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A rare and unexpected change (or deviation) in the properties of an irrelevant auditory background can disrupt performance of a visual focal task via attentional capture. Although this effect is typically caused by a change in the acoustic properties of the sound, recent evidence has shown that a change in (semantic) category within a sound stream could also disrupt ongoing cognitive activity. The present study aimed to investigate the functional characteristics of this recently discovered categorical deviation effect. In two experiments, an irrelevant sound stream was presented while participants performed visual serial recall. We examined whether working memory capacity (WMC) is associated with susceptibility to distraction by an unexpected change in category within the sound. Acoustically deviating sounds were also presented to compare the categorical and acoustic deviation effects directly. Both experiments revealed that the categorical deviation effect was not correlated with WMC. The expected relationship between WMC and the acoustic deviation effect was observed, but the acoustic and categorical deviation effects were unrelated. Our results constitute new evidence of a distinction between the acoustic and categorical deviation effects despite their apparent similarity. They also suggest that the categorical deviation effect is not underpinned by attentional capture.

In complex dynamic work environments, the consequences of task interruptions on performance can put public safety at risk. If not designed carefully, current tools aiming to facilitate interruption recovery can instead hamper performance because of information overload. Although a simpler solution-the forewarning of an imminent interruption-has proven effective in static contexts, existing theories of task interruption do not clearly predict its impact on the resumption of dynamically evolving tasks. The current study examined the effects of a preinterruption warning in dynamic settings to develop a better understanding of task resumption and supplement current theoretical accounts. In a simulation of above-water warfare, scenarios were either uninterrupted, unexpectedly interrupted, or interrupted following an auditory warning. Behavioral, oculomotor, and pupillometric data regarding decision making, information processing, and cognitive load were computed before, during, and after each interruption (or the corresponding moment). Interruption warnings triggered a cognitively demanding preinterruption preparation that, in turn, speeded up postinterruption information processing and decision making and lowered cognitive load when resuming the interrupted task. These findings help to complement current theories of interruptions while showing that preinterruption warnings represent a promising way to support interruption recovery in complex dynamic situations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The mere presence of task-irrelevant auditory stimuli is known to interfere with cognitive functioning. Disruption can be caused by changing auditory distractors (the changing-state effect) or by a sound that deviates from the auditory background (the deviation effect). The unitary account of auditory distraction explains both phenomena in terms of attentional capture whereas the duplex-mechanism account posits that they reflect two fundamentally different forms of distraction in which only the deviation effect is caused by attentional capture. To test these predictions, we exploited a physiological index of attention orienting: the pupillary dilation response (PDR). Participants performed visual serial recall while ignoring sequences of spoken letters. These sequences either comprised repeated or changing letters, and one letter could sometimes be replaced by pink noise (the deviant). Recall was poorer in both changing-state and deviant trials. Interestingly, the PDR was elicited by deviant sounds but not changing-state sounds, while a tonic increase in pupil size was found throughout changing-state trials. This physiological dissociation of the changing-state and the deviation effects suggests they are subtended by distinct mechanisms thereby procuring support for the duplex-mechanism account over the unitary account.

Multitasking-the performance of several tasks at the same time-is becoming increasingly prevalent in workplaces. Multitasking is known to disrupt performance, particularly in complex and dynamic si ...

The rare presentation of a sound that deviates from the auditory background tends to capture attention, which is known to impede cognitive functioning. Such disruption is usually measured using per...

Cell-phone conversation is ubiquitous within public spaces. The current study investigates whether ignored cell-phone conversation impairs eyewitness memory for a perpetrator. Participants viewed a video of a staged crime in the presence of 1 side of a comprehensible cell-phone conversation (meaningful halfalogue), 2 sides of a comprehensible cell-phone conversation (meaningful dialogue), 1 side of an incomprehensible cell-phone conversation (meaningless halfalogue), or quiet. Between 24 and 28 hr later, participants freely described the perpetrator's face, constructed a single composite image of the perpetrator from memory, and attempted to identify the perpetrator from a sequential lineup. Further, participants rated the likeness of the composites to the perpetrator. Face recall and lineup identification were impaired when participants witnessed the staged crime in the presence of a meaningful halfalogue compared to a meaningless halfalogue, meaningful dialogue, or quiet. Moreover, likeness ratings showed that the composites constructed after ignoring the meaningful halfalogue resembled the perpetrator less than did those constructed after experiencing quiet or ignoring a meaningless halfalogue or a meaningful dialogue. The unpredictability of the meaningful content of the halfalogue, rather than its acoustic unexpectedness, produces distraction. The results are novel in that they suggest that an everyday distraction, even when presented in a different modality to target information, can impair the long-term memory of an eyewitness. (PsycINFO Database Record

