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Objective: The present experiment sought to examine the effects of event rate on a cognitive vigilance task.Background: Vigilance, or the ability to sustain attention, is an integral component of human factors research. Vigilance task difficulty has previously been manipulated through increasing event rate. However, most research in this paradigm has utilized a sensory-based task, whereas little work has focused on these effects in relation to a cognitive-based task.Method: In sum, 84 participants completed a cognitive vigilance task that contained either 24 events per minute (low event rate condition) or 40 events per minute (high event rate condition). Performance was measured through the proportion of hits, false alarms, mean response time, and signal detection analyses (i.e., sensitivity and response bias). Additionally, measures of perceived workload and stress were collected.Results: The results indicated that event rate significantly affected performance, such that participants who completed the low event rate task achieved significantly better performance in terms of correction detections and false alarms. Furthermore, the cognitive vigil utilized in the present study produced performance decrements comparable to traditional sensory vigilance tasks.Conclusion: Event rate affects cognitive vigilance tasks in a similar manner as traditional sensory vigilance tasks, such that a direct relation between performance and level of event rate was established.Application: Cognitive researchers wishing to manipulate task difficulty in their experiments may use event rate presentation as one avenue to achieve this result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through associative reward learning, arbitrary cues acquire the ability to automatically capture visual attention. Previous studies have examined the neural correlates of value-driven attentional orienting, revealing elevated activity within a network of brain regions encompassing the visual corticostriatal loop [caudate tail, lateral occipital complex (LOC) and early visual cortex] and intraparietal sulcus (IPS). Such attentional priority signals raise a broader question concerning how visual signals are combined with reward signals during learning to create a representation that is sensitive to the confluence of the two. This study examines reward signals during the cued reward training phase commonly used to generate valuedriven attentional biases. High, compared with low, reward feedback preferentially activated the value-driven attention network, in addition to regions typically implicated in reward processing. Further examination of these reward signals within the visual system revealed information about the identity of the preceding cue in the caudate tail and LOC, and information about the location of the preceding cue in IPS, while early visual cortex represented both location and identity. The results reveal teaching signals within the value-driven attention network during associative reward learning, and further suggest functional specialization within different regions of this network during the acquisition of an integrated representation of stimulus value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gaze and arrow cues automatically orient visual attention, even when they have no predictive value, but the neural circuitry by which they direct attention is not clear. Recent evidence has indicated that the ventral frontoparietal attention network is primarily engaged by breaches of a viewer’s cue-related expectations. Accordingly, we hypothesized that to the extent that non-predictive gaze and arrow cues automatically engender expectations with regard to cue location, they should activate the ventral attention network when they cue attention invalidly. Using event-related fMRI, we found that invalid gaze but not arrow cues activated the ventral attention network, specifically in the area of the right temporal parietal junction (TPJ), as well as nodes along the dorsal attention network associated with a redirection of attention to the correct target location. In additional whole-brain analyses, facilitation of behavioral response time by valid gaze cues was linearly associated with the degree of activation in the right TPJ. We conclude from our findings that gaze direction elicits potent expectations in humans with regard to an actor’s intention that engage attention networks if not differently from, at least more robustly than, arrow cues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The education reformer, Horace Mann once suggested that trying to teach a learner without creating interest is like hammering cold iron. All too often, health care educators begin an instructional session while the mind of the learner is focused on places other than on the subject to be learned. Regardless of specialization, understanding situational interest and ways to nurture it in the facilitation process is important for educators. However, it is especially important for the health care community as it helps us to develop best practices in instructional design and facilitation that can improve simulation-based instruction. This article defines situational interest and explains how instructional design can generate such interest with the use of advance organizers, active learning strategies, and the practices of effective reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action. Developing situational interest may lead to an individual interest or passion for the subject, foster lifelong learning, and encourage learners to return for additional simulation-based learning experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Categories help us make predictions, or inductions, about new objects. However, we cannot always be certain that a novel object belongs to the category we are using to make predictions. In such cases, people should use multiple categories to make inductions. Past research finds that people often use only the most likely category to make inductions, even if it is not certain. In two experiments, subjects read stories and answered questions about items whose categorization was uncertain. In Experiment 1, the less likely category was either emotionally neutral or dangerous (emotionally charged or likely to pose a threat). Subjects used multiple categories in induction when one of the categories was dangerous but not when