title: The spider does not always win the fight for attention: Disengagement from threat is modulated by goal set.
abstract: Stimulus-driven preferential attention to threat can be modulated by goal-driven attention. However, it remains unclear how this goal-driven modulation affects specific attentional components implied in threat interference. We hypothesise that goal-driven modulation most strongly impacts delayed disengagement from threat. A spatial cueing task was used that disentangles delayed disengagement from attentional capture by tightly manipulating the locus of attention at the time of target onset. Different top-down goals were induced by instructing participants to identify bird/fish targets (Experiment 1) or spider/cat targets (Experiment 2) among animal non-targets. Delayed disengagement from a non-target spider was observed only when the spider was part of the target set, not when it was task-irrelevant. This corroborates evidence that threat stimuli do not necessarily override goal-driven attentional control and that extended processing of threatening distractors is not obligatory.
authors.affiliation: a School of Psychology , The University of Queensland , Brisbane , QLD , Australia.
authors.forename: Joyce M G
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Vromen
authors.forename: Ottmar V
authors.initials: OV
authors.lastname: Lipp
authors.forename: Roger W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Remington
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D001143:Arousal; D001288:Attention; D003118:Color Perception; D003463:Cues; D005239:Fear; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D011930:Reaction Time; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012718:Set, Psychology; D013112:Spiders; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Attention; Fear; Goal-driven; Stimulus-driven; Threat