Comparing intramodal and crossmodal cuing in the endogenous orienting of spatial attention

The endogenous orienting of spatial attention has been studied with both informative central cues and informative peripheral cues. Central cues studies are difficult to compare with studies that have used uninformative peripheral cues due to the differences in stimulus presentation. Moreover, informative peripheral cues attract both endogenous and exogenous attention, thus making it difficult to disentangle the contribution of each process to any behavioural results observed. In the present study, we used an informative peripheral cue (either tactile or visual) that predicted that the target would appear (in different blocks of trials) on either the same or opposite side as the cue. By using this manipulation, both expected and unexpected trials could either be exogenously cued or uncued, thus making it possible to isolate expectancy effects from cuing effects. Our aim was to compare the endogenous orienting of spatial attention to tactile (Experiment 1) and to visual targets (Experiment 2) under conditions of intramodal and crossmodal spatial cuing. The results suggested that the endogenous orienting of spatial attention should not be considered as being a purely supramodal phenomenon, given that significantly larger expectancy effects were observed in the intramodal cuing conditions than in the crossmodal cuing conditions in both experiments.

[1]  Stanley J Bolanowski,et al.  A direct comparison of exogenous and endogenous inhibition of return and selective attention mechanisms in the somatosensory system , 2005, Somatosensory & motor research.

[2]  S. Yantis,et al.  Abrupt visual onsets and selective attention: voluntary versus automatic allocation. , 1990, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[3]  M. Posner.  The Cognitive Neuroscience of Attention , 2020 .

[4]  J. Driver,et al.  Audiovisual links in endogenous covert spatial attention. , 1996, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[5]  H. J. Muller,et al.  Reflexive and voluntary orienting of visual attention: time course of activation and resistance to interruption. , 1989, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[6]  M. Posner,et al.  Neural systems control of spatial orienting. , 1982, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[7]  H. Buchtel,et al.  Spatial attentional shifts: Implications for the role of polysensory mechanisms , 1988, Neuropsychologia.

[8]  Nigel Harvey,et al.  Non-Informative Effects of Stimuli Functioning as Cues , 1980, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology.

[9]  P. Rodway.  The modality shift effect and the effectiveness of warning signals in different modalities. , 2005, Acta psychologica.

[10]  J. Lupiáñez,et al.  On the time course of exogenous cueing effects: a commentary on Tassinari et al. (1994) , 1998, Vision research.

[11]  K. Briand,et al.  Feature integration and spatial attention : More evidence of a dissociation between endogenous and exogenous orienting , 1998 .

[12]  B. Milliken,et al.  Independent effects of endogenous and exogenous spatial cueing: inhibition of return at endogenously attended target locations , 2004, Experimental Brain Research.

[13]  William Prinzmetal,et al.  Attention: reaction time and accuracy reveal different mechanisms. , 2005, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[14]  Giovanni Galfano,et al.  Nonspatial attentional shifts between audition and vision. , 2002, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[15]  J. Miller,et al.  A warning about median reaction time. , 1988, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[16]  J. Findlay,et al.  The effect of visual attention on peripheral discrimination thresholds in single and multiple element displays. , 1988, Acta psychologica.

[17]  J. Lupiáñez,et al.  Inhibición de retorno sin retorno de la atención , 2004 .

[18]  Martin Eimer,et al.  The time course of spatial orienting elicited by central and peripheral cues: evidence from event-related brain potentials , 2000, Biological Psychology.

[19]  J. Driver,et al.  Control of Cognitive Processes: Attention and Performance XVIII , 2000 .

[20]  Bruce Bridgeman,et al.  Space-independent modality-driven attentional capture in auditory, tactile and visual systems , 2004, Experimental Brain Research.

[21]  B. Milliken,et al.  Separate mechanisms recruited by exogenous and endogenous spatial cues: evidence from a spatial Stroop paradigm. , 2007, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[22]  M. Posner.  Chronometric explorations of mind , 1978 .

[23]  Jon Driver,et al.  Covert Spatial Orienting in Audition: Exogenous and Endogenous Mechanisms , 1994 .

[24]  R. Klein,et al.  Inhibition of return , 2000, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[25]  L. Harris,et al.  Simultaneity constancy: detecting events with touch and vision , 2005, Experimental Brain Research.

[26]  R. Klein.  On the Control of Visual Orienting , 2004 .

[27]  C. Spence,et al.  The cost of expecting events in the wrong sensory modality , 2001, Perception & psychophysics.

[28]  H. Buchtel,et al.  Spatial attentional shifts: Further evidence for the role of polysensory mechanisms using visual and tactile stimuli , 1989, Neuropsychologia.

[29]  C. Spence,et al.  Crossmodal Space and Crossmodal Attention , 2004 .

[30]  Juan Lupiáñez,et al.  The role of spatial attention and other processes on the magnitude and time course of cueing effects , 2005, Cognitive Processing.

[31]  J. Juola,et al.  Voluntary allocation versus automatic capture of visual attention , 1990, Perception & psychophysics.

[32]  M. Posner,et al.  Orienting of Attention* , 1980, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology.

[33]  T A Mondor,et al.  Effect of same- and different-modality spatial cues on auditory and visual target identification. , 1998, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[34]  C. Spence,et al.  Crossmodal links between vision and touch in covert endogenous spatial attention. , 2000, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[35]  G. Tassinari,et al.  Consequences of covert orienting to non-informative stimuli of different modalities: A unitary mechanism? , 1996, Neuropsychologia.

[36]  Giovanni Berlucchi,et al.  Inhibition of return: A phenomenon in search of a mechanism and a better name , 2006, Cognitive neuropsychology.

[37]  J. Lupiáñez,et al.  A review of attentional capture: On its automaticity and sensitivity to endogenous control. , 2002 .

[38]  C. Spence,et al.  Multisensory prior entry. , 2001, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[39]  R. Klein,et al.  Relations among modes of visual orienting , 2000 .

[40]  J. Lupiáñez,et al.  Dissociating inhibition of return from endogenous orienting of spatial attention: Evidence from detection and discrimination tasks , 2006, Cognitive neuropsychology.

[41]  C. Spence,et al.  Cross-modal links in exogenous covert spatial orienting between touch, audition, and vision , 1998, Perception & psychophysics.

[42]  Charles Spence,et al.  Spatial synergies between auditory and visual attention. , 1994 .

[43]  Jason B. Mattingley,et al.  Modality-Specific Control of Strategic Spatial Attention in Parietal Cortex , 2004, Neuron.

[44]  H. Pashler.  The Psychology of Attention , 1997 .

[45]  R. Klein,et al.  Is Posner's "beam" the same as Treisman's "glue"?: On the relation between visual orienting and feature integration theory. , 1987, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.