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Annals of the New York Academy of... Jul 2018Working memory, the system that maintains a limited set of representations for immediate use in cognition, is a central part of human cognition. Three processes have... (Review)
Review
Working memory, the system that maintains a limited set of representations for immediate use in cognition, is a central part of human cognition. Three processes have recently been proposed to govern information storage in working memory: consolidation, refreshing, and removal. Here, we discuss in detail the theoretical construct of working memory consolidation, a process critical to the creation of a stable working memory representation. We present a brief overview of the research that indicated the need for a construct such as working memory consolidation and the subsequent research that has helped to define the parameters of the construct. We then move on to explicitly state the points of agreement as to what processes are involved in working memory consolidation.
Topics: Attention; Cognition; Humans; Memory, Short-Term
PubMed: 29635694
DOI: 10.1111/nyas.13633 -
Progress in Brain Research 2017The ability to identify a target is usually hindered if it appears shortly after another target. This simple and somewhat intuitive observation is qualified by a... (Review)
Review
The ability to identify a target is usually hindered if it appears shortly after another target. This simple and somewhat intuitive observation is qualified by a multitude of unexpected findings and conflicting theories that originate from the attentional blink paradigm. In this review, the major results, implications, and outstanding questions that stem from the paradigm are presented and discussed. The extant literature suggests that when the temporal domain is densely stacked with numerous stimuli, the entities that underlie attentional selection and cognitive control are brief perceptual episodes. Specifically, attention is deployed over an interval that frequently encompasses several stimuli. Most theories agree that the length and boundaries of this interval are influenced by cognitive control mechanisms. However, there is little agreement as to the extent and nature of this influence. Some theories suggest that control is needed in order to initiate a temporally limited attentional response. Other theories argue that cognitive control is actively suppressing attentional mechanisms in order to terminate the perceptual episode. Another formulation suggests that both ends of the interval are partially controlled and that the exertion of control corresponds to the focusing of attention on a narrow interval. The contents of perceptual episodes, as well as their deficiencies, can shed light on the features that guide attentional deployment, the goals that guide cognitive control, and the interactions between these mechanisms. Electrophysiological recordings are extremely useful when one tries to pinpoint the timing of attentional selection. Other neural indicators can elucidate the factors that define perceptual episodes.
Topics: Attention; Attentional Blink; Executive Function; Humans; Time Perception; Visual Perception
PubMed: 29157418
DOI: 10.1016/bs.pbr.2017.07.008 -
Psychological Medicine Apr 2017Studies have shown that specific cognitions and behaviours play a role in maintaining chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). However, little research has investigated...
BACKGROUND
Studies have shown that specific cognitions and behaviours play a role in maintaining chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). However, little research has investigated illness-specific cognitive processing in CFS. This study investigated whether CFS participants had an attentional bias for CFS-related stimuli and a tendency to interpret ambiguous information in a somatic way. It also determined whether cognitive processing biases were associated with co-morbidity, attentional control or self-reported unhelpful cognitions and behaviours.
METHOD
A total of 52 CFS and 51 healthy participants completed self-report measures of symptoms, disability, mood, cognitions and behaviours. Participants also completed three experimental tasks, two designed specifically to tap into CFS salient cognitions: (i) visual-probe task measuring attentional bias to illness (somatic symptoms and disability) v. neutral words; (ii) interpretive bias task measuring positive v. somatic interpretations of ambiguous information; and (iii) the Attention Network Test measuring general attentional control.
RESULTS
Compared with controls, CFS participants showed a significant attentional bias for fatigue-related words and were significantly more likely to interpret ambiguous information in a somatic way, controlling for depression and anxiety. CFS participants had significantly poorer attentional control than healthy individuals. Attention and interpretation biases were associated with fear/avoidance beliefs. Somatic interpretations were also associated with all-or-nothing behaviour and catastrophizing.
CONCLUSIONS
People with CFS have illness-specific biases which may play a part in maintaining symptoms by reinforcing unhelpful illness beliefs and behaviours. Enhancing adaptive processing, such as positive interpretation biases and more flexible attention allocation, may provide beneficial intervention targets.
