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Adding details to the attentional template offsets search difficulty: Evidence from contralateral delay activity
Joseph Schmidt1, Gregory J Zelinsky2
1Department of Psychology, University of Central Florida.
Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance
|February 28, 2017
Summary
Expectations of search difficulty shape attentional templates. A difficult search prompts detailed visual working memory (VWM) encoding, measured by contralateral delay activity (CDA), enhancing search guidance.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Visual Perception
Background:
- Attentional templates guide visual search.
- The role of expected task difficulty in shaping these templates is not fully understood.
- Visual working memory (VWM) is crucial for maintaining target information.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how expected search difficulty influences attentional template formation.
- To examine the relationship between VWM load and search guidance under varying difficulty levels.
- To understand the neural mechanisms underlying attentional template adjustments.
Main Methods:
- Participants performed visual search tasks with varying target-distractor similarity (easy vs. difficult).
- Target previews were used to establish attentional templates.
- Contralateral delay activity (CDA), an event-related potential, measured VWM load.
- Eye movement data were collected to assess search guidance.
Main Results:
- Expectation of difficult search led to increased VWM encoding of target details (CDA).
- No difference in CDA was observed immediately before search onset, indicating flexible template weighting.
- CDA amplitude correlated with search guidance in difficult, but not easy, search conditions.
Conclusions:
- Attentional templates are dynamically adjusted based on expected task difficulty.
- Individuals may enhance VWM target representations for more demanding searches.
- The utility of attentional templates is greater in difficult search scenarios.
