Foxes, hedgehogs, and attentional capture

Hickey, Clayton; van Zoest, Wieske · 2021 · Crossref

DOI: 10.1080/13506285.2021.1918812

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Summary

This commentary critiques the prevailing theoretical approaches in attentional capture research, specifically challenging the "hedgehog" approach of seeking a single, universal organizing principle. The authors, Hickey and van Zoest, utilize Isaiah Berlin’s metaphor of foxes and hedgehogs to argue that the field has historically favored hedgehog-like theories—such as the signal-suppression hypothesis proposed by Luck et al. (2021)—which attempt to resolve complex phenomena through discrete, unitary mechanisms. The authors contend that this approach is insufficient given the increasing evidence that attentional control is complicated, contextual, and messy, necessitating a shift toward "foxy" thinking that embraces incremental, context-dependent theories. The paper analyzes the signal-suppression hypothesis, which posits that attentional selection is governed by discrete "priority signals" in the visual system, distinct from raw physical salience. This theory suggests that these priority signals can be proactively influenced by strategy or learning and reactively suppressed to avoid distraction, a process linked to the distractor positivity (Pd) component in event-related potentials. The authors critique the mechanistic foundations of this hypothesis, particularly the assumption of a discrete "master map" in the visual hierarchy that is insulated from lower-level feature maps. They argue that this insulation is untenable because attentional effects typically propagate throughout the visual system, with neural indices of suppression reflecting broad activity across parietal, temporal, and occipital cortices rather than isolated inhibition. Furthermore, the authors highlight a conceptual inconsistency in recent updates to the signal-suppression hypothesis. While originally distinguishing priority signals (which lack feature information) from physical salience, recent findings indicate that reactive suppression often requires knowledge of specific features, implying that suppression acts on feature maps contributing to salience. This blurs the distinction between priority signals and physical salience, rendering the former conceptually redundant. The authors suggest that without this distinction, the hypothesis resembles earlier models emphasizing recursive processing and feedback loops, where physical salience rapidly activates reweighting mechanisms that feedback through the hierarchy to establish control. The significance of this critique lies in its call for a paradigm shift in how attentional capture is modeled. The authors argue that attentional control is not the product of a single unitary principle but is fundamentally dependent on context and the nature of the information conveyed by stimuli. They propose that future research should adopt a "foxy" approach, developing contextual theories embedded in neurophysiology and computational modeling. This involves identifying discrete phenomena associated with specific brain networks activated under defined circumstances, acknowledging the decentralized, nonlinear complexity of the visual system rather than forcing it into a simplified, universal framework.

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• attention selective divided