Allison N. Marino, Kelly Cotton, Timothy J. Ricker, Joshua Sandry
{"title":"Reward-based prioritization and perceptual feature effects on attentional flexibility in working memory","authors":"Allison N. Marino, Kelly Cotton, Timothy J. Ricker, Joshua Sandry","doi":"10.3758/s13414-026-03298-5","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-026-03298-5","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The focus of attention (FoA) is a resource within working memory (WM) assumed to hold limited information in a highly accessible state. Recent evidence suggests the FoA can flexibly adjust to hold early, middle, or terminal memory representations in a highly active state with adequate motivation. When a high-reward item is present, the FoA can be redirected to flexibly adjust and select prioritized items, leading to improved performance. This has been termed the prioritization effect. This finding has been demonstrated across prior investigations that have consistently used the color red to indicate the high-reward stimulus. The salience of the stimulus may alternatively explain the prioritization effect in that the salient item may have an easier time entering WM. Salience could influence memory performance through better encoding. The current study aims to test the effect of feature-based confounds (pop-out effect) on reward-based prioritization by using a probe-recognition task and alternating the color of the to-be-prioritized item. Four colors (red, green, blue, magenta) were used, and the color assigned to a higher point-value was randomized between subjects. Our results showed that the prioritization effect was still evident even when salience (pop-out) was controlled. Regardless of the color used there was a performance benefit for the prioritized list position. Comparisons with prior studies indicate that visual pop-out, while not necessary for prioritization, may help facilitate stronger reward effects. Raw trial-level data, statistical analysis, and task code are available in the Open Science Framework (OSF) repository (https://osf.io/xsc34/overview). The experiment was not preregistered.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"88 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.3758/s13414-026-03298-5.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148297135","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":"Listeners near-optimally integrate acoustic and semantic cues in spoken word recognition: Evidence from experiments manipulating cue order and reliability","authors":"Anna Westwig, Yoolim Kim, Wednesday Bushong","doi":"10.3758/s13414-026-03280-1","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-026-03280-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Understanding spoken language demands integration of linguistic information over time. Previous work has shown that lower-level cues, like acoustic information, and higher-level cues, like semantic information, can be integrated across the course of an utterance in order to categorize words. Questions remain about how these bottom-up and top-down sources are integrated. We propose that a useful approach to this problem is to compare human behavior to normative models of cue integration, such as ideal observer models, which have been successful in other domains. We argue that ideal observer models make three key predictions about how acoustic and semantic information should be integrated during word recognition: (1) additivity: cues have additive effects on categorization; (2) transitivity: cues providing identical information should be treated identically regardless of their temporal order; and (3) reliability weighting: cues should be weighted according to their absolute and relative reliabilities. We conduct two spoken-word recognition experiments in which participants categorize a target word embedded in a sentence. We manipulate acoustic cues on the target word; semantics from the sentence; the cues’ relative timing, and the degree of noise affecting each cue. We find evidence for additivity and transitivity; we also find evidence in favor of absolute reliability driving cue reweighting, but more mixed evidence on the role of relative cue reliability. Overall, our results suggest that listeners are near-optimal in their integration of information across multiple levels of the linguistic hierarchy over time. We also discuss how these results relate to recent error-driven approaches to cue weighting.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"88 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.3758/s13414-026-03280-1.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148261981","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":"Modulation of perceived time caused by stimulus clarity in object recognition","authors":"Tetsuto Minami, Shunsuke Terasawa, Yuya Kinzuka, Fumiaki Sato, Shigeki Nakauchi","doi":"10.3758/s13414-026-03295-8","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-026-03295-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This study explored the modulation of perceived time based on subjective visual perception, mainly focusing on object recognition. Unlike physical time, psychological time is subject to various influences, such as attention and stimulus characteristics. We conducted two experiments using images comprising dots to systematically vary stimulus clarity and visual recognizability. Experiment 1 revealed that perceived time was longer when an object was identifiable within the stimulus. Experiment 2 extended this finding by offering three response options related to object recognition and naming. The results showed that named objects further extended the perceived time in participants. These findings suggest that perceived time is influenced by subjective perceptual experiences, such as object recognition and naming, which mediate the effects of objective stimulus attributes on temporal perception.</p><p>The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. The experiments were not preregistered.</p>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"88 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.3758/s13414-026-03295-8.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148261909","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":"Robust representation of the spatial arrangement of topological features","authors":"Sami R. Yousif, Yijin Hu, Elizabeth M. Brannon","doi":"10.3758/s13414-026-03286-9","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-026-03286-9","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Recent work has shown that people are sensitive to coarse differences in network topology, including network features like “holes,” “crosses,” and “T-junctions.” Even children as young as 4 years old will readily distinguish between items that differ slightly in their network topology. But how robust is this sensitivity? Here, we evaluate whether people are not only sensitive to differences in the presence or absence of certain topological features, but also to their exact spatial arrangement. In a first experiment, we show that people distinguish figures which possess all the same topological features as other figures in a set if the features differ in spatial arrangement. In a second experiment, we show that people also match figures based on exact spatial arrangement. Finally, we show that memory encodes the correct relational structure of the figures: People are more likely to falsely indicate having seen an item if it shared the precise arrangement of topological features of other items they had seen (compared to a closely matched item which had the same features arranged in a different way). Combined, these results bolster the theory that people intuitively appreciate the precise spatial arrangement of topological features.