they were all neutral. In Experiment 2, the most likely category was dangerous. Here, people used multiple categories, but there was also an effect of avoidance, in which people denied that dangerous categories were the most likely. The attention-grabbing power of dangerous categories may be balanced by a higher-level strategy to reject them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human overt attention under natural conditions is guided by stimulus features as well as by higher cognitive components, such as task and emotional context. In contrast to the considerable progress regarding the former, insight into the interaction of emotions and attention is limited. Here we investigate the influence of the current emotional context on viewing behavior under natural conditions. In two eye-tracking studies participants freely viewed complex scenes embedded in sequences of emotion-laden images. The latter primes constituted specific emotional contexts for neutral target images. Viewing behavior toward target images embedded into sets of primes was affected by the current emotional context, revealing the intensity of the emotional context as a significant moderator. The primes themselves were not scanned in different ways when presented within a block (Study 1), but when presented individually, negative primes were more actively scanned than positive primes (Study 2). These divergent results suggest an interaction between emotional priming and further context factors. Additionally, in most cases primes were scanned more actively than target images. Interestingly, the mere presence of emotion-laden stimuli in a set of images of different categories slowed down viewing activity overall, but the known effect of image category was not affected. Finally, viewing behavior remained largely constant on single images as well as across the targets' post-prime positions (Study 2). We conclude that the emotional context significantly influences the exploration of complex scenes and the emotional context has to be considered in predictions of eye-movement patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the effects of multitasking on persuasion, including comprehension and counterarguing of persuasive messages, which were presented in three different contexts: (a) nonmultitasking with full attention paid to the message, (b) multitasking with primary attention paid to the message, and (c) multitasking with secondary attention paid to the message. Consistent with predictions, the results suggested that multitasking reduced the actual and perceived levels of comprehension and also reduced counterarguing. The implications for research on persuasion are further discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this single case study, visuospatial neglect patient P1 demonstrated a dissociation between an intact ability to make appropriate reflexive eye movements to targets in the neglected field with latencies of <400 ms, while failing to report targets presented at such durations in a separate verbal detection task. In contrast, there was a failure to evoke the usually robust Remote Distractor Effect in P1, even though distractors in the neglected field were presented at above threshold durations. Together those data indicate that the tight coupling that is normally shown between attention and eye movements appears to be disrupted for low-level orienting in P1. A comparable disruption was also found for high-level cognitive processing tasks, namely reading and scene scanning. The findings are discussed in relation to sampling, attention and awareness in neglect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Literature about the relationship between attention and movement has reported mixed results regarding the effect that attention has on movement and in establishing the time course of the effect. We found a veering away effect from a distractor in a driving context with different input devices: a mouse and a joystick. By using a continuous temporal task, it was possible to establish the time course of the effect. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

While it was initially thought that attention was space-based, more recent work has shown that attention can also be object-based, in that observers find it easier to attend to different parts of the same object than to different parts of different objects. Such studies have shown that attention more easily spreads throughout an object than between objects. However, it is not known to what extent attention can be confined to just part of an object and to what extent attending to part of an object necessarily causes the entire object to be attended. We have investigated this question in the context of the multiple object tracking paradigm in which subjects are shown a scene containing a number of identical moving objects and asked to mentally track a subset of them, the targets, while not tracking the remainder, the distractors. Previous work has shown that joining each target to a distractor by a solid connector so that each target-distractor pair forms a single physical object, a technique known as target-distractor merging, makes it hard to track the targets, suggesting that attention cannot be restricted to just parts of objects. However, in that study the target-distractor pairs continuously changed length, which in itself would have made tracking difficult. Here we show that it remains difficult to track the targets even when the target-distractor pairs do not change length and even when the targets can be differentiated from the connectors that join them to the distractors. Our experiments suggest that it is hard to confine attention to just parts of objects, at least in the case of moving objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the American pragmatic philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce's theory on the association of ideas. The impact that the philosophy of the empiricist David Hume had on Peirce's association of ideas theory, including in regard to resemblance, contiguity and causation, is discussed. The role that attention plays in reducing concepts into their parts, which is referred to by Peirce as abstraction and also as destructive distillation, is presented. An overview of the impact that an individual's interest has on the association of ideas is provided. The relationship between the development of habits and leading an ethical life is discussed.

