The initial stage of visual selection is controlled by top-down task set: new ERP evidence.
Salient visual singleton stimuli produce spatial cueing effects indicative of attentional capture only when they match current task sets, suggesting that capture is subject to top-down control. However, such task-set contingent capture effects could be associated with the top-down controlled disengagement of attention from non-matching stimuli that follows their initial bottom-up salience-driven selection. Using the N2pc component as an event-related potential marker of attentional capture, we demonstrate that top-down task set already controls the initial rapid selection of salient visual singleton stimuli prior to any subsequent attentional disengagement. These findings provide new evidence for the primacy of top-down control over bottom-up salience in attentional capture.
Faculty of Psychology, Universität Wien, Liebiggasse 5, Vienna, Austria. ulrich.ansorge@univie.ac.at
Ulrich
U
Ansorge
Monika
M
Kiss
Franziska
F
Worschech
Martin
M
Eimer
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D003118:Color Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D055815:Young Adult