The spatial extent of focused attention modulates attentional disengagement.

Attention can be flexibly changed to optimize visual processing: it can be oriented, resized, or even divided. Although much is known about these processes individually, much less is known about how they interact with one another. In the present study we examined how the spatial extent of the attentional focus modulates the efficiency of the first component of attentional orienting, the disengagement of attention.

What factors influence the switch from unitary to divided attention?

The focus of attention can be either unitary or divided and can transition from unitary to divided while performing a task. In Experiment 1, we investigated whether alerting hastens the transition from unitary to divided attention. To this end, we employed a dual-RSVP-stream Attentional Blink task (AB; impaired perception of the second of two rapidly sequential targets) with two pairs of letter targets (T1-pair and T2-pair).

Sudden Events Change Old Visual Objects Into New Ones: A Possible Role for Phasic Activation of Locus Coeruleus.

We report a novel visual phenomenon called the rejuvenation effect. It causes an "old" object that has been on view for some time to acquire the properties of a suddenly appearing new object. In each experiment, a square outline was displayed continuously on one side of fixation.

Attention scaling modulates the effective capacity of visual sensory memory.

Visual sensory memory (VSM) has a high capacity, but its contents are fleeting. Recent evidence that the breadth of attention strongly influences the efficiency of visual processing suggests that it might also modulate the effective capacity of VSM. We manipulated the breadth of attention with different cue sizes and used the partial-report technique to estimate the capacity of VSM.

First unitary, then divided: the temporal dynamics of dividing attention.

Whether focused visual attention can be divided has been the topic of much investigation, and there is a compelling body of evidence showing that, at least under certain conditions, attention can be divided and deployed as two independent foci. Three experiments were conducted to examine whether attention can be deployed in divided form from the outset, or whether it is first deployed as a unitary focus before being divided. To test this, we adapted the methodology of Jefferies, Enns, and Di Lollo (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 40: 465, 2014), who used a dual-stream Attentional Blink paradigm and two letter-pair targets.

The exogenous and endogenous control of attentional focusing.

Selective visual attention involves prioritizing both the location (orienting) and distribution (focusing) of processing. To date, much more research has examined attentional orienting than focusing. One of the most well-established findings is that orienting can be exogenous, as when a unique change in luminance draws attention to a spatial location (e.

Deployment of spatial attention to a structural framework: exogenous (alerting) and endogenous (goal-directed) factors.

The main question examined in the present work was whether spatial attention can be deployed to an appropriate structural framework not only endogenously when the framework is displayed continuously, as in previous work, but also exogenously, when it is displayed transiently 100 ms before the target. The results of five experiments answered that question in the negative. We found that the onset transient triggered by a brief presentation of the structural framework did enhance the response to the upcoming target.

When can spatial attention be deployed in the form of an annulus?

Can spatial attention be deployed as an annulus? Some studies have answered this question in the positive, others in the negative. We tested the hypothesis that annular deployment depends on the presence of a suitable structural framework to which attention can be anchored. To this end, we added a structural framework to the displays of a study that failed to find an annular distribution of attention.

Attending to illusory differences in object size.

Focused visual attention can be shifted between objects and locations (attentional orienting) or expanded and contracted in spatial extent (attentional focusing). Although orienting and focusing both modulate visual processing, they have been shown to be distinct, independent modes of attentional control. Objects play a central role in visual attention, and it is known that high-level object representations guide attentional orienting.

On the time course of attentional focusing in older adults.

Many sensory and cognitive changes accompany normal ageing, including changes to visual attention. Several studies have investigated age-related changes in the control of attention to specific locations (spatial orienting), but it is unknown whether control over the distribution or breadth of attention (spatial focus) also changes with age. In the present study, we employed a dual-stream attentional blink task and assessed changes to the spatial distribution of attention through the joint consequences of temporal lag and spatial separation on second-target accuracy.

The flexible focus: whether spatial attention is unitary or divided depends on observer goals.

The distribution of visual attention has been the topic of much investigation, and various theories have posited that attention is allocated either as a single unitary focus or as multiple independent foci. In the present experiment, we demonstrate that attention can be flexibly deployed as either a unitary or a divided focus in the same experimental task, depending on the observer's goals. To assess the distribution of attention, we used a dual-stream Attentional Blink (AB) paradigm and 2 target pairs.

Linear changes in the spatial extent of the focus of attention across time.

This research examined changes in the spatial extent of focal attention over time. The Attentional Blink (impaired perception of the second of two targets) and Lag-1 sparing (the seemingly paradoxical finding that second-target accuracy is high when the second target immediately follows the first) were employed in a dual-stream paradigm to index spatiotemporal changes in focal attention. Lag-1 sparing occurs to targets in different streams if the second target falls within the focus of attention.

Emotional valence and arousal interact in attentional control.

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.

Ignorance is bliss: the role of observer expectation in dynamic spatial tuning of the attentional focus.

When two sequential targets (T1, T2) are inserted in an RSVP stream of distractors, perception of T2 is impaired at intertarget lags shorter than 700 msec. Paradoxically, this deficit disappears when T2 is presented directly after T1 (lag-1 sparing). Visser, Bischof, and Di Lollo (1999) found that lag-1 sparing occurs only when T1 and T2 are presented in the same stream.

Inhibition of return to an occluded object depends on expectation.

Inhibition of return (IOR) is indexed by slower reaction times to targets presented at previously attended locations or objects. If a moving object is occluded, some studies find IOR, others do not. Four experiments examined whether this inconsistency hinges on the observer's expectation as to whether the object continues to exist at the end of its motion sequence.