While the development of intelligent technologies in security surveillance can augment human capabilities, they do not replace the role of the operator entirely; as such, when developing surveillance support it is critical that limitations to the cognitive system are taken into account. The current article reviews the cognitive challenges associated with the task of a CCTV operator: visual search and cognitive/perceptual overload, attentional failures, vulnerability to distraction, and decision-making in a dynamically evolving environment. While not directly applied to surveillance issues, we suggest that the NSEEV (noticing – salience, effort, expectancy, value) model of attention could provide a useful theoretical basis for understanding the challenges faced in detection and monitoring tasks. Having identified cognitive limitations of the human operator, this review sets out a research agenda for further understanding the cognitive functioning related to surveillance, and highlights the need to consider the human element at the design stage when developing technological solutions to security surveillance.

Using a microworld simulation of maritime decision making, we compared two decision support systems (DSS) in their impact upon recovery from interruption. The Temporal Overview Display (TOD) and Change History Table (CHT) - designed to support temporal awareness and change detection, respectively - have previously proven useful in improving situation awareness; however, evaluation of support tools for multitasking environments should not be limited to the specific aspects of the task that they were designed to augment. Using a combination of performance, self-report, and eye-tracking measures, we find that both DSS counter-intuitively have a negative effect on performance. Resumption lags are increased, elevated post-interruption decision-making times persist for longer, and defensive effectiveness is impaired relative to No-DSS. Eye-tracking measures indicate that in the baseline condition, participants tend to encode the visual display more broadly, where as those in the two DSS conditions may have experienced a degree of attentional tunnelling due to high workload. We suggest that for a support tool to be beneficial it should ease the burden on attentional resources so that these can be used for reconstructing a mental model of the post-interruption scene. We use a maritime microworld to study multitasking and interruption recovery.We use a holistic approach in the assessment of two DSS.We use a combination of performance, self-report and eye tracking measures.Both DSS impair defensive effectiveness and prolong interruption recovery.

The attentional blink (AB) refers to the impairment in accurate report of a second target (T2) when presented shortlyafter a first target (T1) in a rapid serial visual presentation of distractors. The goal of the present study was todetermine whether the AB is caused by a failure in early selection processes, which leads to the selection andconsolidation of the wrong item in working memory, by measuring the frequency-related P3 to T2 and to T211.During the AB, an attenuation of the P3 to T2 was observed, as well as an increase in the amplitude of the P3 toT211. Whereas the P3 to T2 was observed only when T2 was correctly reported, the P3 to T211 was observed onlyin trials where T2 was incorrectly reported, and its amplitude was correlated to individual differences in misselectionrate. These results support the claim that failure of temporal selection underlies the AB.Descriptors: Attentional blink, Misselection, Dual-task interference, Human electrophysiology, P3When interacting with its environment, an organism is constantlybombarded by ever-changing perceptual inputs from different sour-ces. The limited nature of our cognitive system makes it impossibleto process all these stimuli extensively, leaving many at the door-step of consciousness. For goal-directed behavior to be successfulin such an overwhelming environment, the cognitive system mustrely on attentional mechanisms to filter the flow of information inorder to prioritize processing of task-relevant events at the expenseof task-irrelevant events. However, failures in the ability to processmultiple target stimuli occurring closely in time suggest that thetemporal efficiency of selective attention is vulnerable to taskdemand (see, e.g., Shapiro, 2001). In order to investigate the sourceof fundamental limitations in temporal selection, the present studyaims to use ERPs to directly track which items are selected for fur-ther processing within the attentional blink (AB) paradigm, a dual-task paradigm that has been used extensively to investigate thetemporal limitations of human information processing (for recentreviews, see Dux & Marois, 2009; Martens & Wyble, 2010).The ABThe conventional visual AB task requires to report, without speedpressure, the identity of two targets embedded in a rapid serial vis-ual presentation (RSVP) stream of distractors (Raymond, Shapiro,& Arnell, 1992). The AB deficit refers to the difficulty in accu-rately reporting the second target (T2) when presented withinapproximately half a second after the first target (T1). Whereasmost theories of the AB agree that the second-target deficit reflectsimpairment in the processing of T2 while limited attentionalresources are committed to the processing of T1 (but see Olivers M Taatgen, Juvina, Schipper, Borst, & Martens, 2009),there is no consensus among researchers regarding the exact natureof the mechanisms underlying such a limitation. One importantongoing debate is whether the AB results from capacity limitationsin the consolidation of items into working memory or rather fromfailures in attentional selection of items to be consolidated.Capacity limits in short-term consolidation. Several theoriesclaim that the AB is the consequence of capacity limitations at thestage of consolidation into working memory (WM: e.g., Chun P Dehaene, Sergent, & Changeux, 2003; Jolicœur,1998; Potter, Staub, & O’Connor, 2002; Ward, Duncan, & Shapiro,1996). These theories often adhere to a two-stage structure of infor-mation processing as proposed in the two-stage model (Chun &Potter, 1995). In this influent model, the AB is presented as theconsequence of a capacity-limited second stage of processing,which allows the consolidation of targets that were detected in arapid and unlimited first stage. Stage 1 representations are

