Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University, Zijingang Campus, 866 Yuhangtang Road, Hangzhou 310007, China.
Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University, Zijingang Campus, 866 Yuhangtang Road, Hangzhou 310007, China.
Cognition. 2023 Sep;238:105488. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105488. Epub 2023 May 11.
The study sought to investigate whether and how expectation violation can modulate attention using the exogenous spatial cueing paradigm, under the theoretical framework of the Memory Encoding Cost (MEC) model. The MEC proposes that exogenous spatial cueing effects are mainly driven by a combination of two distinct mechanisms: attentional facilitation triggered by the presence of an abrupt cue, and attentional suppression induced by memory encoding of the cue. In current experiments, participants needed to identify a target letter that was sometimes preceded by a peripheral onset cue. Various types of expectation violation were introduced by regulating the probability of cue presentation (Experiments 1 & 5), the probability of cue location (Experiments 2 & 4), and the probability of irrelevant sound presentation (Experiment 3). The results showed that expectation violation could enhance the cueing effect (valid vs. invalid cue) in some cases. More crucially, all experiments consistently observed asymmetrical modulation of expectation violation on the cost (invalid vs. neutral cue) and benefit (valid vs. neutral cue) effects: Expectation violation increased the cost effects while did not modulate or decreased (or even reversed) the benefit effects. Furthermore, Experiment 5 provided direct evidence that violation of expectations could enhance the memory encoding of a cue (e.g., color) and this memory advantage could manifest quickly in the early stages of the experiment. The MEC better explains these findings than some traditional models like the spotlight: Expectation violation can both enhance the attentional facilitation of the cue and memory encoding of irrelevant cue information. These findings suggest that expectation violation has a general adaptive function in modulating the attention selectivity.
该研究旨在考察在记忆编码代价（MEC）模型的理论框架下，预期违背是否以及如何通过外源性空间提示范式来调节注意。MEC 提出，外源性空间提示效应主要由两种不同机制的结合驱动：由突然提示的存在引发的注意力促进，以及由提示的记忆编码引起的注意力抑制。在当前的实验中，参与者需要识别一个目标字母，该字母有时会被一个外围起始提示所跟随。通过调节提示呈现的概率（实验 1 和 5）、提示位置的概率（实验 2 和 4）和无关声音呈现的概率（实验 3），引入了各种类型的预期违背。结果表明，在某些情况下，预期违背可以增强提示效应（有效提示与无效提示）。更重要的是，所有实验都一致观察到，预期违背对代价（无效提示与中性提示）和收益（有效提示与中性提示）效应的调节不对称：预期违背增加了代价效应，而没有调节或减少（甚至反转）收益效应。此外，实验 5 提供了直接证据，表明违反预期可以增强对提示（例如颜色）的记忆编码，并且这种记忆优势可以在实验的早期阶段快速显现。MEC 比一些传统模型（如聚光灯模型）更好地解释了这些发现：预期违背既可以增强提示的注意力促进，也可以增强无关提示信息的记忆编码。这些发现表明，预期违背在调节注意力选择性方面具有普遍的适应性功能。
