Not looking for any trouble? Purely affective attentional settings do not induce goal-driven attentional capture

Brown, Chris Robert Harrison; Berggren, Nick; Forster, Sophie · 2019 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.3758/s13414-019-01895-1

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Summary

This study investigates whether broad, affective search goals (e.g., detecting any threat) can induce goal-driven attentional capture, a phenomenon where involuntary attention is drawn to stimuli matching one’s current goals. While previous research established that specific conceptual goals (e.g., searching for toys or dangerous animals) cause capture by matching distractors, it remained unclear if a general affective category like “threat” could similarly capture attention across diverse subcategories (e.g., threatening faces, objects, and animals). The authors tested the hypothesis that purely affective attentional settings might induce generalized capture, contrasting this with findings that specific goals do not generalize across different threat types. The researchers conducted four experiments using a Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) paradigm. Participants searched for targets in a central stream while ignoring distractors presented in peripheral or parafoveal locations. In Experiments 1a and 1b, participants adopted a general “threat detection” goal, searching for anything signaling danger, pain, or death, or a general “positive” goal. Distractors included threat-related images (e.g., mutilated bodies, weapons) and neutral images. Experiment 2 examined partial overlap, where only a subset of targets matched the distractors. Experiment 3 utilized a specific goal, instructing participants to search for a single subcategory of threat (fearful faces) to test if specificity was required for capture. The results demonstrated that adopting a general affective goal did not induce goal-driven attentional capture. In Experiments 1a and 1b, there was no significant difference in target identification accuracy between trials with threat-related distractors and neutral distractors. Bayesian analysis provided substantial evidence for the null hypothesis, indicating that the lack of effect was not due to low statistical power. Experiment 2 yielded similar null results even with partial overlap between targets and distractors. However, Experiment 3 revealed robust goal-driven capture when participants searched for a specific subcategory (fearful faces); distractors matching this specific category significantly impaired performance compared to neutral distractors. These findings indicate that while affective criteria can guide attention, purely affective attentional settings based on broad categories like “threat” do not induce involuntary goal-driven capture. Capture occurs only when the search goal is specific to a particular subcategory. This challenges accounts suggesting that attentional biases toward threat are driven by a general vigilance goal. Instead, the results support the view that goal-driven capture is contingent on specific, well-defined search templates rather than broad affective categories, implying that the involuntary capture of threat-related stimuli in daily life may require more specific motivational contexts than previously assumed.

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Topics

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• inattentional change blindness
• visual search
• attention selective divided