Hearing-aid wearers have reported sound source locations as being perceptually internalized (i.e., inside their head). The contribution of hearing-aid design to internalization has, however, received little attention. This experiment compared the sensitivity of hearing-impaired (HI) and normal-hearing listeners to externalization cues when listening with their own ears and simulated behind-the-ear hearing-aids in increasingly complex listening situations and reduced pinna cues. Participants rated the degree of externalization using a multiple-stimulus listening test for mixes of internalized and externalized speech stimuli presented over headphones. The results showed that HI listeners had a contracted perception of externalization correlated with high-frequency hearing loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research suggests that visual attention can be allocated to locations in space (space-based attention) and to objects (object-based attention). The cueing effects associated with space-based attention tend to be large and are found consistently across experiments. Object-based attention effects, however, are small and found less consistently across experiments. In three experiments we address the possibility that variability in object-based attention effects across studies reflects low incidence of such effects at the level of individual subjects. Experiment 1 measured space-based and objectbased cueing effects for horizontal and vertical rectangles in 60 subjects comparing commonly used target detection and discrimination tasks. In Experiment 2 we ran another 120 subjects in a target discrimination task in which rectangle orientation varied between subjects. Using parametric statistical methods, we found object-based effects only for horizontal rectangles. Bootstrapping methods were used to measure effects in individual subjects. Significant space-based cueing effects were found in nearly all subjects in both experiments, across tasks and rectangle orientations. However, only a small number of subjects exhibited significant object-based cueing effects. Experiment 3 measured only object-based attention effects using another common paradigm and again, using bootstrapping, we found only a small number of subjects that exhibited significant object-based cueing effects. Our results show that object-based effects are more prevalent for horizontal rectangles, which is in accordance with the theory that attention may be allocated more easily along the horizontal meridian. The fact that so few individuals exhibit a significant object-based cueing effect presumably is why previous studies of this effect might have yielded inconsistent results. The results from the current study highlight the importance of considering individual subject data in addition to commonly used statistical methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual pop-out occurs when a unique visual target (e.g., a feature singleton) is present in a set of homogeneous distractors. However, the role of visual awareness in this process remains unclear. In the experiments reported here, we showed that even though subjects were not aware of a suppressed pop-out display, their subsequent performance on an orientation-discrimination task was significantly better at the pop-out location than at a control location. These results indicate that conscious visual awareness of a feature singleton is not necessary for it to attract attention. Furthermore, the subliminal pop-out effect disappeared when subjects diverted their attention toward a rapid sequential visual presentation task while presented with the same subliminal pop-out display. These results suggest that top-down attention is necessary for the subliminal pop-out effect and that the cognitive processes underlying attention and awareness are somewhat independent. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A brief visual cue that attracts attention repels the perceived location of a subsequent visual stimulus away from the focus of attention (attentional repulsion). In the first experiment reported here, we presented a visual cue after a visual target and found that the perceived location of the target stimulus shifted toward the location of the cue (attentional attraction). The subsequent experiments ruled out nonattentional hypotheses and indicated that the mislocalization effect is attributable to the attentional shift. The results of this study suggest that preceding and succeeding contexts differentially modulate the perceived location of a briefly presented stimulus. Our findings also underscore the importance of retrospective processes in visual attention. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this study we analyzed the topography of induced cortical oscillations in 20 healthy individuals performing simple attention tasks. We were interested in qualitatively replicating our recent findings on the localization of attention-induced beta bands during a visual task [1], and verifying whether significant topographic changes would follow the change of attention to the auditory modality. We computed corrected latency averaging of each induced frequency bands, and modeled their generators by current density reconstruction with Lp-norm minimization. We quantified topographic similarity between conditions by an analysis of correlations, whereas the inter-modality significant differences in attention correlates were illustrated in each individual case. We replicated the qualitative result of highly idiosyncratic topography of attention-related activity to individuals, manifested both in the beta bands, and previously studied slow potential distributions [2]. Visual inspection of both scalp potentials and distribution of cortical currents showed minor changes in attention-related bands with respect to modality, as compared to the theta and delta bands, known to be major contributors to the sensory-related potentials. Quantitative results agreed with visual inspection, supporting to the conclusion that attention-related activity does not change much between modalities, and whatever individual changes do occur, they are not systematic in cortical localization across subjects. We discuss our results, combined with results from other studies that present individual data, with respect to the function of cortical association areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across humans’ evolutionary history, detecting animate entities in the visual field (such as prey and predators) has been critical for survival. One of the defining features of animals is their motion—self-propelled and self-directed. Does such animate motion capture visual attention? To answer this question, we compared the time to detect targets involving objects that were moving predictably as a result of collisions (inanimate motion) with the time to detect targets involving objects that were moving unpredictably, having been in no such collisions (animate motion). Across six experiments, we consistently found that targets involving objects that underwent animate motion were responded to more quickly than targets involving objects that underwent inanimate motion. Moreover, these speeded responses appeared to be due to the perceived animacy of the objects, rather than due to their uniqueness in the display or involvement of a top-down strategy. We conclude that animate motion does indeed capture visual attention. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The elements most vivid in our conscious awareness are the ones to which we direct our attention. Scientific study confirms the impression of a close bond between selective attention and visual awareness, yet the nature of this association remains elusive. Using visual afterimages as an index, we investigate neural processing of stimuli as they enter awareness and as they become the object of attention. We find evidence of response enhancement accompanying both attention and awareness, both in the phase-sensitive neural channels characteristic of early processing stages and in the phase-insensitive channels typical of higher cortical areas. The effects of attention and awareness on phase-sensitive responses are positively correlated, but in the same experiments, we observe no correlation between the effects on phase-sensitive responses. This indicates independent signatures of attention and awareness in early visual areas yet a convergence of their effects at more advanced processing stages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: When two targets are presented in close temporal proximity amongst a rapid serial visual stream of distractors, a period of disrupted attention and attenuated awareness lasting 200-500 ms follows identification of the first target (T1). This phenomenon is known as the "attentional blink" (AB) and is generally attributed to a failure to consolidate information in visual short-term memory due to depleted or disrupted attentional resources. Previous research has shown that items presented during the AB that fail to reach conscious awareness are still processed to relatively high levels, including the level of meaning. For example, missed word stimuli have been shown to prime later targets that are closely associated words. Although these findings have been interpreted as evidence for semantic processing during the AB, closely associated words (e.g., day-night) may also rely on specific, well-worn, lexical associative links which enhance attention to the relevant target. Methodology/Principal Findings: We used a measure of semantic distance to create prime-target pairs that are conceptually close, but have low word associations (e.g., wagon and van) and investigated priming from a distractor stimulus presented during the AB to a subsequent target (T2). The stimuli were words (concrete nouns) in Experiment 1 and the corresponding pictures of objects in Experiment 2. In both experiments, report of T2 was facilitated when this item was preceded by a semantically-related distractor. Conclusions/Significance: This study is the first to show conclusively that conceptual information is extracted from distractor stimuli presented during a period of attenuated awareness and that this information spreads to neighbouring concepts within a semantic network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The attention deficit is the major factor of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). This paper aims to demonstrate difficulties in selective attention of subjects with ADHD as compared to subjects without ADHD, attempting to verify which mechanisms of selective attention are more affected in subjects with ADHD. For this purpose, we evaluated selective attention in subjects with and without ADHD (152 without and 31 with ADHD), in a population of 183 subjects. The general results show that the subjects with ADHD present lower selective attention skills than the subjects without ADHD, specifically as far as rightness, errors, concentration and processed elements are concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an overview of the aesthetics of artistic hooks, which are concrete elements of any type of art work which catch a person's attention and imagination and lead to a peak aesthetic experience for that person. A discussion of examples of aesthetic hooks which can be found in literature, music, film and other forms of art such as painting and sculpture is presented. The author's views on the different types of hooks which exist, including the pivotal hook and the point-of-arrival hook, are discussed.

This article points to an imbalance in studies of Jewish, and particularly German-Jewish, self-hatred, namely, they have focused on answering the question of what Jewish self-hatred is, while devoting relatively little attention to the question of how to identify instances of it. After offering some suggestions as to why that has been so, the article examines the effects of the imbalance; more precisely, it seeks to show how those effects amount to a serious problem in the study of Jewish self-hatred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study investigated the effect of a nondriving cognitively loading task on the relationship between drivers' endogenous and exogenous control of attention. Background: Previous studies have shown that cognitive load leads to a withdrawal of attention from the forward scene and a narrowed field of view, which impairs hazard detection. Method: Posner's cue-target paradigm was modified to study how endogenous and exogenous cues interact with cognitive load to influence drivers' attention in a complex dynamic situation. In a driving simulator, pedestrian crossing signs that predicted the spatial location of pedestrians acted as endogenous cues. To impose cognitive load on drivers, we had them perform an auditory task that simulated the demands of emerging in-vehicle technology. Irrelevant exogenous cues were added to half of the experimental drives by including scene clutter. Results: The validity of endogenous cues influenced how drivers scanned for pedestrian targets. Cognitive load delayed drivers' responses, and scene clutter reduced drivers' fixation durations to pedestrians. Cognitive load diminished the influence of exogenous cues to attract attention to irrelevant areas, and drivers were more affected by scene clutter when the endogenous cues were invalid. Conclusion: Cognitive load suppresses interference from irrelevant exogenous cues and delays endogenous orienting of attention in driving. Application: The complexity of everyday tasks, such as driving, is better captured experimentally in paradigms that represent the interactive nature of attention and processing load. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined visual search for color singleton targets, whose shape was discriminated. Critically, we varied the reward priority of singleton colors (correct fast performance was worth more bonus points for red singletons than for green singletons, or vice versa) to test whether event-related potential signatures of visual selection can be affected by distinct reward priorities for different target types, even when every target has to be selected for report. The N2pc component was earlier and larger for high- than for low-reward targets. This influence of reward on the N2pc correlated with the subject-by-subject impact of reward level on efficiency of behavioral performance. Later postselection processing was also affected by reward level. These results demonstrate that visual selection of task-relevant items is rapidly modulated by reward-related priorities, even when every target has to be selected for response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the maturation of the temporal aspect of phasic attention. 96 children (age range from 6 to 10 years) performed a detection task either alone or preceded by a visual alert signal. The Stimulus Onset Asynchrony (SOA) between the alert and the visual target was manipulated (100, 450 and 800 ms). Analysis of the mean RT (taking into account the SOA) and the response distribution (delta plot) converged on two points: (1) 6-year-old children experienced difficulties using the alert signal, and (2) alertness capacities emerged around the age of 7-8 years associated with a decrease of the delay beyond which the alert signal became efficient with increasing age. Distributional analysis distinguished erroneous or impulsive responses in reaction to the alert signal from those for which the alert was used correctly to prepare detection of the target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Déjà vu occurs when one feels as though a situation is familiar, despite evidence that the situation could not have been experienced before. Until recently, the topic of déjà vu remained largely outside of the realm of mainstream scientific investigation. However, interest in investigating the nature of déjà vu is growing among researchers of cognitive processes. In some cases, déjà vu may be understood within the context of research on human recognition memory. Specifically, déjà vu may sometimes result from familiarity-based recognition, or recognition that is based on feelings of familiarity that occur without identification of their source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We consider Sinai’s walk in i.i.d. random scenery and focus our attention on a conjecture of Révész concerning the upper limits of Sinai’s walk in random scenery when the scenery is bounded from above. A close study of the competition between the concentration property for Sinai’s walk and negative values for the scenery enables us to prove that the conjecture is true if the scenery has “thin” negative tails and is false otherwise. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Research has found that positive affect broadens attention. However, these studies have manipulated positive affect that is low in approach motivation. Positive affect that is high in approach motivation should reduce the breadth of attention, as organisms shut out irrelevant stimuli as they approach desired objects. Four studies examined the attentional consequences of approach-motivated positive-affect states. Results were consistent with predictions. Participants showed less global attentional focus after viewing high-approach-motivating positive stimuli than after viewing low-approach-motivating positive stimuli (Study 1) or neutral stimuli (Study 2). Study 3 found that greater trait approach motivation resulted in less global attentional focus after participants viewed approach-motivating positive stimuli. Study 4 manipulated affect and approach motivation independently. Greater approach-motivated positive affect caused lower global focus. High-approach-motivated positive affect reduces global attentional focus, whereas low-approach-motivated positive affect increases global attentional focus. Incorporating the intensity of approach motivation into models of positive affect broadens understanding of the consequences of positive affect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent study demonstrated that observers' ability to identify targets in a rapid visual sequence was enhanced when they simultaneously listened to happy music. In the study reported here, we examined how the emotion-attention relationship is influenced by changes in both mood valence (negative vs. positive) and arousal (low vs. high). We used a standard induction procedure to generate calm, happy, sad, and anxious moods in participants. Results for an attentional blink task showed no differences in first-target accuracy, but second-target accuracy was highest for participants with low arousal and negative affect (sad), lowest for those with strong arousal and negative affect (anxious), and intermediate for those with positive affect regardless of their arousal (calm, happy). We discuss implications of this valence-arousal interaction for the control of visual attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple schedules using continuous discriminative stimuli have been used to minimize children's disruptive requesting for teacher attention (e.g., colored floral leis; Tiger & Hanley, 2004; Tiger, Hanley, & Heal, 2006). The present study evaluated the effectiveness of, and children's preferences for, two multiple-schedule arrangements in which brief experimenter vocalizations served as discriminative stimuli. Results showed that brief signals were highly effective discriminative stimuli for 3 of the 4 children, and that all children preferred one or both variations of the multiple schedule to a control