The "red-alert" effect in visual search: evidence from human electrophysiology.

Participants had to determine the orientation of a segment inside a target color circle among other gray distractor circles. The target circle was either red or green and was accompanied in the display by a distractor in the other color. To dissociate event-related potentials of target and distractor processing, one of them was on the vertical meridian and the other in a lateral position. In Experiment 1, the target color was indicated on a per-trial basis and, in Experiment 2, on a per-block basis. The results revealed the N2pc elicited by red targets had an earlier latency relative to the N2pc elicited by green targets. Contralateral responses of positive polarity linked to distractor inhibition were found only with red lateral distractors. The results suggest that the choice of colors to distinguish targets from distractors may play a role in visual search performance and in the functional characterization of event-related lateralizations.

[1]  P. Jolicoeur,et al.  Fundamental properties of the N2pc as an index of spatial attention: effects of masking. , 2006, Canadian journal of experimental psychology = Revue canadienne de psychologie experimentale.

[2]  Steven J Luck,et al.  Capture versus suppression of attention by salient singletons: Electrophysiological evidence for an automatic attend-to-me signal , 2010, Attention, perception & psychophysics.

[3]  Jeffrey D Schall,et al.  The role of working memory representations in the control of attention. , 2007, Cerebral cortex.

[4]  P. Cavanagh,et al.  Achromatic form perception is based on luminance, not brightness. , 1992, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics and image science.

[5]  Benoit Brisson,et al.  Dissociation of the N2pc and sustained posterior contralateral negativity in a choice response task , 2008, Brain Research.

[6]  R. Desimone,et al.  Neural mechanisms of selective visual attention. , 1995, Annual review of neuroscience.

[7]  Pierre Jolicoeur,et al.  Tracking the Location of Visuospatial Attention in a Contingent Capture Paradigm , 2008, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[8]  H. Lüders,et al.  American Electroencephalographic Society Guidelines for Standard Electrode Position Nomenclature , 1991, Journal of clinical neurophysiology : official publication of the American Electroencephalographic Society.

[9]  Roberto Dell'Acqua,et al.  Contralateral cortical organisation of information in visual short-term memory: Evidence from lateralized brain activity during retrieval , 2012, Neuropsychologia.

[10]  Vincent Di Lollo,et al.  Electrophysiological Indices of Target and Distractor Processing in Visual Search , 2009, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[11]  A. Caramazza,et al.  An electrophysiological assessment of distractor suppression in visual search tasks. , 2009, Psychophysiology.

[12]  R Dell'Acqua,et al.  Spatial attention freezes during the attention blink. , 2006, Psychophysiology.

[13]  John McDonald,et al.  Electrophysiological evidence of multitasking impairment of attentional deployment reflects target-specific processing, not distractor inhibition. , 2012, International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology.

[14]  Jeff Miller,et al.  Measurement of ERP latency differences: a comparison of single-participant and jackknife-based scoring methods. , 2008, Psychophysiology.

[15]  S J Luck,et al.  Spatial filtering during visual search: evidence from human electrophysiology. , 1994, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[16]  Jeff Miller,et al.  Using the jackknife-based scoring method for measuring LRP onset effects in factorial designs. , 2001, Psychophysiology.

[17]  M. Eimer.  The N2pc component as an indicator of attentional selectivity. , 1996, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[18]  Nicolas Robitaille,et al.  Attentional control and capture in the attentional blink paradigm: Evidence from human electrophysiology , 2006 .

[19]  Allen Allport,et al.  Visual attention , 1989 .

[20]  Geoffrey F Woodman,et al.  Serial deployment of attention during visual search. , 2003, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[21]  J. V. von Wright.  On the problem of selection in iconic memory. , 1972, Scandinavian journal of psychology.

[22]  Jeremy M Wolfe,et al.  Visual Attention , 2020, Computational Models for Cognitive Vision.

[23]  Jeffrey R W Mounts,et al.  Competitive interaction degrades target selection: an ERP study. , 2009, Psychophysiology.

[24]  Nicolas Robitaille,et al.  On the control of visual spatial attention: evidence from human electrophysiology , 2006, Psychological research.

[25]  J. McCarley,et al.  On the relationship between flanker interference and localized attentional interference. , 2007, Acta psychologica.

[26]  J. Wolfe.  Chapter 8 – Visual Attention , 2000 .