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Activation of context-specific attentional control sets by exogenous allocation of visual attention to the context?

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Abstract

Different contexts with high versus low conflict frequencies require a specific attentional control involvement, i.e., strong attentional control for high conflict contexts and less attentional control for low conflict contexts. While it is assumed that the corresponding control set can be activated upon stimulus presentation at the respective context (e.g., upper versus lower location), the actual features that trigger control set activation are to date not described. Here, we ask whether the perceptual priming of the location context by an abrupt onset of irrelevant stimuli is sufficient in activating the context-specific attentional control set. For example, the mere onset of a stimulus might disambiguate the relevant location context and thus, serve as a low-level perceptual trigger mechanism that activates the context-specific attentional control set. In Experiment 1 and 2, the onsets of task-relevant and task-irrelevant (distracter) stimuli were manipulated at each context location to compete for triggering the activation of the appropriate control set. In Experiment 3, a prior training session enabled distracter stimuli to establish contextual control associations of their own before entering the test session. Results consistently showed that the mere onset of a task-irrelevant stimulus (with or without a context-control association) is not sufficient to activate the context-associated attentional control set by disambiguating the relevant context location. Instead, we argue that the identification of the relevant stimulus at the respective context is a precondition to trigger the activation of the context-associated attentional control set.

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Notes

  1. Note, that for the study of RC compatibility effects the performance of Task 1 is the primary dependent measure. Performance in Task 2 is theoretically less important but is typically reported to control for trade-offs between tasks.

  2. In a pilot study with equal font size, participants spontaneously reported that letters appeared larger in size than digits. This might be due to a wider horizontal extension of letters compared to digits. Therefore, we adjusted the size of letters to obtain a visually comparable impression.

  3. It is conceivable, for example, that the requirement of re-orientation leads to a particular strong activation of the correct attentional control set, which might explain an increased CSPC effect in error rates of Block 2 in Experiment 3 when task-irrelevant stimuli appear first. We thank an anonymous reviewer for mentioning this possibility.

  4. For the first block of Experiment 2, the CSPC effect (40 ms) was not significant, F(1, 19) = 1.68, p = .211 η 2p  = .08, which might be due to a power problem.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Julia Kleindienst and Marcel Kurtz for assistance in data collection and to Senne Braem and an anonymous reviewer for valuable comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. This research was supported by a Grant of the German Research Foundation (SFB 940, Project A3).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Technische Universität Dresden, 01062, Dresden, Germany

    Caroline Gottschalk & Rico Fischer

  2. Ernst-Moritz-Arndt Universität Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany

    Rico Fischer

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  1. Caroline Gottschalk
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  2. Rico Fischer
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Correspondence to Caroline Gottschalk.

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Gottschalk, C., Fischer, R. Activation of context-specific attentional control sets by exogenous allocation of visual attention to the context?. Psychological Research 81, 378–391 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-016-0746-5

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