arrangement. For 1 child, highly discriminated responding was achieved only when continuous signals were introduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider three-dimensional Turing patterns and their isoconcentration surfaces corresponding to the equilibrium concentration of the reaction kinetics. We call these surfaces equilibrium concentration surfaces (EC surfaces). They are the interfaces between the regions of "high" and "low" concentrations in Turing patterns. We give alternate characterizations of EC surfaces by means of two variational principles, one of them being that they are optimal for diffusive transport. Several examples of EC surfaces are considered. Remarkably, they are often very well approximated by certain minimal surfaces. We give a dynamical explanation for the emergence of Scherk's surface in certain cases, a structure that has been observed numerically previously in [De Wit et al., 1997]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research has shown that limitations on attention can lead to loss of control. Our model of self-control suggests that when attentional resources are restricted, individuals can focus on only the most salient behavioral cues, to the neglect of more distal stimuli. Subsequent action is then likely to be under the near-exclusive motivational influence of those “central” cues. This state of narrowed attentional focus, which we term “attentional myopia,” is predicted to lead to loss of control when salient cues serve to promote a behavior that violates self-standards. By contrast, limitations on attention can lead to more successful self-control when salient cues instead suggest restraint. We have investigated this model in the health domains of eating, smoking, and aggression, and we discuss its implications for individuals' efforts to respond to health-relevant messages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study on the nature of childrens' questions. A total of 68 children aged 1 to 5 from the Bing Nursery School comprised the respondents. A total of 81% asked information-seeking questions, 67% on facts, and 14% on explanation. The younger children asked for facts while the older children gravitated toward question which required explanation. Also, children ask both isolated queries and questions that take place in a series that build on one another. Thus, the building questions act as the bridge between the information-seeking questions and exploratory questions.

What is the time course of attention? Research using rapid-stimulus streams has suggested that it is rather slow: Attention takes half a second to recover from processing one thing before it can process the next. This period is referred to as the attentional blink, and it is thought to reflect a fundamental bottleneck in conscious processing. If this period does exist, such a limitation would have severe consequences in real-life situations in which multiple events may rapidly succeed each other (e.g., in traffic). However, findings that support the attentional blink are at odds with other findings indicating that attention is not reduced, but enhanced, following potentially important occurrences. The article reviews evidence that these opposite effects are actually closely related. The attentional blink is a consequence of selection mechanisms that are not severely limited, but have an adaptive function: They enhance perception in response to relevant information but suppress perception in response to irrelevant information. It means that humans are better geared for real life than was previously thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we draw on our research on interest to explore the questions posed for this special issue. Interest is conceptualized as an affective state that represents students’ subjective experience of learning; the state that arises from either situational triggers or a well-developed individual interest. Drawing on the broad research literature on interest, and using our own findings in relation to the state of interest, we consider how interest represents an integration of affect, motivation and cognition. In particular, how the state of interest brings together motivation in the form of prior goals and interests and focuses them into on-task behavior. We illustrate ways that our research monitoring on-task sequences of affect and behavior, is confronting some of the methodological concerns posed in relation to measurement of affective states. Finally, we examine some of the paths by which triggered states of interest can contribute to productive student engagement with learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children who are diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (or who engage in behavior consistent with such a diagnosis) are often prescribed stimulant medications for hyperactive or inattentive behaviors. However, the mechanisms by which stimulant medications affect individuals' behavior are rarely evaluated. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effects of stimulant medication on response allocation when antecedents and consequences were held constant and equated. Results indicated that the presence of an amphetamine medication (Adderall®) influenced response allocation across two concurrently available responses while all other stimulus conditions were held constant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does gaze relate to psychological properties of the gazer? Studies using eye tracking reveal robust group differences in gaze toward emotional information: Optimists gaze less at negative, unpleasant images than do pessimists, and older individuals look away from negative faces and toward happy faces. These group differences appear to reflect an underlying motivation to achieve and maintain good moods by directing attention to mood-facilitating stimuli. Maintaining a positive mood is only one goal-related context that influences visual attention; recent work has also suggested that other goal states can impact gaze. Gaze therefore is a tool of motivation, directing gazers toward stimuli that are consistent with their goals and away from information that will not facilitate goal achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual attention may be voluntarily directed to particular locations or features (voluntary control), or it may be captured by salient stimuli, such as the abrupt appearance of a new perceptual object (stimulus-driven control). Most often, however, the deployment of attention is the result of a dynamic interplay between voluntary attentional control settings (e.g., based on prior knowledge about a target's location or color) and the degree to which stimuli in the visual scene match these voluntary control settings. Consequently, nontarget items in the scene that share a defining feature with the target of visual search can capture attention, a phenomenon termedcontingent attentional capture. