Pitchford Brent, Arnell Karen M
Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada.
Front Psychol. 2021 Mar 23;12:605250. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.605250. eCollection 2021.
Event-related potentials (ERPs) to hierarchical stimuli have been compared for global/local target trials, but the pattern of results across studies is mixed with respect to understanding how ERPs differ with local and global bias. There are reliable interindividual differences in attentional breadth biases. This study addresses two questions. Can these interindividual differences in attentional breadth be predicted by interindividual ERP differences to hierarchical stimuli? Can attentional breadth changes over time within participants (i.e., intraindividual differences) be predicted by ERPs changes over time when viewing hierarchical stimuli? Here, we estimated attentional breadth and isolated ERPs in response to Navon letter stimuli presented at two time points. We found that interindividual differences in ERPs at Time 1 did not predict attentional breadth differences across individuals at Time 1. However, individual differences in changes to P1, N1, and P3 ERPs to hierarchical stimuli from Time 1 to Time 2 were associated with individual differences in changes in attentional breadth from Time 1 to Time 2. These results suggest that attentional breadth changes within individuals over time are reflected in changes in ERP responses to hierarchical stimuli such that smaller N1s and larger P3s accompany a shift to processing the newly prioritized level, suggesting that the preferred level required less perceptual processing and elicited more attention.
针对全局/局部目标试验，已对与分层刺激相关的事件相关电位（ERP）进行了比较，但就理解ERP如何因局部和全局偏向而有所不同而言，各研究的结果模式并不一致。在注意力广度偏向方面存在可靠的个体间差异。本研究探讨两个问题。这些注意力广度的个体间差异能否通过个体对分层刺激的ERP差异来预测？当观看分层刺激时，参与者内部注意力广度随时间的变化（即个体内差异）能否通过ERP随时间的变化来预测？在此，我们估计了注意力广度，并分离出了对在两个时间点呈现的纳冯字母刺激做出反应的ERP。我们发现，时间1时ERP的个体间差异并不能预测时间1时个体间的注意力广度差异。然而，从时间1到时间2，对分层刺激的P1、N1和P3 ERP变化的个体差异与从时间l到时间2注意力广度变化的个体差异相关。这些结果表明，个体内部注意力广度随时间的变化反映在对分层刺激的ERP反应变化中，即较小的N1和较大的P3伴随着向处理新优先级水平的转变，这表明偏好水平需要较少的感知处理并引发更多的注意力。