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"88 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2026-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.3758/s13414-026-03286-9.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148229148","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}
Christophe Cauchi, Jonathan Mirault, Bernard Lété, Jonathan Grainger
{"title":"Effects of flanker size and flanker eccentricity on the spatial integration of orthographic information","authors":"Christophe Cauchi, Jonathan Mirault, Bernard Lété, Jonathan Grainger","doi":"10.3758/s13414-026-03293-w","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-026-03293-w","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We investigated the impact of flanker size and horizontal flanker eccentricity in the reading version of the flankers task. Critical targets and the corresponding flankers were words that could either be the same or different. Target size did not change, and flankers could either be the same size as targets or larger. Flankers could be located close to targets (normal spacing – close flankers) or separated from targets by seven spaces (distant flankers). Results revealed significant effects of flanker relatedness (same word as the target or a different word) that interacted with both flanker size and flanker eccentricity in the analysis of response times. The three-way interaction was not significant. The only significant effect in the analysis of error rates was that of flanker relatedness. We replicated prior findings showing that increasing flanker eccentricity diminishes the effect of flanker relatedness, and we further demonstrated that increasing flanker size increases the magnitude of flanker effects. Crucially, an increase in flanker size was not found to compensate for the negative impact of an increase in flanker eccentricity on effects of flanker relatedness. These results suggest that eccentricity is one key visual factor influencing the spatial integration of orthographic information, and that the impact of eccentricity overrides the impact of flanker size. This provides support for the hypothesized scale-invariant gaze-centered processing of letter identities during the initial phase of orthographic processing.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"88 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2026-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.3758/s13414-026-03293-w.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148229098","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}
Pierangelo N. D’Onofrio Pacheco, Eckart Zimmermann
{"title":"Effects of prediction and attention on tactile precision in somatosensory gating","authors":"Pierangelo N. D’Onofrio Pacheco, Eckart Zimmermann","doi":"10.3758/s13414-026-03288-7","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-026-03288-7","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Tactile sensitivity is reduced when the limb is in motion, a phenomenon known as somatosensory gating. In a previous study, we demonstrated that discrimination precision but not perceived intensity differed between active and passive movements. Here, we asked whether and how spatial attention modulates tactile precision in active and passive movements. Participants judged the relative intensity of two vibrations while the arm was still, actively moved, or passively transported by a movable platform. Visual attention was directed either to the movement start or goal position. Perceptual bias was reduced during both active and passive movement, independent of attentional allocation. In contrast, precision remained stable during active movement but declined during passive movement when attention was directed to the movement start. However, when attention was focused on the movement goals, precision was also high when doing passive movements. These findings indicate that during active movements, predictions based, likely on an efference copy, ensure tactile precision, whereas passive movements require spatial attention directed to the movement goal.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"88 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2026-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.3758/s13414-026-03288-7.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148229165","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}
Peter J. Goodwin, Filipe Cristino, Duncan Guest, Christina J. Howard
{"title":"Spatial structure triggers systematic foraging: Segmenting search displays leads to searching by segments","authors":"Peter J. Goodwin, Filipe Cristino, Duncan Guest, Christina J. Howard","doi":"10.3758/s13414-026-03287-8","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-026-03287-8","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Spatial structure often provides information about the likely location of targets in visual search tasks and in real life. However, the extent to which spatial structure affects attention when it provides no information about target locations is less well understood. This is investigated here using a visual foraging task, whereby individuals search for many targets amongst many distractors. In six online experiments, participants foraged for multiple instances of two target types amongst two distractor types, defined by either features or conjunctions. Experiments comprised a series of manipulations of the presence, quantity, visibility, and availability of spatial structure. This was achieved via visibly segmenting displays into areas containing equal numbers of objects. These experiments assessed the effects of spatial structure on foraging using a broad range of measures and across variations including the presence of time limits and visual feedback within the display. Task-irrelevant spatial structure consistently encouraged systematic foraging, whereby participants were more likely to continue foraging within one display segment rather than to move to another. Foraging in this manner was associated with costs to foraging efficiency, and benefits to spatial memory. The general strength of the visual information about spatial structure modified the extent to which this information affected systematic foraging and foraging efficiency. Overall, spatial structure can affect individuals’ foraging patterns and strategies even when it provides no information about the potential locations of targets.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"88 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2026-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.3758/s13414-026-03287-8.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148213391","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}
