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Published on: July 16, 2015
Interruption from irrelevant auditory and visual onsets even when attention is in a focused state
Rob H J van der Lubbe1, Albert Postma
1Psychological Laboratory, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 2, 3584, CS Utrecht, The Netherlands. R.vanderlubbe@fss.uu.nl
Experimental Brain Research
|March 24, 2005
Summary
Even when attention is focused elsewhere, sudden peripheral sounds and sights can still capture attention. Focused attention does not diminish these orienting effects, nor does auditory alerting depend on focused attention.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Attention Research
Background:
- The prevailing theory suggests abrupt onsets lose their attention-grabbing power when outside the focus of attention.
- It remains unclear if this applies to auditory stimuli or peripheral visual stimuli.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether peripheral auditory and visual onsets capture attention when attention is focused elsewhere.
- To determine if focused attention modulates the alerting effect of auditory onsets.
- To examine if alerting stimuli influence attentional states.
Main Methods:
- Two experiments utilized variants of the Posner paradigm with centrally presented cues and peripheral targets.
- Irrelevant auditory or visual onsets were presented at varying peripheral distances (19.3 and 28.3 degrees).
- Participants performed visual discrimination tasks while ignoring peripheral onsets.
Main Results:
- Crossmodal and unimodal exogenous orienting effects were observed for peripheral onsets, even when attention was focused.
- No evidence indicated that the alerting effect of auditory onsets was dependent on focused attention.
- Peripheral events continued to elicit orienting effects regardless of attentional focus.
Conclusions:
- Peripheral auditory and visual onsets can attract attention even when attention is directed elsewhere.
- Focused attention does not eliminate the orienting effects of peripheral stimuli.
- Auditory stimulus alerting effects appear independent of focused attention.
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