When the frequency of one harmonic, in a sound composed of many harmonics, is briefly mistuned and then returned to the 'in-tune' frequency and phase, observers report hearing this harmonic as a separate tone long after the brief period of mistuning - a phenomenon called harmonic enhancement. Here, we examined the consequence of harmonic enhancement on listeners' ability to detect a brief amplitude notch embedded in one of the harmonics after the period of mistuning. When present, the notch was either on the enhanced harmonic or on a different harmonic. Detection was better on the enhanced harmonic than on a non-enhanced harmonic. This finding suggests that attention was drawn to the enhanced harmonic (which constituted a new sound object) thereby easing the processing of sound features (i.e., a notch) within that object. This is the first evidence of a functional consequence of the after-effect of transient mistuning on auditory perception. Moreover, the findings provide support for an attention-based explanation of the enhancement phenomenon.

International audience; Large display screens are common in supervisory tasks, meaning that alerts are often perceived in peripheral vision. Five air traffic control notification designs were evaluated in their ability to capture attention during an ongoing supervisory task, as well as their impact on the primary task. A range of performance measures, eye-tracking and subjective reports showed that colour, even animated, was less effective than movement, and notifications sometimes went unnoticed. Designs that drew attention to the notified aircraft by a pulsating box, concentric circles or the opacity of the background resulted in faster perception and no missed notifications. However, the latter two designs were intrusive and impaired primary task performance, while the simpler animated box captured attention without an overhead cognitive cost. These results highlight the need for a holistic approach to evaluation, achieving a balance between the benefits for one aspect of performance against the potential costs for another. Practitioner summary: We performed a holistic examination of air traffic control notification designs regarding their ability to capture attention during an ongoing supervisory task. The combination of performance, eye-tracking and subjective measurements demonstrated that the best design achieved a balance between attentional power and the overhead cognitive cost to primary task performance.

We compared the electrophysiological correlates for the maintenance of non-musical tones sequences in auditory short-term memory (ASTM) to those for the short-term maintenance of sequences of coloured disks held in visual short-term memory (VSTM). The visual stimuli yielded a sustained posterior contralateral negativity (SPCN), suggesting that the maintenance of sequences of coloured stimuli engaged structures similar to those involved in the maintenance of simultaneous visual displays. On the other hand, maintenance of acoustic sequences produced a sustained negativity at fronto-central sites. This component is named the Sustained Anterior Negativity (SAN). The amplitude of the SAN increased with increasing load in ASTM and predicted individual differences in the performance. There was no SAN in a control condition with the same auditory stimuli but no memory task, nor one associated with visual memory. These results suggest that the SAN is an index of brain activity related to the maintenance of representations in ASTM that is distinct from the maintenance of representations in VSTM.

