Endogenous attention is invariant to sequential effects in performance around the visual field

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Visual Perception
• Human Factors

Background:

• Covert spatial attention voluntarily prioritizes sensory information.
• Visual perception exhibits polar-angle asymmetries, like horizontal-vertical anisotropy.
• Sequential effects can influence performance based on trial history.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if endogenous attention modulates performance across different target locations and trial histories.
• To determine if sequential effects interact with attention and target properties.
• To assess the impact of trial history on visual polar-angle asymmetries.

Main Methods:

• Reanalysis of data from three published studies using orientation discrimination tasks.
• Assessment of sequential effects on response repetition.
• Examination of performance across location, feature, attention repetition, and preceding trial correctness.

Main Results:

• Confirmed typical sequential effects of response repetition for location and feature.
• Demonstrated a robust effect of attention on performance.
• Found no evidence of sequential attention effects modulated by location, feature, attention repetition, or preceding trial correctness.

Conclusions:

• Visual polar-angle asymmetries are resistant to endogenous attention.
• Top-down factors, such as sequential effects, do not alleviate these visual performance asymmetries.
• Attention and trial history do not interact to mitigate spatial biases in visual perception.