Attention Perception & Psychophysics最新文献

{"title":"Probing the use of visual search as a tool to enhance reading speed","authors":"Francesco Carabba,&nbsp;Chiara Borsati,&nbsp;Giulia Fontana,&nbsp;Eric Altieri,&nbsp;Michele Vicovaro,&nbsp;Luca Battaglini","doi":"10.3758/s13414-026-03336-2","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-026-03336-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The reading mechanism is associated with perceptual, attentional, and oculomotor processes that partly overlap with functions attributed to the magnocellular-dorsal system. On this basis, we examined whether a home-based visual-search training program, without phonological, orthographic, or reading components, could influence reading-related performance in adult typical readers. Participants were assigned to one of three training versions that differed in the visual features of Gabor patterns to be detected (orientation, phase, or configuration), or to a no-training control group. Training performance indicated that the three visual-search versions differed in difficulty: The orientation task was relatively easy, the phase task was the most perceptually demanding, and the configuration task was intermediate. Regression analyses controlling for pretest performance showed lower adjusted posttest reading times, relative to the no-training group, for the phase group in word reading and lexical decision, and for the configuration group in nonword reading. No consistent training-related advantage was observed for accuracy. These results suggest that demanding visual-search training may be associated with changes in some timed reading-related outcomes, but the effects were outcome-specific and should be interpreted as preliminary. Further work is needed to disentangle task difficulty, search mode, and training dose, and to determine whether similar effects generalize to children or to readers with dyslexia.</p><p>The raw trial-level data for all experimental conditions are publicly available in the OSF repository (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/XTY4S). The repository also contains the code for the analyses described in the Sensitivity Analysis and Type I Error Rate section. The experiment and analyses were not preregistered.</p>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"88 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.3758/s13414-026-03336-2.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149031991","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The effect of attentional loads on audiovisual integration: When spatial coincidence matters","authors":"Qingqing Li,&nbsp;Huazhi Li,&nbsp;Hecheng Jiang,&nbsp;Yulong Liu,&nbsp;Mengni Zhou,&nbsp;Jinglong Wu,&nbsp;Jiajia Yang,&nbsp;Qiong Wu","doi":"10.3758/s13414-026-03257-0","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-026-03257-0","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Although prior studies have stated that the cross-modal interaction between simple and arbitrarily paired audiovisual (AV) stimuli can also be observed even when a person is instructed to ignore a particular modality, this may indicate that cross-modal integration takes place automatically, regardless of attentional control. Nevertheless, it is not clear whether attentional resources are actually required for cross-modal interactions between simple and meaningless AV stimuli to occur when the subject is instructed to ignore the auditory modality and whether attentional loads would have different influences on the cross-modal interactions between simple AV stimuli presented at the same position or at different spatial positions. In the present study, we adopted a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream as the distractor task to manipulate different attentional loads: no attentional load, a low attentional load, and a high attentional load. Additionally, spatial coincidence was controlled by presenting visual and auditory stimuli at the same or different locations. The results revealed that spatially congruent auditory stimuli can provide a particularly effective means of improving the ability to identify visual targets even when they occur in high-load conditions, whereas spatially incongruent auditory stimuli cannot enhance the ability to identify visual targets under high-load conditions.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"88 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148984093","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Autistic and non-autistic children’s perceptual decision-making in visual orientation and motion tasks and the effect of task instructions","authors":"Lou Thomas,&nbsp;Gaia Scerif,&nbsp;Hodo Yusuf,&nbsp;Mackenzie Laird,&nbsp;Grant Taylor,&nbsp;Nathan J. Evans,&nbsp;Catherine Manning","doi":"10.3758/s13414-026-03330-8","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-026-03330-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Diffusion decision models (DDMs) offer the potential to go beyond standard accuracy and response-time indices to better understand perceptual decision-making in autism. One unanswered question is whether autistic participants can flexibly adjust the speed and accuracy of their decision-making according to task demands. Across two preregistered studies, 50 autistic and 50 non-autistic children aged 6–14 years completed a visual orientation task with no explicit instructions to be fast or accurate, and a visual motion task under both speed-emphasis and accuracy-emphasis instructions. These studies allowed us to investigate the influence of task, task instruction and modelling approach on group differences. We fit Bayesian hierarchical DDMs using a rigorous blind modelling approach, and follow-up two-step non-hierarchical analyses. Irrespective of task, instructions, and modelling approach, we found no conclusive evidence for group differences in DDM parameters. For the first time, we showed that autistic children can flexibly adjust their decision-making strategies according to speed–accuracy instructions. These results show that cognitive flexibility is not uniformly reduced in autism. To better understand within-participants variability, we investigated relationships between decision-making parameters and ADHD-related traits, reading ability, sensory processing and coordination skills. We found task-specific evidence for relationships between DDM parameters and sensory underresponsivity, sight-word reading and hyperactivity/impulsivity. Resolving inconsistent results when applying DDMs to autism will require contrasting modelling approaches, clear reporting of task instructions, and considering dimensions that co-occur with autism.</p><p>De-identified data are available in a safeguarded repository on the UK Data Service (https://doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-858223). Experimental code, analysis scripts and output files are available for Study 1 (https://osf.io/vfqwx/) and Study 2 (https://osf.io/2gyc4/). Both Study 1 and Study 2 were preregistered (https://osf.io/gjksu, https://osf.io/2hdpg/). At the point of preregistration, we had collected data from one autistic participant, but we did not look at the data or complete any analyses before preregistration.</p>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"88 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13547164/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148901497","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Depth-based visual capture of sound in virtual reality is driven by perceived distance","authors":"Maggie K. McCracken,&nbsp;Macy E. Rowland,&nbsp;Hunter C. Finney,&nbsp;Jeanine K. Stefanucci,&nbsp;Sarah H. Creem-Regehr","doi":"10.3758/s13414-026-03291-y","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-026-03291-y","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Visual information typically dominates auditory cues in spatial localization, particularly in depth, leading to the proximity image effect (PIE) in which displaced sounds are perceived closer to plausible visual objects than they actually are (visual capture). It is unclear whether fundamental properties of audiovisual integration generalize to virtual environments where spatial perception is systematically distorted. Across two experiments, we tested whether real-world sound sources are visually captured by virtual objects in immersive virtual reality (VR). Participants completed a perceptual-matching task in which they indicated when a real-world sound source aligned with the depth of a virtual object. In Experiment 1, visual capture reliably occurred; however, the effect was opposite to real-world findings, with stronger capture happening when the sound originated in front of the visual object rather than behind it. Experiment 2 replicated this pattern and revealed significant visual distance underestimation measured with a blind-walking task. When judgments of auditory-visual co-location were interpreted relative to the participants’ perceived visual distance rather than the actual physical distance, the expected real-world symmetry reemerged. These results demonstrate that core principles of multisensory integration are preserved in VR, but VR-specific biases, such as the visual underestimation of distance, may alter the direction of the established effects.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"88 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148867974","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Distractor preview moderates the alerting-congruency interaction in Stroop and flanker tasks","authors":"Maya J. Golden,&nbsp;Thomas G. Hutcheon,&nbsp;Katherine M. Mathis,&nbsp;Emily R. Cohen-Shikora,&nbsp;Todd A. Kahan","doi":"10.3758/s13414-026-03328-2","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-026-03328-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Responses to targets are often slower when distractors are incongruent rather than congruent with the required response. Past research indicates that alerting cues can magnify this congruency effect, such that responses are faster when the target is cued, but distractors have a greater negative influence. This alerting-congruency interaction is reliably found in the arrow-version of Eriksen’s flanker task but not in the Stroop task, leading some to suggest that the interaction only occurs with stimuli that have pre-existing directional associations. The current experiments test the possibility that the alerting-congruency interaction depends on the timing of distractor processing, rather than directional associations, by varying whether the distractor appears before the target or simultaneously with the target. In Experiment 1 (<i>N </i>= 158) using Stroop stimuli, and Experiment 2 (<i>N </i>= 157) using the arrow-version of the Eriksen flanker task, results replicate past findings: no alerting-congruency interaction in the Stroop task and a robust interaction in the arrow-flanker task when distractors and targets appear simultaneously. Importantly, previewing the distractor reverses both of these patterns. Delta plots showing congruency effects across the reaction-time distribution support the conclusion that the timing of distractor activation may be critical. Discussion focuses on implications for theories of the alerting-congruency interaction.</p><p>Subject-level data for all experiments are publicly available at https://osf.io/uxebp/?view_only=0db3638a66454684aee9fc41550a3a48. The studies reported in this article were not preregistered.</p>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"88 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.3758/s13414-026-03328-2.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148868008","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Condition-specific changes in gaze allocation following gaze-triggered interpersonal-distance outcomes","authors":"Canling An,&nbsp;Soichiro Matsuda","doi":"10.3758/s13414-026-03322-8","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-026-03322-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Interpersonal distance is a fundamental social cue, yet it remains unclear whether repeated exposure to gaze-triggered approach or recede animations is associated with subsequent gaze allocation. This study examined whether such gaze-triggered changes in apparent interpersonal distance were associated with changes in dwell-time allocation toward face stimuli. Fifty adults completed two within-subject blocks (Approach vs. Recede), each consisting of Baseline, Training, and Test phases. During Training, fixating a designated face for a gaze-duration threshold triggered a predefined approach or recede animation that proceeded independently of subsequent gaze behavior, while the comparison face remained static. Gaze allocation was operationalized as the proportion of dwell time directed toward the face associated with the gaze-triggered animation and was assessed during the static Baseline and Test phases. Linear mixed-effects analyses revealed a significant Condition × Phase interaction: dwell-time proportion decreased from Baseline to Test following gaze-triggered approach animations, whereas no reliable group-level change was observed following recede animations. These findings indicate that repeated exposure to gaze-triggered changes in apparent interpersonal distance is associated with systematic changes in subsequent gaze allocation. The approach-related reduction suggests that gaze-triggered distance changes may redistribute later gaze allocation rather than simply increasing looking toward the stimulus associated with approach. The observed effects do not imply subjective evaluation, value acquisition, or a specific learning mechanism. This paradigm provides a controlled approach for examining how gaze-triggered interpersonal-distance changes are associated with later attentional allocation.</p><p>De-identified trial-level data and analysis code for this study are available via the Open Science Framework: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/EG4B6. This study was not preregistered.</p>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"88 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13529840/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148868031","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A novel cross-modal perceptual effect: Sound-induced increase of the non-contact illusion","authors":"Wenxuan Song,&nbsp;Xiaoying Li,&nbsp;Yuan Guo,&nbsp;Song Zhao","doi":"10.3758/s13414-026-03332-6","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-026-03332-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Recent research demonstrates that if two identical squares moving uniformly towards each other suddenly disappear when their leading edges contact, participants will have an illusory perception of the two squares as non-contact before their disappearance. Inspired by the “sound-induced visual segmentation” hypothesis that when two approaching 2D objects reach their closest state, a coincident sound will lead to an overestimation of their distance, the current study explored whether a task-irrelevant sound delivered when the two squares make contact can enhance this non-contact illusion and examined its underlying mechanisms. Across Experiments 1 and 2, the probability of the non-contact response was consistently higher when the sound was present than when it was absent. This sound-induced increase is inherently free from the collision-based response bias—if the sound had suggested a collision between two objects, it would have led to more contact, rather than non-contact, responses. Moreover, the non-contact response was never slower than the contact response in the sound-present condition, which contradicts the attentional distraction explanation because it would predict slower non-contact responses in that condition. Meanwhile, the high time-resolution event-related potential (ERP) data in Experiment 2 showed that the early cross-modal PD170 component (125–175 ms after sound onset) was significantly larger for the sound-present non-contact response than for the sound-present contact response, which indicates that low-level audiovisual cross-modal interactions underlie the sound-induced enhancement of the non-contact illusion, substantiating its perceptual nature. Together, the current findings establish this sound-induced enhancement as a promising new paradigm for studying multisensory processing.</p><p>The trial-level data, subject-level data, analysis scripts and experimental files for both experiments are available at https://osf.io/zt92d/overview. This study was not preregistered.