The review of literature in sociology and distributed artificial intelligence reveals that the occurrence of conflict is a remarkable precursor to the disruption of multi-agent systems. The study of this concept could be applied to human factors concerns, as man-system conflict appears to provoke perseveration behavior and to degrade attentional abilities with a trend to excessive focus. Once entangled in such conflicts, the human operator will do anything to succeed in his current goal even if it jeopardizes the mission. In order to confirm these findings, an experimental setup, composed of a real unmanned ground vehicle, a ground station is developed. A scenario involving an authority conflict between the partici- pants and the robot is proposed. Analysis of the effects of the conflict on the participants’ cognition and arousal is assessed through heart-rate measurement (reflecting stress level) and eye-tracking techniques (index of attentional focus). Our results clearly show that the occurrence of the conflict leads to perseveration behavior and can induce higher heart rate as well as excessive attentional focus. These results are discussed in terms of task commitment issues and increased arousal. Moreover, our results suggest that individual differences may predict susceptibility to perseveration behavior.

There is growing evidence that processes formerly believed to be automatic are, in fact, strongly modulated by top–down influences. The purpose of the present work was to investigate how cognitive control can affect the purported automaticity of word processing by examining the impact of task switching on semantic processing using the ERP technique. In the context of the psychological refractory period dual-task paradigm, two experiments contrasted the context-sensitive N400 ERP elicited by the second of two target words under conditions that involved either a task switch or no-task switch. Although the N400 was not affected by SOA in the absence of switching, it was strongly attenuated at short SOAs when the psychological refractory period procedure involved a switch from a perceptual to a semantic task (Experiment 1) or a switch between two different semantic tasks (Experiment 2). These findings suggest that semantic processing cannot be performed in parallel with task switching and illustrate limitations in the ability of the cognitive system to adapt flexibly to the dynamically changing challenges of the environment according to task demands and behavioral goals.

We studied the neuronal mechanisms that implement acoustic short-term memory (ASTM) for pitch using event-related potentials (ERP). Experiment 1 isolated an ERP component, the sustained anterior negativity (SAN), that increased in amplitude with increasing memory load in ASTM using stimuli with equal duration at all memory loads. The SAN load effect found in Experiment 1, when pitch had to be remembered to perform the task, was absent in Experiment 2 using the same sounds when memory was not required. In Experiment 3, the memory task was performed without or with concurrent articulatory suppression during the retention interval to prevent rehearsal via an articulatory loop. Load-related effects observed in Experiment 1 were found again, whether participants engaged in concurrent suppression or not. The results suggest that the SAN reflects activity required to maintain pitch objects in an ASTM system that is distinct from articulatory rehearsal.

Acoustic short-term memory (ASTM) refers to the temporary retention of acoustic information. In the present study, we investigated the neural correlates of ASTM for pitch using magnetoencephalography (MEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Both MEG and fMRI analyses revealed brain activations that varied with memory load in the vicinity of secondary auditory cortex (Brodmann's area, BA22) and superior parietal cortex (BA5/7), while analyses specific to MEG data revealed load-related activations in the frontal cortex (BA9/10).

Typically, the phonological similarity between to-be-recalled items and TBI auditory stimuli has no impact if recall in serial order is required. However, in the present study, the authors have shown that the free recall, but not serial recall, of lists of phonologically related to-be-remembered items was disrupted by an irrelevant sound stream (end rhymes) sharing similar phonological content. These findings can be explained by the notion that between-sequence phonological similarity effects emerge when category-cueing processes become an important determinant for recall, such as when shared category information can be used as a retrieval aid to cue list items or plausible list candidates. In this case, the presence of categorically similar irrelevant items impairs the retrieval of list items and leads to intrusion error. Implications of these results for theories of auditory distraction are discussed.