Topics: Adult; Attention; Attentional Bias; Fatigue Syndrome, Chronic; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Thinking; Young Adult
PubMed: 27894380
DOI: 10.1017/S0033291716002890 -
Current Opinion in Psychology Oct 2019Understanding how spatial attention is distributed over space (i.e. the attentional window) is highly important for theoretical, methodological, as well as applied... (Review)
Review
Understanding how spatial attention is distributed over space (i.e. the attentional window) is highly important for theoretical, methodological, as well as applied reasons. One fundamental challenge to the study of the attentional window is that most of our current knowledge is based on measuring distractors interference, or relying in some other way on properties of the participants' responses (e.g. response time). However, other factors such as distractor visibility may mediate distractor interference, and in general participants' response can be influenced by many other factors including higher-level strategies, experience, response history, response biases, and so on. Recent paradigms, which do not rely on participants' response, such as measuring attentional modulations of the pupillary light response, may help us face this challenge.
Topics: Attention; Eye Movements; Humans; Reaction Time; Visual Perception
PubMed: 30660870
DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.12.008 -
Perspectives on Psychological Science :... Jan 2015Staying attentive is challenging enough when carrying out everyday tasks, such as reading or sitting through a lecture, and failures to do so can be frustrating and... (Review)
Review
Staying attentive is challenging enough when carrying out everyday tasks, such as reading or sitting through a lecture, and failures to do so can be frustrating and inconvenient. However, such lapses may even be life threatening, for example, if a pilot fails to monitor an oil-pressure gauge or if a long-haul truck driver fails to notice a car in his or her blind spot. Here, we explore two explanations of sustained-attention lapses. By one account, task monotony leads to an increasing preoccupation with internal thought (i.e., mind wandering). By another, task demands result in the depletion of information-processing resources that are needed to perform the task. A review of the sustained-attention literature suggests that neither theory, on its own, adequately explains the full range of findings. We propose a novel framework to explain why attention lapses as a function of time-on-task by combining aspects of two different theories of mind wandering: attentional resource (Smallwood & Schooler, 2006) and control failure (McVay & Kane, 2010). We then use our "resource-control" theory to explain performance decrements in sustained-attention tasks. We end by making some explicit predictions regarding mind wandering in general and sustained-attention performance in particular.
Topics: Attention; Humans; Models, Psychological
PubMed: 25910383
DOI: 10.1177/1745691614556681 -
Journal of Experimental Psychology.... Nov 2019We live in a dynamic, distracting world. When distracting information captures attention, what are the consequences for perception? Previous literature has focused on...
We live in a dynamic, distracting world. When distracting information captures attention, what are the consequences for perception? Previous literature has focused on effects such as reaction time (RT) slowing, accuracy decrements, and oculomotor capture by distractors. In the current study, we asked whether attentional capture by distractors can also more fundamentally alter target feature representations, and if so, whether participants are aware of such errors. Using a continuous report task and novel confidence range report paradigm, we discovered 2 types of feature-binding errors when a distractor was presented along with the target: First, when attention is strongly captured by the distractor, participants commit swapping errors (misreporting the color at the distractor location instead of the target color), which remarkably seem to occur without awareness. Second, when participants successfully resist capture, they tend to exhibit repulsion (perceptual distortion away from the color at the distractor location). Thus, we found that capture not only induces a spatial shift of attention, it also alters feature perception in striking ways. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Attention; Female; Humans; Male; Visual Perception; Young Adult
PubMed: 31464467
DOI: 10.1037/xhp0000681 -
Cognitive Neuroscience 2016We suggest that the Self Attention Network (SAN) maybe part of a larger self-regulatory system, which we term the Self-Relevance System (SRS) of which the "core" or...
