properties required for task performance. In a variant of the spatial cuing paradigm, the relation between cue property and the property useful in locating the target was systematically manipulated. In Experiment 1, invalid abrupt-onset precues produced costs for targets characterized by an abrupt onset but not for targets characterized by a discontinuity in color. In Experiment 2, invalid color precues produced greater costs for color targets than for abrupt-onset targets. Experiment 3 provided converging evidence for this pattern. Experiment 4 investigated the boundary conditions and time course for attention shifts elicited by color discontinuities. The results of these experiments suggest that attention capture is contingent on attentional control settings induced by task demands.

Adult↗

PubMed1980

Attention and saccadic eye movements.

Four threshold detection experiments addressed three issues concerning the relationship between movements of spatial attention and saccadic eye movements: (a) the time course of attention shifts wit saccades, (b) the response of the two systems to changes in stimulus parameters, and (c) the relationship of attention to saccadic suppression. These issues bear on the more general question of the degree of independence between the saccadic and attentional movement systems. The results of these experiments support the contention that the mechanisms that shift attention are separate from those that control saccadic eye movements. Relevant events in the visual field periphery, however, will trigger both a saccade and attention shift. The attentional response to such events does not appear to be under subjects' control. The implication of these results for theories of saccadic suppression is discussed.

Attention↗

PubMed1979

Moving attention through visual space.

Several experiments have shown that attention as measured by simple reaction time to luminance increments can be shifted in the visual field while the eyes are kept in a fixed position. The shift of attention appears to take place within 50 msec following a cue indicating the most likely position of the target. The present study reports that these shifts of attention can be time locked to a central cue. Moreover, they show that a probe event located between the cue and the target receives maximal facilitation from attention at a time prior to maximal facilitation at the target. These results provide support for an analogue movement of attention across the visual field that does not involve the suppression found during saccades.

Attention↗