title: Personally-significant information affects performance only within the focus of attention: a direct manipulation of attention.
abstract: It has been suggested that personally significant (PS) information interferes with performance only when presented within the focus of attention. However, this claim was never tested by a systematic manipulation of attention, but only by using correlative measures of its locus. We addressed this issue in two experiments, utilizing a cued visual search paradigm that allowed us to directly manipulate attention and to measure behavioral and physiological responses. One of the stimuli in the search display had a higher luminance value (i.e., was cued), and, orthogonally, one of the stimuli could be a PS or neutral name. When the cue did not predict target location, PS distractors mildly interfered with task performance, regardless of the cue's location. However, when the cue predicted target location, responses were facilitated for cued targets, indicating that attention was shifted to the cue. Importantly, PS distractors interfered with task performance and elicited enhanced orienting responses only when they were cued. This implies that PS information affects performance only when presented within but not outside the focus of attention.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem, Israel. assaf.breska@mail.huji.ac.il
authors.forename: Assaf
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Breska
authors.forename: Moran
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Israel
authors.forename: Keren
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Maoz
authors.forename: Asher
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cohen
authors.forename: Gershon
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ben-Shakhar
mesh_terms: D001143:Arousal; D001288:Attention; D015350:Contrast Sensitivity; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D005712:Galvanic Skin Response; D006801:Humans; D049449:Luminescence; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011930:Reaction Time; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012660:Semantics; D055815:Young Adult