Jason S. McCarley, Shannon P. Gyles, Kayla R. Hankey, Fernando Muñoz Gomez Andrade, Yusuke Yamani
{"title":"Deconstructing the vigilance decrement: Changes in bias, lapse rate, and guess rate, but not sensitivity","authors":"Jason S. McCarley, Shannon P. Gyles, Kayla R. Hankey, Fernando Muñoz Gomez Andrade, Yusuke Yamani","doi":"10.3758/s13414-026-03278-9","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-026-03278-9","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The vigilance decrement—a gradual decline in performance over the course of a sustained attention task—has been studied extensively, but its underlying mechanisms remain the subject of debate. We analyzed psychometric curves from a vigilant monitoring task to isolate the contributions of response bias, sensitivity, mental lapses, and guesses to the effect. Stimuli were pairs of small visual probes that varied in their spatial separation from trial to trial. Participants (<i>N</i> = 366) performed a psychophysical task that required them to report occasional trials on which the separation between probes exceeded a criterion value. Stimuli were embedded in dynamic noise, and trials occurred at a forced pace of 40 per minute, conditions designed to elevate processing demands and encourage sensitivity losses. Model comparisons revealed decisive evidence for conservative bias shifts, increases in mental lapse rates, and decreases in positive guess rate over time, but gave evidence against a loss of sensitivity. A reanalysis of data from an earlier study indicated that apparent evidence for a sensitivity loss in that report was the result of model misspecification. Results in total suggest that the vigilance decrement most generally reflects changes of response bias and increases in the frequency of mindless responses, not a fundamental loss of signal-noise discriminability. <i>Open Practices Statement</i>: Data and code are available at https://osf.io/3np2v/. Experiment was preregistered at https://osf.io/2b58e and https://osf.io/zynx9.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"88 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2026-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148213403","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":"The mind’s average: Unseen, internally generated ensemble representations can guide visual attention","authors":"Kristina Knox, Jonathan S. Cant, Jay Pratt","doi":"10.3758/s13414-026-03294-9","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-026-03294-9","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Ensemble processing, which allows the visual system to form summary statistical representations (e.g., the average size of a bowl of apples), can be influenced by attention. However, can such internally, statistically generated representations influence the deployment of attention? To answer this question, we conducted two experiments using a modified version of an attentional cueing paradigm with an ensemble task. Each trial began by displaying an array of eight ovals of varying sizes. Next, two ovals to the left and right of fixation were presented, where one oval was the average size of the previous set (the ensemble object), and the other oval was a distractor (the foil object). On different trials, participants reported either which oval corresponded to the average size of the previous set (ensemble task) or the location of a probe dot on one of the objects (probe task). Experiment 1 used 80% ensemble task trials and further examined effects of attentional deployment when the foil object was outside the range of ensemble size values compared to inside the ensemble range. The results revealed attentional guidance when the foil was outside the ensemble range. Experiment 2 used 20% ensemble task trials with foils outside the ensemble range and found no attentional guidance, revealing that the strength of the internal ensemble representation affects whether or not attentional guidance effects will be observed. Overall, the results provide evidence that ensemble representations can influence the deployment of spatial attention, thereby demonstrating that these two cognitive mechanisms reciprocally interact.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"88 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2026-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148213417","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":"Shape-similarity gain: A selection profile for simple objects","authors":"Brendan Valentine, Xiaoli Zhang, Taosheng Liu","doi":"10.3758/s13414-026-03283-y","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13414-026-03283-y","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Recent research has examined the selection profile—the pattern of enhancement and suppression of stimuli when allocating attention to a specific feature value. Support for several different selection profiles for simple feature dimensions (e.g., color, orientation) have been identified such as the feature-similarity gain and surround suppression effects. However, it is unclear whether the selection profile for more complex stimuli follows a similar pattern. Using a recently developed circular shape space, the current study assessed the selection profile for these simple shapes as an initial step toward the study of object-based attention. Participants attended to two target shapes while ignoring two distractors, each overlapping with one target. They performed a change identification task, reporting luminance changes of only the target shapes. We systematically varied the difference between the two targets in the shape space. In two experiments covering different ranges in the shape space, performance accuracy peaked when the two target shapes matched and then decreased in a monotonic manner as the two shapes became more different. These results align with a feature-similarity gain model and suggest that an analogous shape-similarity gain effect operates for more complex stimuli. This gain effect suggests that shape-based selection occurs in an intrinsic similarity space which can be realized by top-down attention operating on neural substrates that encode object similarity.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":55433,"journal":{"name":"Attention Perception & Psychophysics","volume":"88 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2026-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.3758/s13414-026-03283-y.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148213448","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}