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Humans reconfigure target and distractor processing to address distinct task demands
Harrison Ritz1, Amitai Shenhav1
1Department of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Science, Brown University.
Psychological Review
|September 5, 2023
Summary
This study reveals how individuals manage attention amid distractions. Findings show distinct control mechanisms for enhancing target focus and suppressing distractors, driven by incentives and prior conflict.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive psychology
- Neuroscience
- Computational modeling
Background:
- Understanding how cognitive control directs attention between goal-relevant targets and distractors is crucial.
- Previous research has not fully elucidated the independent mechanisms governing attentional distribution.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how individuals dynamically distribute attention between targets and distractors.
- To develop and validate a computational model explaining attentional control strategies.
Main Methods:
- Development of a novel Parametric Attentional Control Task to precisely measure sensitivity to targets and distractors.
- Empirical validation across three experiments with manipulations of incentives and conflict.
- Construction of a neural network model simulating evidence accumulation and feature weight dynamics.
Main Results:
- Participants independently modulated processing of targets and distractors.
- Incentives enhanced target processing, while prior conflict suppressed distractor processing.
- Attentional control exhibited early adjustments followed by reactive reconfiguration of feature sensitivity.
Conclusions:
- Cognitive control dynamically reconfigures attentional signals to optimize task performance.
- Distinct control mechanisms facilitate adaptive attention allocation in response to varying task demands.
- The proposed neural network model offers a process-level explanation for attentional control reconfiguration.
