Department of Psychology, University of Tübingen, Germany.
Exp Psychol. 2023 May;70(3):155-170. doi: 10.1027/1618-3169/a000588.
Selective attention might be space-, feature-, and/or object-based. Clear support for the involvement of an object-based mechanism is rather scarce, possibly because the predictions of models from these different classes often overlap. Yet, only object-based models can account for a larger congruency effect (CE) in the Eriksen flanker task when flankers are more (vs. less) strongly grouped to the target, but spacing and other response-irrelevant features of target and flankers are held constant. Exactly this was observed by Kramer and Jacobson (1991). So far, this theoretically relevant finding has not been replicated closely. We replicated the finding in two web-based experiments. Specifically, CEs were larger when flanker lines were connected to the central target line (vs. to outer neutral lines). We also successfully fitted the Diffusion Model for Conflict tasks (DMC) to the experimental data. Critically, diffusion modeling (DMC) and distributional analyses (delta functions) revealed that object membership primarily affected target processing strength rather than strength or timing of flanker processing. This challenges the prominent attentional spreading (sensory enhancement) account of object-based selective attention and motivates an alternative target attenuation account.
选择性注意可能基于空间、特征或对象。支持对象基机制参与的明确证据相当缺乏，这可能是因为来自这些不同类别模型的预测往往重叠。然而，只有基于对象的模型才能在 Eriksen 侧翼任务中解释更大的一致性效应（CE），当侧翼与目标的关联性更强（与弱关联性相比）时，而目标和侧翼的间距和其他与反应无关的特征保持不变。Kramer 和 Jacobson（1991）正是观察到了这一点。到目前为止，这一具有理论意义的发现尚未得到密切复制。我们在两个基于网络的实验中复制了这一发现。具体来说，当侧翼线连接到中央目标线（与外部中性线相比）时，CE 会更大。我们还成功地将冲突任务的扩散模型（DMC）拟合到实验数据中。关键的是，扩散建模（DMC）和分布分析（δ函数）表明，对象成员身份主要影响目标处理强度，而不是侧翼处理的强度或时间。这对基于对象的选择性注意的突出注意扩散（感觉增强）解释提出了挑战，并激发了一种替代的目标衰减解释。
