Schoeberl Tobias, Fuchs Isabella, Theeuwes Jan, Ansorge Ulrich
Department of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria,
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2015 Apr;77(3):737-48. doi: 10.3758/s13414-014-0802-4.
In two experiments, we tested whether subliminal abrupt onset cues capture attention in a stimulus-driven way. An onset cue was presented 16 ms prior to the stimulus display that consisted of clearly visible color targets. The onset cue was presented either at the same side as the target (the valid cue condition) or on the opposite side of the target (the invalid cue condition). Because the onset cue was presented 16 ms before other placeholders were presented, the cue was subliminal to the participant. To ensure that this subliminal cue captured attention in a stimulus-driven way, the cue's features did not match the top-down attentional control settings of the participants: (1) The color of the cue was always different than the color of the non-singleton targets ensuring that a top-down set for a specific color or for a singleton would not match the cue, and (2) colored targets and distractors had the same objective luminance (measured by the colorimeter) and subjective lightness (measured by flicker photometry), preventing a match between the top-down set for target and cue contrast. Even though a match between the cues and top-down settings was prevented, in both experiments, the cues captured attention, with faster response times in valid than invalid cue conditions (Experiments 1 and 2) and faster response times in valid than the neutral conditions (Experiment 2). The results support the conclusion that subliminal cues capture attention in a stimulus-driven way.
在两项实验中，我们测试了阈下突发起始线索是否以刺激驱动的方式吸引注意力。在由清晰可见的颜色目标组成的刺激显示前16毫秒呈现一个起始线索。起始线索要么呈现在与目标相同的一侧（有效线索条件），要么呈现在目标的另一侧（无效线索条件）。由于起始线索在其他占位符呈现之前16毫秒呈现，所以该线索对参与者来说是阈下的。为确保这种阈下线索以刺激驱动的方式吸引注意力，线索的特征与参与者的自上而下的注意力控制设置不匹配：（1）线索的颜色总是与非单一目标的颜色不同，以确保针对特定颜色或单一目标的自上而下设置与线索不匹配；（2）彩色目标和干扰项具有相同的客观亮度（通过色度计测量）和主观明度（通过闪烁光度法测量），从而防止目标的自上而下设置与线索对比度之间的匹配。尽管线索与自上而下的设置之间不存在匹配，但在两项实验中，线索都吸引了注意力，有效线索条件下的反应时比无效线索条件下更快（实验1和实验2），有效线索条件下的反应时比中性条件下更快（实验2）。结果支持阈下线索以刺激驱动的方式吸引注意力这一结论。