The disruption of short-term memory by to-be-ignored auditory sequences (the changing-state effect) has often been characterized as attentional capture by deviant events (deviation effect). However, the present study demonstrates that changing-state and deviation effects are functionally distinct forms of auditory distraction: The disruption of visual-verbal serial recall by changing-state speech was independent of the effect of a single deviant voice embedded within the speech (Experiment 1); a voice-deviation effect, but not a changing-state effect, was found on a missing-item task (Experiment 2); and a deviant voice repetition within the context of an alternating-voice irrelevant speech sequence disrupted serial recall (Experiment 3). The authors conclude that the changing-state effect is the result of a conflict between 2 seriation processes being applied concurrently to relevant and irrelevant material, whereas the deviation effect reflects a more general attention-capture process.

The consensus among influential AIDS experts that heterosexual transmission accounts for 90% of HIV infections in African adults emerged no later than 1988. We examine evidence available through 1988, including risk measures associating HIV with sexual behaviour, health care, and socioeconomic variables, HIV in children, and risks for HIV in prostitutes and STD patients. Evidence permits the interpretation that health care exposures caused more HIV than sexual transmission. In general population studies, crude risk measures associate more than half of HIV infections in adults with health care exposures. Early studies did not resolve questions about direction of causation (between injections and HIV) and confound (between injections and STD). Preconceptions about African sexuality and a desire to maintain public trust in health care may have encouraged discounting of evidence. We urge renewed, evidence-based, investigations into the proportion of African HIV from non-sexual exposures.

Serum concentrations of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) were measured in 43 consecutive patients with HIV-related Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP). The subjects were divided into 2 groups according to the severity of the PCP:PaO2 in ambient air (AA) less than or equal to 50 mmHg on admission (n = 22, group 1) and PaO2 greater than 50 mmHg (n = 21, group 2). In addition, 57 HIV patients with either non-PCP pulmonary diseases (n = 34, group 3) or extrapulmonary disease (n = 23, group 4) were studied. Mean CEA levels (ng/ml) were 13 +/- 10 in group 1 and 4.9 +/- 5.5 in group 2 (p less than 0.001). The corresponding values in groups 3 and 4 were much lower (2.7 +/- 1.8 and 2.4 +/- 1.8, respectively). In group 1, mean initial CEA levels were higher (p less than 0.001) in the patients who died (n = 6; 23.5 +/- 11) than in the survivors (n = 16; 8.9 +/- 7), although the initial mean PaO2 were identical (39 +/- 7 and 39 +/- 8 mmHg, respectively) and the initial mean LDH levels were not significantly different (1544 +/- 530 and 1200 +/- 457 IU/l). CEA levels fell during specific anti-PCP therapy associated with corticosteroids but returned to normal only in the survivors. We conclude that CEA levels are increased in patients with PCP and acute respiratory distress. Among the patients with PaO2 levels of less than or equal to 50 mmHg before treatment, only high levels of CEA (greater than 20 ng/ml) were associated with a fatal outcome, regardless of anti-PCP therapy associated with corticosteroids.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

When two visual targets, Target 1 (T1) and Target 2 (T2), are presented among a rapid sequence of distractors, processing of T1 produces an attentional blink. Typically, processing of T2 is markedly impaired, except when T1 and T2 are adjacent (Lag 1 sparing). However, if a shift of task set--a change in task requirements from T1 to T2--occurs, this sparing is reduced substantially. With a semantic priming technique, in which T1 could be either related or unrelated to T2, the priming of T2 by T1 diminished markedly at Lag 1, when the transition between T1 and T2 involved a switch in either location (Experiments 1 and 2) or task (Experiment 3), but remained unaffected at other lags. These results suggest that perceptual processing of T2 cannot be carried out in parallel with task-set reconfiguration.

Mycotic pulmonary aneurysm is an infrequently diagnosed complication of endocarditis. We report here a case of mycotic pulmonary aneurysm and a review of 25 cases from the literature. The mortality rate is greater than 50%. Prompt diagnosis is necessary because early intrasaccular embolization and/or surgical repair is essential to avoid death from rupture of the aneurysm.

Disseminated infection by Fusarium is being increasingly reported in immunocompromised patients. We report the first case of Fusarium oxysporum disseminated infection with well-documented fungal myocarditis. Despite antifungal therapy and hematologic recovery, the patient died in cardiogenic shock, myocardial involvement clearly contributing to the fatal outcome.