We suggest that the Self Attention Network (SAN) maybe part of a larger self-regulatory system, which we term the Self-Relevance System (SRS) of which the "core" or default network is a major part. It is within the core network that memories are generated and the future imagined. Such memories and imaginings are the basis of preoccupations. Within the SRS then preoccupations drive the emergence of attentional biases (ABs). ABs in turn are modulated by the SAN activating and inhibiting circuits that shape behavior. We consider briefly how this might function in dysfunctional appetitive behaviors, e.g., substance abuse.
Topics: Attention; Attentional Bias; Cognition; Humans; Memory
PubMed: 26305290
DOI: 10.1080/17588928.2015.1075484 -
International Journal of Environmental... Oct 2022Previous research has documented that exposure to green spaces has the beneficial effects of attention restoration and stress reduction. This study investigated the...
Previous research has documented that exposure to green spaces has the beneficial effects of attention restoration and stress reduction. This study investigated the effects of indoor (classroom) and outdoor (green school garden) environments on attentional processes in interaction with emotion and physiological self-regulation. Children in third and fourth grades ( = 42) completed a school-related emotional Stroop task assessing the effects of outdoor and indoor classroom backgrounds when facing positive and negative stimuli. Children's attentional patterns in a task completed in both environments were also assessed. Heart rate variability was registered at rest as an index of physiological self-regulation. The results revealed that children were less distracted from negative emotional materials when presented with outdoor compared with indoor background stimuli. Greater selective attention and sustained attention were shown in the green than in the classroom environment. Moreover, sustained attention varied in relation to physiological self-regulation but only when performing the task indoor.
Topics: Child; Humans; Attention; Schools; Stroop Test; Emotions; Self-Control; Air Pollution, Indoor
PubMed: 36293718
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph192013141 -
Scientific Reports May 2019Mood is a lasting affective state that influences motivation and decision-making by pre-shaping a subject's expectations (pessimism/optimism). Mood states affect biases...
Mood is a lasting affective state that influences motivation and decision-making by pre-shaping a subject's expectations (pessimism/optimism). Mood states affect biases in judgment, memory, and attention. Due to a lack of verbal report, assessing mood in non-human animals is challenging and is often compromised by intense training sessions. Measuring mood using attentional biases can circumvent this problem, as it takes advantage of observing a spontaneous reaction. As in humans, we expected that negative mood will heighten attention toward negative compared to positive stimuli. Here, we validate measures of attention toward acoustic stimuli in sheep (Nā=ā64) and assess sheep's differential attention toward acoustic stimuli before and after mood induction (Nā=ā32). Mood was induced by manipulating the environment. We used animal vocalizations (dog barking and sheep bleating as negative and positive stimuli, respectively) varying in intensity and played simultaneously from one side each, and measured lateral attention based on the sheep's behavior. Overall results were somewhat ambiguous. Yet, negative mood sheep seemed to shift their attention more toward dog vocalizations when the stimulus pair was well balanced at baseline. Though some adaptations are still needed, our approach could be a promising alternative to measure animals' mood without prior training.
Topics: Acoustic Stimulation; Affect; Animals; Attention; Attentional Bias; Behavior, Animal; Emotions; Female; Motivation; Photic Stimulation; Sheep
PubMed: 31123314
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-44330-z -
Current Opinion in Psychology Oct 2019Physically salient stimuli, such as uniquely colored objects, seem to have an inherent power to capture our attention, but formal research on this topic has produced... (Review)
Review
Physically salient stimuli, such as uniquely colored objects, seem to have an inherent power to capture our attention, but formal research on this topic has produced conflicting results and theories. Here, we review evidence that the attentional capture debate can be resolved by positing a new suppressive process. This suppressive process can occur before attentional shifting to prevent salient items from attracting attention. In the current article, we review converging evidence that salient items are suppressed to avoid attentional capture comes from studies of psychophysics, eye movements, single-unit recordings, and event-related potentials (ERPs). Crucially, the ability to inhibit salient distractors seems to be learned as participants gain experience with the simple features of the to-be-ignored stimuli.
Topics: Attention; Evoked Potentials; Eye Movements; Humans; Inhibition, Psychological; Psychophysics
PubMed: 30415087
DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.10.013