title: All set, indeed! N2pc components reveal simultaneous attentional control settings for multiple target colors.
abstract: To study whether top-down attentional control processes can be set simultaneously for different visual features, we employed a spatial cueing procedure to measure behavioral and electrophysiological markers of task-set contingent attentional capture during search for targets defined by 1 or 2 possible colors (one-color and two-color tasks). Search arrays were preceded by spatially nonpredictive color singleton cues. Behavioral spatial cueing effects indicative of attentional capture were elicited only by target-matching but not by distractor-color cues. However, when search displays contained 1 target-color and 1 distractor-color object among gray nontargets, N2pc components were triggered not only by target-color but also by distractor-color cues both in the one-color and two-color task, demonstrating that task-set nonmatching items attracted attention. When search displays contained 6 items in 6 different colors, so that participants had to adopt a fully feature-specific task set, the N2pc to distractor-color cues was eliminated in both tasks, indicating that nonmatching items were now successfully excluded from attentional processing. These results demonstrate that when observers adopt a feature-specific search mode, attentional task sets can be configured flexibly for multiple features within the same dimension, resulting in the rapid allocation of attention to task-set matching objects only. (PsycINFO Database Record
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Grubert
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Eimer
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003118:Color Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult