{"title":"Attentional modulation of outlier processing","authors":"Ahu Gokce, Bugay Yildirim, Aysecan Boduroglu","doi":"10.3758/s13414-025-03109-3","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-025-03109-3","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Ensemble perception enables the visual system to function effectively when the number of stimuli in the environment exceeds its capacity. Ensemble representations not only help the limited capacity of visual representations, but they also facilitate the detection and representation of items deviating from the group (i.e., the outlier). This study focuses on how attentional mechanisms modulate outlier processing. In three experiments, we presented participants with an ensemble that was formed by circle stimuli in varying sizes, and the outlier item was distinct in terms of its location. We measured outlier localization performance while manipulating attentional orienting via a spatial cueing paradigm. In Experiment 1, a valid, invalid, or neutral cue was presented before or after the display. Facilitation of outlier localization was most pronounced in the valid precue condition. Experiment 2 included a task to actively engage ensemble perception in addition to outlier localization, and cue validity effect was observed as in Experiment 1. Experiment 3A was carried to directly compare the top-down and bottom-up influences on outlier processing by presenting two spatial outliers—one target and another distractor outlier. The target outlier identity was previously determined and was identical across trials. In Experiment 3B, the target was in red, making it salient among the remaining items. In the invalid trials, where the distractor outlier was cued, responses were closer to the distractor item indicating that outlier processing is cue driven. These experiments overall demonstrate that automaticity of outlier processing can be overridden by cue-driven processes.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"87 5","pages":"1530 - 1543"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144295434","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}
Damian Koevoet, Christoph Strauch, Marnix Naber, Stefan Van der Stigchel
{"title":"Reappearing sensory input guides visual working memory prioritization","authors":"Damian Koevoet, Christoph Strauch, Marnix Naber, Stefan Van der Stigchel","doi":"10.3758/s13414-025-03103-9","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-025-03103-9","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Adaptive behavior necessitates the prioritization of the most relevant information in the environment (external) and in memory (internal). Internal prioritization is known to guide the selection of external sensory input, but the reverse may also be possible: Does the environment guide the prioritization of memorized material? Here, we addressed whether reappearing sensory input could facilitate the prioritization of other nonreappearing memorized items held in visual working memory (VWM). Participants (total <i>n</i> = 96) memorized three orientations. Crucially some, but not all, items maintained in VWM were made available again in the environment. These reappearing items never had to be reproduced later. Experiment 1 showed that the reappearance of all but one memory item benefited accuracy and speed to the same extent as a spatial retro cue. This shows that reappearing items allow for the dynamic prioritization of another nonreappearing memorized item. What aspects of the reappearing sensory input drive this effect? Experiments 2–4 demonstrated that prioritization was facilitated most if reappearing items matched VWM content in terms of both location and orientation. Sensory input fully matching VWM is possibly processed more efficiently and/or protects against interference, ultimately leading to stronger prioritization of other memory content. We propose that the link between sensory processing and VWM is bidirectional: internal representations guide the processing of sensory input, which in turn facilitates the prioritization of other VWM content to subserve adaptive behavior. All data and analysis scripts are available online (https://osf.io/qzvkc/).</p></div>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"87 7","pages":"2129 - 2145"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12331865/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144276782","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":"Location probability learning in visual search of targets with low prevalence","authors":"Emma C. Holtz, Vanessa G. Lee","doi":"10.3758/s13414-025-03100-y","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-025-03100-y","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Visual search is a daily activity, yet people often miss targets when they occur infrequently, leading to costly errors, such as overlooking rare cancerous tumors during routine screenings. Previous research on this low-prevalence effect (LPE) has focused on situations where the target can appear anywhere in the visual field, raising questions about how the LPE interacts with other statistical learning mechanisms. This study examines how people integrate a search target’s spatial probability with its prevalence rate. In two experiments, participants searched for a target present either 50% (high prevalence) or 10% (low prevalence) of the time. When present, the target disproportionately appeared in one visual quadrant, allowing participants to learn its spatial probability. We tested whether participants could learn this spatial probability and if learning was affected by the target’s prevalence rate. Results showed that participants prioritized high-probability spatial locations under both prevalence conditions. When tested in a neutral phase with an even spatial distribution and a 50% target prevalence, the two experiments showed equivalent probability learning, indicating that neither short-term repetition (stronger in high prevalence) nor spaced learning (more likely in low prevalence) was significant. Miss rates were higher during low-prevalence training, but the LPE was smaller in high-probability target locations. These findings suggest that prevalence rates and spatial probability have independent effects, and the LPE may be reduced in high-probability locations.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"87 5","pages":"1442 - 1457"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144276781","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":"Investigating memory episodes in location probability learning: Can altering response features reset spatial bias?","authors":"Xinger Yu, Geoffrey F. Woodman","doi":"10.3758/s13414-025-03106-6","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-025-03106-6","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>When individuals are repeatedly exposed to a specific task, they store each occurrence as a distinct memory episode, which includes stimuli, responses, and outcomes. The accumulation of these episodes enables more efficient retrieval over time, particularly under consistent conditions, leading to quicker and more automatic responses. This mechanism likely underlies the statistical learning effect observed in tasks such as the probability cueing paradigm, where frequent target detection at a predictable location enhances performance through rapid, less conscious retrieval of relevant episodes. In this study, we explored the role of episodic retrieval in implicit location probability learning, focusing specifically on how changes in response features might impact the retrieval of memory episodes and, consequently, the learned attentional bias. Participants performed a visual search task, searching for a T among Ls, while unaware that the target was more often in one screen region. An attentional bias towards this region developed during training. In the testing phase, we examined whether changes in motor responses could negate the learned attentional bias, as such changes might prevent the retrieval of relevant memory episodes. Contrary to our initial hypothesis, two experiments showed that changing response features did not affect the attentional bias. This study expands our understanding of human statistical learning by examining the previously neglected yet increasingly recognized role of episodic retrieval in shaping implicit learning processes, thereby opening new avenues for understanding how our visual systems adapt to and learn from the environment.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"87 5","pages":"1518 - 1529"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12204878/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144276780","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}
Michael C. W. English, Isabelle M. Raiter, Nigel T. M. Chen, Diana W. Tan, Fabrice B. R. Parmentier, Troy A. W. Visser, Murray T. Maybery
{"title":"Figure disembedding facility and reduced left visual field bias are linked to the social dimension of autistic traits","authors":"Michael C. W. English, Isabelle M. Raiter, Nigel T. M. Chen, Diana W. Tan, Fabrice B. R. Parmentier, Troy A. W. Visser, Murray T. Maybery","doi":"10.3758/s13414-025-03105-7","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-025-03105-7","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In separate lines of work, facility in detail-focused local processing and reduced left visual field (LVF) bias have been associated with autism. Plausibly, local-processing facility and reduced LVF bias could reflect a common neurocognitive mechanism – most likely reduced right-hemisphere dominance in visual attention. To test this possibility, undergraduate students selected to differ systematically in social and non-social autistic traits completed tasks assessing local-processing facility (Leuven Embedded Figures) and LVF bias (greyscales task). Participants with more pronounced social difficulties showed greater local-processing ability and reduced LVF bias compared to participants with less pronounced social difficulties. Local-processing ability also correlated negatively with LVF bias. This is the first study to examine both LVF bias and local-processing preference in the context of autism. The finding of relationship between these two cognitive features is behavioural evidence supporting the notion of a common underlying neurocognitive mechanism and of potential alterations in right hemisphere activation as a function of autism.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"87 5","pages":"1801 - 1810"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12204901/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144259434","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":"Action planning can override exogenous cueing effects.","authors":"Noah Britt, Hong-Jin Sun","doi":"10.3758/s13414-025-03096-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-025-03096-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Action planning can bias the distribution of attention toward the anticipated consequences of the action. Human performance could be facilitated in processing stimuli appearing in locations congruent with the planned action and subsequently held in spatial working memory. This suggests that action planning has the capacity to endogenously orient attention, but this has yet to be formally investigated. In the current study, we examined whether the endogenous nature of action planning could affect exogenous attention capture. Using a virtual three-dimensional (3D) environment, participants underwent simulated driving while presented with a modified cue-target paradigm. Action planning was prompted before (Experiment 1) or during cue presentation (Experiment 2) by requiring participants to perform a lane change following their localization response at the peripheral target onset. The results showed that traditional exogenous cueing effects (inhibition of return; IOR) were revealed when action planning was not required. However, when action planning was required, the IOR effect was diminished at the action-relevant location but remained present at the action-irrelevant location. In addition, we tested that our results were not merely the effect of an induced working memory load before making the lane change (Experiment 3) and that action planning endogenously oriented attention in the absence of any exogenous cueing manipulations (Experiment 4). Collectively, these findings suggest that the endogenous shifting of attention that results from planned actions can impact the effect of exogenous orienting in dynamic stimulus interactions. Future research should continue to examine the interplay between endogenous and exogenous attention in ecologically valid settings.</p>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144235989","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":"On the spatial limits of parallel word processing in reading","authors":"Maša Mlinarič, Sander A. Los, Joshua Snell","doi":"10.3758/s13414-025-03101-x","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-025-03101-x","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Various models of reading assume that information from up to five words is processed in parallel. Although there is evidence that foveal words can be processed simultaneously with directly adjacent words, it remains to be seen whether three words is the limit. To empirically test this, we designed a lexical decision flanker task with three flankers on each side of the target. In two experiments (offline (N = 49) and online (N = 98)), target words were either orthographically unrelated to all flankers or repeated in one out of six flanker positions. Stimuli were briefly presented, allowing us to assume that flanker effects, if any, would stem from simultaneous rather than sequential processing of the target and flankers. We observed flanker effects for flankers immediately adjacent to the target word. However, the relatedness of flankers in more remote positions did not impact recognition of the target. Our results suggest that word processing occurs for approximately three words in parallel, which is more than what some theories (e.g., E-Z Reader, Chinese Reading Model) suggest, but less than what some other theories (e.g., Glenmore, OB1-reader) suggest.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"87 5","pages":"1704 - 1716"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12205018/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144235992","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}
Amelia C. Warden, Jessica K. Witt, Mengzhu Fu, Michael D. Dodd
{"title":"Overestimation of variability in ensembles of color value and size","authors":"Amelia C. Warden, Jessica K. Witt, Mengzhu Fu, Michael D. Dodd","doi":"10.3758/s13414-025-03098-3","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-025-03098-3","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Studies have shown that people can derive summary statistics – such as the mean – from sets of similar objects for low-level (orientation, color value), mid-level (size), and high-level visual features (emotional expression) through the phenomena of ensemble perception. Recent research has identified a bias to overestimate variability in both static and dynamic arrays of lines at various orientations – referred to as the <i>variability overestimation effect</i>. Here, we explored whether the variability overestimation effect generalizes to other visual features, namely color value, and size and whether it generalizes to different response types. Such generalization would be consistent with the idea that this overestimation is inherent in ensemble perception processes. In the current experiments, participants saw a set of nine circles that varied in either size or color value and estimated the variability of the set. Overall, participants overestimated variability in color value and size. This overestimation was more pronounced when the set had lesser variability. The fact that the visual system overestimates variability across different features raises the possibility that this bias is encompassed within ensemble perception. The exaggerated bias when variability is low for orientation, size, and color value is consistent with a common mechanism underlying these biases. Understanding the perception of variability in ensembles has theoretical implications for ensemble perception processes and has applied implications such as how to design visualizations that require making judgments about critical but uncertain information such as the possible trajectory of the path of a hurricane.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"87 5","pages":"1579 - 1603"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12204910/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144235993","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}
Ignacio Spiousas, Ramiro O. Vergara, Esteban N. Lombera, Pablo E. Etchemendy
{"title":"Modulation of auditory peripersonal space by approaching and receding sources moving in discrete trajectories","authors":"Ignacio Spiousas, Ramiro O. Vergara, Esteban N. Lombera, Pablo E. Etchemendy","doi":"10.3758/s13414-025-03071-0","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-025-03071-0","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The region of space immediately surrounding the body, where we can interact with the outside world using our limbs, is commonly known as the peripersonal space (PPS). The representation of this region in the brain is dynamic and can be influenced by kinematic properties of the stimulus such as speed and direction. It has been shown that visual or auditory approaching objects expand the observer’s PPS, supporting the hypothesis of an anticipation mechanism that prioritizes approaching stimuli to better react to potential threats. However, the response to receding stimuli is not so well understood. Here, we studied the auditory PPS for approaching and receding sound sources that traveled at different speeds. In each trial, the source was presented at a fixed distance and listeners judged whether it was within arm’s reach. In the next trial, the source could be presented either closer or farther, creating the impression of a discrete approaching or receding trajectory. We found that reachability judgments were affected by the previous positions of the sound source. Approaching sources were judged more reachable at the same position than receding ones while non-defined trajectories (control) displayed intermediate values, suggesting an expansion of the auditory PPS for approaching sounds. Interestingly, receding sources were judged less reachable than controls after accounting for speed, suggesting compression of the auditory PPS. This result is consistent with the idea that reachability judgments arise from an impact prediction mechanism. The implications of this idea for our understanding of PPS are discussed.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"87 7","pages":"2165 - 2183"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144235991","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}
Natasa Ganea, Richard N. Aslin, David J. Lewkowicz
{"title":"Covert attention modulates the SSVEP in a paradigm suitable for infants and young children","authors":"Natasa Ganea, Richard N. Aslin, David J. Lewkowicz","doi":"10.3758/s13414-025-03097-4","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-025-03097-4","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Attention and visual gaze are usually tightly linked. Sometimes, however, we attend covertly to peripheral events without redirecting our gaze from the event that first attracted our overt attention. Despite evidence in adults that the steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) varies with modulation of covert attention, paradigms used with adults are not suitable for use with infants and young children who cannot be instructed to perform tasks that dissociate overt from covert attention. Here, we provide evidence from a paradigm suitable for infants and young children that when gaze remains fixed on a central flickering visual stimulus while covert attention is directed briefly to the peripheral visual field, the SSVEP response undergoes significant attenuation. Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and intertrial coherence (ITC) measures of the SSVEP response to the central stimulus were lower when participants covertly deployed their attention to the peripheral stimulus than when central gaze and attention were aligned. Crucially, SNR was a more robust measure of attentional modulation than ITC, even though both measures were significantly correlated. Moreover, a 6 Hz flicker of the central stimulus resulted in a more reliable measure of attentional modulation than 12 Hz, and the inclusion of higher harmonics did not improve the reliability of either the SNR or the ITC measures. Our paradigm is unique in that it relies on short (2 s) response epochs, validates eye position during rapid shifts of covert attention, and makes it possible to obtain SSVEP measures of covert attention from infants, young children, and special populations.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"87 7","pages":"2085 - 2104"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144235990","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}