Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

High-Level and Low-Level Awareness

High-Level and Low-Level Awareness

Controlled processes in human consciousness represent high-alert mental states where individuals deliberately focus their attention on achieving specific goals. Controlled processes can be seen in situations like mastering new technology, where a person might become so absorbed that they ignore surrounding distractions. Such processes involve selective attention, requiring one to concentrate on particular elements of experience while disregarding others. These are governed by executive...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Self-management of long COVID symptoms with over-the-counter medicines and other non-prescribed therapies: a cross-sectional survey.

BMC public health·2026

Same author

Predicting continuous outcomes: Some new tests of associative approaches to contingency learning.

PLoS computational biology·2026

Same author

Learned statistical regularity modulates anticipatory micro-saccades toward suppressed distractor locations.

Nature communications·2026

Same author

A scoping review of evidence of the association between attentional processes and uncertainty in mental health disorders.

Cognition & emotion·2026

Same author

Prediction and Prioritisation: How Reward Learning Shapes Attentional Capture.

Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006)·2026

Same author

35+ years of the additional singleton task: Design features and guidelines.

Attention, perception & psychophysics·2026

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 27, 2025

Using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation to Measure Set-Specific Capture, a Consequence of Distraction While Multitasking

Using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation to Measure Set-Specific Capture, a Consequence of Distraction While Multitasking

Published on: August 29, 2018

Uncertainty-modulated attentional capture: Outcome variance increases attentional priority.

Daniel Pearson¹, Amy Chong², Julie Y L Chow²

¹School of Psychology, University of Sydney.

Journal of Experimental Psychology. General

|May 2, 2024

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

People explore stimuli with uncertain outcomes more, even if it slows them down. This attentional exploration is driven by learning and reducing future uncertainty, not just immediate rewards.

More Related Videos

Measuring Attention and Visual Processing Speed by Model-based Analysis of Temporal-order Judgments

Measuring Attention and Visual Processing Speed by Model-based Analysis of Temporal-order Judgments

Published on: January 23, 2017

Investigating the Deployment of Visual Attention Before Accurate and Averaging Saccades via Eye Tracking and Assessment of Visual Sensitivity

Investigating the Deployment of Visual Attention Before Accurate and Averaging Saccades via Eye Tracking and Assessment of Visual Sensitivity

Published on: March 18, 2019

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 27, 2025

Using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation to Measure Set-Specific Capture, a Consequence of Distraction While Multitasking

Using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation to Measure Set-Specific Capture, a Consequence of Distraction While Multitasking

Published on: August 29, 2018

Measuring Attention and Visual Processing Speed by Model-based Analysis of Temporal-order Judgments

Measuring Attention and Visual Processing Speed by Model-based Analysis of Temporal-order Judgments

Published on: January 23, 2017

Investigating the Deployment of Visual Attention Before Accurate and Averaging Saccades via Eye Tracking and Assessment of Visual Sensitivity

Investigating the Deployment of Visual Attention Before Accurate and Averaging Saccades via Eye Tracking and Assessment of Visual Sensitivity

Published on: March 18, 2019

Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Neuroscience
Decision Making

Background:

Prior experiences influence how individuals prioritize environmental information for processing and action.
Attentional prioritization is modulated by the uncertainty associated with past experiences.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how uncertainty in previous experiences affects attentional prioritization.
To determine if individuals explore stimuli associated with higher outcome variance.

Main Methods:

Three experiments using a visual search task where participants earned monetary rewards.
Distractor stimuli signaled reward outcomes with varying degrees of variance (uncertainty).
Behavioral analysis of saccade patterns towards distractors with different outcome variances.

Main Results:

Participants were more likely to attend to distractors associated with high outcome variance compared to low outcome variance.
This effect persisted regardless of expected value or reward magnitude.
Attentional bias towards high-variance distractors was consistent across all experimental conditions.

Conclusions:

Uncertainty from prediction errors plays a key role in guiding attentional exploration.
Attentional priority is driven by the potential to reduce future uncertainty through learning.
This suggests a learning-driven mechanism for attention rather than solely maximizing current information gain.