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to show that attentional capture by target-colored distractors is accompanied by increased cortical activity in corresponding regions of retinotopically organized visual cortex. Concurrent activation in the temporoparietal junction and ventral frontal cortex suggests that these regions coordinate voluntary and stimulus-driven attentional control settings to determine which stimuli effectively compete for attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study replicates and extends previous research on stimulus control by ar- ranging teacher attention for preschooler's mands into a multiple schedule and conducting a component analysis of the effects of schedule-correlated stimuli and contingency-specifying stimuli (rules) on the development of discriminated manding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of sustained attention using the Continuous Performance Test (CPT) often incorporate effortful processing conditions and different response measures. Difficulty of attentional effort and interrelationships among response measures, however, have not been well established particularly with normal populations. This study investigated three CPT tasks which varied in interstimulus interval and target frequency in 107 nonpatient adults. This report also examined five response measures (d′, a measure of discriminability; In(β), a measure of response bias; reaction time; and omission and commission errors). Findings indicated that a high target frequency condition was more effortful than a short interstimulus interval condition on all response measures. Further, d′, omission errors, and commission errors differentiated the short interstimulus interval condition from baseline, but reaction time and In(β) did not. Participants with faster reaction times in the high target frequency condition had fewer omission errors but more commission errors; these relationships may have been mediated by response bias. This suggested that response measures were interrelated but nonredundant, and that these relationships were influenced by attentional effort and response bias. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Natural scenes typically contain multiple objects that are unique in different stimulus dimensions so that an object with feature contrast to surrounding objects draws attention and pops out. Furthermore, if we have previous knowledge about the dimension in which a target object differs from the surrounding objects, we will attend to that dimension and more easily detect the target. Our aims here were to elucidate neural mechanisms underlying this type of attention by recording neuronal activities from area V4 and to investigate how visual signals encoding feature contrast between objects are modulated by attention specific to a particular dimension. To accomplish this, we trained monkeys to do a multidimensional visual search task in which two singleton stimuli, unique in the color or shape dimension, were presented with four other identical stimuli. The monkeys had to search for the singleton stimulus that was unique in the instructed dimension while the search dimension was switched between shape and color. We found that individual V4 neurons carry visual signals encoding feature contrast in either shape or color, and this signal is modulated depending on the search dimension. Population responses to the target singleton stimulus were significantly higher than to others, regardless of the search dimension. In most V4 neurons, however, significant response increases occurred only when one particular singleton stimulus was the target. These findings suggest that interaction between bottom-up signals encoding feature contrast between stimuli and top-down signals encoding search dimension occurs in V4 and facilitates adaptive selection of targets in a complex visual environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Although previous studies suggest that postural control requires attention and other cognitive resources, the central mechanisms responsible for this relationship remain unclear. To address this issue, we examined the effects of altered attention on cortical activity and postural responses following mechanical perturbations to upright stance. We hypothesized that cortical activity would be attenuated but not delayed when mechanical perturbations were applied during a concurrent performance of a cognitive task (i.e. when attention was directed away from the perturbation). We also hypothesized that these cortical changes would be accompanied by alterations in the postural response, as evidenced by increases in the magnitude of anteroposterior (AP) centre of pressure (COP) peak displacements and tibialis anterior (TA) muscle activity. Healthy young adults (n = 7) were instructed to continuously track (cognitive task) or not track (control task) a randomly moving visual target using a hand-held joystick. During each of these conditions, unpredictable translations of a moving floor evoked cortical and postural responses. Scalp-recorded cortical activity, COP, and TA electromyographic (EMG) measures were collected. Results: Results revealed a significant decrease in the magnitude of early cortical activity (the N1 response, the first negative peak after perturbation onset) during the tracking task compared to the control condition. More pronounced AP COP peak displacements and EMG magnitudes were also observed for the tracking task and were possibly related to changes in the N1 response. Conclusion: Based on previous notions that the N1 response represents sensory processing of the balance disturbance, we suggest that the attenuation of the N1 response is an important central mechanism that may provide insight into the relationship between attention and postural control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study which examined the involvement of posterior parietal cortex (PPC) in nonspatial attentional processes. Functionality of PPC; Factor which impair the ability to shift attention from one perceptual dimension of a stimulus to another; Cortical network for spatial attentional function.

