Moore Katherine Sledge, Weissman Daniel H
Department of Psychology, Elmhurst College, Elmhurst, Illinois, United States of America.
Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2014 Feb 7;9(2):e88313. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0088313. eCollection 2014.
Set-specific contingent attentional capture is a particularly strong form of capture that occurs when multiple attentional sets guide visual search (e.g., "search for green letters" and "search for orange letters"). In this type of capture, a potential target that matches one attentional set (e.g. a green stimulus) impairs the ability to identify a temporally proximal target that matches another attentional set (e.g. an orange stimulus). In the present study, we investigated whether set-specific capture stems from a bottleneck in working memory or from a depletion of limited resources that are distributed across multiple attentional sets. In each trial, participants searched a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream for up to three target letters (T1-T3) that could appear in any of three target colors (orange, green, or lavender). The most revealing findings came from trials in which T1 and T2 matched different attentional sets and were both identified. In these trials, T3 accuracy was lower when it did not match T1's set than when it did match, but only when participants failed to identify T2. These findings support a bottleneck model of set-specific capture in which a limited-capacity mechanism in working memory enhances only one attentional set at a time, rather than a resource model in which processing capacity is simultaneously distributed across multiple attentional sets.
特定集合的偶然注意捕获是一种特别强烈的捕获形式，当多个注意集合引导视觉搜索时就会发生（例如，“搜索绿色字母”和“搜索橙色字母”）。在这种类型的捕获中，与一个注意集合匹配的潜在目标（例如绿色刺激）会损害识别与另一个注意集合匹配的时间上接近的目标（例如橙色刺激）的能力。在本研究中，我们调查了特定集合的捕获是源于工作记忆中的瓶颈，还是源于分布在多个注意集合上的有限资源的耗尽。在每个试验中，参与者在快速序列视觉呈现（RSVP）流中搜索多达三个目标字母（T1 - T3），这些目标字母可能以三种目标颜色（橙色、绿色或淡紫色）中的任何一种出现。最具启发性的发现来自T1和T2匹配不同注意集合且都被识别的试验。在这些试验中，当T3与T1的集合不匹配时，其准确率低于与T1的集合匹配时，但仅当参与者未能识别T2时才会如此。这些发现支持了特定集合捕获的瓶颈模型，即工作记忆中的有限容量机制一次仅增强一个注意集合，而不是处理能力同时分布在多个注意集合上的资源模型。
