Gaspelin Nicholas, Leonard Carly J, Luck Steven J
Center for Mind and Brain
Center for Mind and Brain.
Psychol Sci. 2015 Nov;26(11):1740-50. doi: 10.1177/0956797615597913. Epub 2015 Sep 29.
Researchers have long debated whether attentional capture is purely stimulus driven or purely goal driven. In the current study, we tested a hybrid account, called the signal-suppression hypothesis, which posits that stimuli automatically produce a bottom-up salience signal, but that this signal can be suppressed via top-down control processes. To test this account, we used a new capture-probe paradigm in which participants searched for a target shape while ignoring an irrelevant color singleton. On occasional probe trials, letters were briefly presented inside the search shapes, and participants attempted to report these letters. Under conditions that promoted capture by the irrelevant singleton, accuracy was greater for the letter inside the singleton distractor than for letters inside nonsingleton distractors. However, when the conditions were changed to avoid capture by the singleton, accuracy for the letter inside the irrelevant singleton was reduced below the level observed for letters inside nonsingleton distractors, an indication of active suppression of processing at the singleton location.
长期以来，研究人员一直在争论注意力捕获是纯粹由刺激驱动还是纯粹由目标驱动。在当前的研究中，我们测试了一种混合观点，即信号抑制假说，该假说认为刺激会自动产生自下而上的显著性信号，但这个信号可以通过自上而下的控制过程被抑制。为了验证这一观点，我们使用了一种新的捕获探测范式，即参与者在忽略无关颜色单独元素（即“干扰项”）的同时搜索目标形状。在偶尔的探测试验中，字母会在搜索形状内短暂呈现，参与者要尝试报告这些字母。在促进由无关单独元素引起捕获的条件下，单独元素干扰项内字母的报告准确率高于非单独元素干扰项内字母的准确率。然而，当条件改变以避免单独元素引起捕获时，无关单独元素内字母的准确率降低到低于非单独元素干扰项内字母的观察水平，这表明在单独元素位置对加工过程进行了主动抑制。
