Contingent attentional capture by top-down control settings: Converging evidence from event-related potentials.

Lien, Mei-Ching; Ruthruff, Eric; Goodin, Zachary; Remington, Roger W. · 2008 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.1037/0096-1523.34.3.509

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Summary

This study investigates the debate over whether involuntary attentional capture is driven primarily by bottom-up stimulus salience or by top-down attentional control settings. While some theories suggest that salient stimuli, such as abrupt onsets, capture attention regardless of task goals, others propose that capture is contingent on the observer’s current search template. To resolve this, the authors utilized event-related potentials (ERPs), specifically the N2pc component, which serves as a direct electrophysiological index of spatial attention allocation, alongside behavioral measures. The researchers employed a task-cuing paradigm where participants viewed displays containing both red and green items. Crucially, different groups of participants were instructed to attend to either the red or the green letter, thereby manipulating their top-down control settings. The study consisted of three experiments. Experiment 1 established that the target stimuli produced a robust N2pc effect, validating the method. Experiment 2 examined whether irrelevant color cues (red or green dots) captured attention when they matched the participant’s target color. Experiment 3 tested whether this contingent capture persisted even when the color cue competed with a simultaneous, highly salient abrupt onset elsewhere in the visual field. The results provided converging evidence that attentional capture is contingent on top-down control settings. Behaviorally, cues matching the target color produced a cuing validity effect, slowing responses when the cue was invalid, whereas non-matching cues did not. Electrophysiologically, the target-color cues elicited a robust N2pc effect comparable in magnitude to the N2pc elicited by the target itself. Importantly, this N2pc effect to the color cue remained significant even when the cue competed with an abrupt onset distractor. This indicates that attention was captured by the feature-relevant cue despite the presence of a more physically salient stimulus. These findings challenge the view that stimulus salience alone dictates involuntary attentional capture. Instead, they support the hypothesis that even involuntary shifts of attention are governed by top-down control settings. The use of the N2pc effect allowed the authors to demonstrate actual shifts in spatial attention, overcoming limitations of reaction time data which can be ambiguous regarding the locus of attention. The study concludes that attentional capture is not purely bottom-up but is contingent on the match between stimulus properties and the observer’s active task goals.

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• attention selective divided