After a brief historical overview of how interest and its role in learning had been conceptualized, the focus of the paper shifts to the specific relationship between interest and reading. The issues considered are the effect of interest on readers' comprehension and learning, the variables that determine readers' interests, and the specific processes such as attention that may mediate the effect of interest on learning. It is suggested that to allow researchers a better understanding of the mediating variables, dynamic measures of interest are needed in addition to the more traditional self-reports and questionnaires. In the final section of the paper the author discusses the importance of utilizing students' interest in classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The differential attention model and the cognitive elaboration model suggest vivid information has certain properties that exert greater influence on attitudinal judgments than does nonvivid information. To test these models, subjects evaluated alternatives described in terms of vivid and nonvivid attributes and elaborated on the material in high and low elaboration conditions. Our results demonstrate disproportionate influence for vivid versus nonvivid attributes included in the same description only in the high elaboration condition. Findings suggest that cognitive elaboration may be a necessary condition to produce an effect for vividness on attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Memory and attentional control impairments are the two most common forms of dysfunction following mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) and lead to significant morbidity in patients, yet these functions are thought to be supported by different brain networks. This 3 T magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) study investigates whether microstructural integrity of white matter, as measured by fractional anisotropy (FA) within a small set of individually localized regions of interest (ROIs), is associated with these cognitive domains in normal adults and adults with mild TBI. Results in a sample of 23 normal controls reveal a significant correlation between attentional control and FA within a ROI in the left hemisphere anterior corona radiata. Furthermore, the controls demonstrate a correlation between memory performance and FA in a ROI placed in the uncinate fasciculus. Next, to examine whether these relationships are found in the pathological ranges of attention, memory and microstructural white matter integrity associated with mild TBI, these analyses were applied to a group of 43 mild TBI patients. Results, which generally demonstrated a wider range of attention, memory and FA scores, replicated the correlation between attentional control and FA in left hemisphere anterior corona radiata, as well as the correlation between memory performance and FA in the uncinate fasciculus. These two sets of brain-behaviour relationships were highly specific, as shown by a lack of correlation between attention and uncinate fasciculus FA and the lack of correlation between memory performance and anterior corona radiata FA. Furthermore, a ‘correlational double dissociation’ was demonstrated to exist between two distinct frontal structures independently associated with attention and memory, respectively, via a series of multiple regression analyses in both normal controls and adults with mild TBI. The results of the multiple regression analyses provide direct evidence that tract-specific variation in microstructural white matter integrity among normal controls and among mild TBI patients can account for much of the variation in performance in specific cognitive domains. More generally, such findings suggest that diffusion anisotropy measurement can be used as a quantitative biomarker for neurocognitive function and dysfunction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Classical dichotic listening is a method for studying auditory laterality and consequently basic sensory processing. Nevertheless, by adding instructions about which ear to attend (forced condition), it is possible to also test controlled information processing. Specifically, the forced-right condition would reflect the capacity to focus attention, while the forced-left condition can be explained additionally as a result of inhibitory control over a stimulus-driven effect, since the latter paradigm also involves response conflict. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between the two forced conditions and a test of sustained and focused attention. Materials and methods Thirty patients with schizophrenia (SCH) were assessed twice: on their hospitalisation and right before leaving hospital. Attention was measured by a dichotic listening task of simple words (DLT), under two conditions: forced right-ear (FRC) and forced left-ear (FLC) condition (wherein subjects were instructed to focus attention only on the right- or left-ear stimulus, respectively), yielding two measures: number of words repeated from the target ear minus number of words repeated from the opposite ear, respectively. Sustained-focused attention was measured by the Penn Continuous Performance Test (PCPT). In this computerized task, the subject is asked to respond to a set of vertical and horizontal lines whenever they form a digit. An efficiency measure (i.e., the ratio of number of correct responses per unit time for each participant, calculated by dividing the number of true positives by the average reaction time on correct responses) was used as an index of performance. Results Performance on the PCPT correlated significantly with performance on both conditions of the DLT, and at both testing times [1st time: PCPT - FRC: r=.525, p<.003, PCPT - FLC: r=.564, p<.001; 2nd time: PCPT - FRC: r=.379, p<.03, PCPT - FLC: r=.562, p<.001]. Conclusions In conclusion our results suggest that both forced condition paradigms of a dichotic listening test tap into aspects of focused attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual attention is attracted by salient stimuli that ‘pop out’ from their surroundings. Attention can also be voluntarily directed to objects of current importance to the observer. What happens in the brain when these two processes interact? [Copyright &y& Elsevier]