</p>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"88 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148867971","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Arousal does not enhance the dominant spatial scope of attention","authors":"Martin Kolnes,&nbsp;Sander Nieuwenhuis","doi":"10.3758/s13414-026-03327-3","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-026-03327-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p>A fundamental aspect of attention is its spatial scope: whether attention is narrowly focused or more broadly distributed across the visual field. Here, we examined whether the spatial scope of attention is modulated by tonic arousal level. Based on findings that arousal amplifies the selectivity of attention and memory, we hypothesized that arousal would enhance the currently dominant spatial scope of attention (narrow or broad). Participants (<i>N</i> = 39) performed a visual search task designed to measure the breadth of attention. Continuous auditory white noise was presented in half of the blocks to increase tonic arousal. Each trial started with a procedure that aimed to induce a narrow or broad breadth of attention. Pupil size measurements and visual search task performance revealed that the manipulations of arousal and breadth of attention were successful. However, we found strong Bayesian evidence against an amplifying effect of arousal on the dominant attentional scope. We discuss the implications of this finding for arousal-biased competition theory.</p><p>This research was not preregistered. Subject-level data and the analysis code are openly available in the Open Science Framework (OSF) repository (https://osf.io/6rkwg/). The raw data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.</p>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"88 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148867994","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Explicit feedback on target rewards modulates attentional bias in redundant-target detection","authors":"Hanshu Zhang,&nbsp;Ching-Hui Chung,&nbsp;Cheng-Ta Yang","doi":"10.3758/s13414-026-03329-1","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-026-03329-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Attentional deployment can be shaped by both target location probability and reward value. Yet it remains unclear whether these factors are combined to influence attention allocation or whether attention is preferentially biased toward one dimension. To address this question, we employed a redundant-target detection task combined with Systems Factorial Technology. Targets appeared at the top and/or bottom of the display, with both locations matched in expected value but differing in reward magnitude and target location probability. Participants reported target presence under conditions with and without performance feedback. Our results showed that in the absence of feedback, attention was allocated in parallel across locations, indicating that neither reward nor probability exerted a bias. By contrast, when feedback was introduced, participants shifted toward a sequential allocation strategy. These findings highlight the contextual dependence of attentional strategies and shed light the role of explicit feedback and uncertainty in shaping visual attention and perceptual decision-making.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"88 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148838174","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Pre-stimulus pupil-linked arousal enhances initial stimulus availability and accelerates decay in iconic memory","authors":"Paul Justin Connor Smith,&nbsp;Niko A. Busch","doi":"10.3758/s13414-026-03326-4","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-026-03326-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Pupil diameter reflects not only reflexive responses to light but also spontaneous fluctuations in arousal. Such pre-stimulus fluctuations may shape visual performance, yet it remains unclear whether they only affect perceptual sensitivity or decision processes in near-threshold tasks, or instead influence the temporal availability of sensory information even for highly visible stimuli. We tested whether pupil-linked arousal modulates iconic memory, a high-capacity but short-lived visual store bridging sensory encoding and short-term memory. Based on a model in which a brief stimulus evokes an internal response decaying over a few hundred milliseconds, we hypothesized that increased arousal enhances performance either by amplifying the initial response or by slowing its decay. Thirty-seven participants viewed brief displays of six oriented stimuli, followed by a cue after a variable stimulus–cue onset asynchrony indicating which item to report. We continuously recorded pre-stimulus pupil diameter and fitted behavioral data with an exponential decay function to estimate initial stimulus availability, decay rate, and asymptotic performance. Larger pre-stimulus pupil dilation was associated with higher initial stimulus availability but faster decay of the iconic trace, while information transferred into short-term memory and confidence ratings remained unaffected. These findings demonstrate that spontaneous fluctuations in arousal shape the temporal dynamics of sensory persistence. Elevated arousal boosts the initial strength of visual representations but shortens their duration, suggesting that arousal adaptively prioritizes rapid updating of visual input over prolonged stability.</p><p>The study was pre-registered as part of a larger project at the Open Science Framework (https://www.osf.io/u6h8d). The analyses of pupil data reported here were conducted exploratory and were not part of the original pre-registered plan. The data are available at the Open Science Framework (https://www.osf.io/6rwvt). The code is available at https://www.github.com/pauljcs/alpha-iconic.</p>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"88 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.3758/s13414-026-03326-4.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148838175","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}