Distance is relative: Inattentional blindness critically depends on the breadth of the attentional focus.

Inattentional blindness - the phenomenon that we sometimes miss salient stimuli in our direct view when they appear unexpectedly and attention is focused on something else - is modulated by various parameters, including distance of the unexpected stimulus from the attentional focus. In two experiments, we expanded the existing literature on spatial factors influencing inattentional blindness as well as theories on the spatial distribution of attention. Noticing rates of unexpected objects were significantly higher when they appeared outside instead of inside the bounds of primary task stimuli. Thus, our results do neither support the account that spatial attention is tuned as a spotlight that includes relevant targets and everything in between nor an account of purely object-based attentional orientation. Instead, the results speak in favor of an inhibitory area between two attended targets. Experiment 2 replicated these surprising findings and additionally demonstrated that they were not confounded by task.

Attention, Perception, and Action in a Simulated Decision-Making Task.

Over the last decade, research on the visual focus of attention has become increasingly popular in psychological science. The focus of attention has been shown to be important in fast team-sport games. The authors developed a method that measures the extent of the attentional focus and perceptual capabilities during performance of a sport-specific task. The participants were required to judge different player configurations on their left and right sides with varying visual angles between the stimuli. In keeping with the notion that the focus of attention is smaller than the visual field, attentional performance was poorest at the wider viewing angles compared with perceptual performance. Moreover, the team-sport players were better able to enlarge their attentional focus and make correct decisions more frequently than individual athletes, particularly when a motor response was required. The findings provide a new perspective, dissociating the attentional and perceptual processes that affect decision making under various response modes.

Does Visual Attention Impact on Decision Making in Complex Dynamic Events?

In recent years, several publications examined the underlying mechanisms that might have an impact on decision-making processes under time pressure. This study investigated how individual differences in attentional capability relate to decision making in complex dynamic offside events. A total of 24 professional football assistant referees (ARs) performed an offside decision-making task and an attention-demanding task. ARs with higher attentional capability along the horizontal meridian of their attentional focus made fewer mistakes when judging offside situations in football than ARs with lower capability. This implies that being able to rely on high-attentional capabilities in situations requiring conscious perception of multiple processes is likely to be beneficial for the ultimate decision-making performance.

Using task effort and pupil size to track covert shifts of visual attention independently of a pupillary light reflex.

We tested the link between pupil size and the task effort involved in covert shifts of visual attention. The goal of this study was to establish pupil size as a marker of attentional shifting in the absence of luminance manipulations. In three experiments, participants evaluated two stimuli that were presented peripherally, appearing equidistant from and on opposite sides of eye fixation. The angle between eye fixation and the peripherally presented target stimuli varied from 12.5° to 42.5°. The evaluation of more distant stimuli led to poorer performance than did the evaluation of more proximal stimuli throughout our study, confirming that the former required more effort than the latter. In addition, in Experiment 1 we found that pupil size increased with increasing angle and that this effect could not be reduced to the operation of low-level visual processes in the task. In Experiment 2 the pupil dilated more strongly overall when participants evaluated the target stimuli, which required shifts of attention, than when they merely reported on the target's presence versus absence. Both conditions yielded larger pupils for more distant than for more proximal stimuli, however. In Experiment 3, we manipulated task difficulty more directly, by changing the contrast at which the target stimuli were presented. We replicated the results from Experiment 1 only with the high-contrast stimuli. With stimuli of low contrast, ceiling effects in pupil size were observed. Our data show that the link between task effort and pupil size can be used to track the degree to which an observer covertly shifts attention to or detects stimuli in peripheral vision.

The influence of motivational and mood states on visual attention: A quantification of systematic differences and casual changes in subjects' focus of attention.

A great number of studies have shown that different motivational and mood states can influence human attentional processes in a variety of ways. Yet, none of these studies have reliably quantified the exact changes of the attentional focus in order to be able to compare attentional performances based on different motivational and mood influences and, beyond that, to evaluate their effectivity. In two studies, we explored subjects' differences in the breadth and distribution of attention as a function of motivational and mood manipulations. In Study 1, motivational orientation was classified in terms of regulatory focus (promotion vs. prevention) and in Study 2, mood was classified in terms of valence (positive vs. negative). Study 1 found a 10% wider distribution of the visual attention in promotion-oriented subjects compared to prevention-oriented ones. The results in Study 2 reveal a widening of the subjects' visual attentional breadth when listening to happy music by 22% and a narrowing by 36% when listening to melancholic music. In total, the findings show that systematic differences and casual changes in the shape and scope of focused attention may be associated with different motivational and mood states.

Subliminal primes for global or local processing influence judgments of vehicular traffic.

Previous studies on semantic priming show that briefly presented words can unconsciously manipulate subjects' mental states, behaviors, and attitudes. Here we evaluated whether semantic primes can also manipulate the breadth of subjects' visual attention. We primed participants with briefly presented words that indicate either broadness or narrowness; each prime was followed by either a large or a small picture of a street intersection with vehicles, and participants had to indicate in which order the vehicles were legally allowed to pass the intersection. Participants responded to large pictures faster when primed with words denoting broadness, and to small pictures faster when primed with words denoting narrowness. From this we concluded that semantic priming can be effectively applied to manipulate the breadth of attention, which could be exploited in real-world scenarios.

The role of regulatory focus and expectation on creative decision making.

According to regulatory focus theory, individuals generally regulate movements towards goals differently-using either a promotion- or a prevention-focused strategy. Recent research has found a close connection between regulatory focus and performance expectation. The current study explored their role on creative decision making. In an experimental setting, regulatory focus and expectation were manipulated and brief video clips of real football games were interrupted at a critical moment when the player with the ball faced a couple of possible actions. Experienced football players were asked to generate options to continue the game situations. The players' creativity was measured by performance indices for fluency, flexibility, and originality. Results revealed a benefit for players with an induced situational promotion focus as well as negative expectations to their performances on the generation of creative solutions. The findings might have implications for different complex real-life situations in which creativity is attributed to a performance-determining role.

Can Driving-Simulator Training Enhance Visual Attention, Cognition, and Physical Functioning in Older Adults?

Virtual reality offers a good possibility for the implementation of real-life tasks in a laboratory-based training or testing scenario. Thus, a computerized training in a driving simulator offers an ecological valid training approach. Visual attention had an influence on driving performance, so we used the reverse approach to test the influence of a driving training on visual attention and executive functions. Thirty-seven healthy older participants (mean age: 71.46 ± 4.09; gender: 17 men and 20 women) took part in our controlled experimental study. We examined transfer effects from a four-week driving training (three times per week) on visual attention, executive function, and motor skill. Effects were analyzed using an analysis of variance with repeated measurements. Therefore, main factors were group and time to show training-related benefits of our intervention. Results revealed improvements for the intervention group in divided visual attention; however, there were benefits neither in the other cognitive domains nor in the additional motor task. Thus, there are no broad training-induced transfer effects from such an ecologically valid training regime. This lack of findings could be addressed to insufficient training intensities or a participant-induced bias following the cancelled randomization process.

Color Perception and Attentional Load in Dynamic, Time-Constrained Environments.

The capacity to perceive color in the peripheral field has attracted research interest for more than a decade. There is evidence that sensitivity to red-green color variations is lower than for yellow-blue in peripheral vision. Whether, and to what extent, color vision affects the visual focus of attention, which is normally much smaller than the visual field, has not yet been examined. We used a sport-specific decision-making task to assess whether the color of the jersey worn by players appearing in the periphery influences decision making by affecting the attentional and perceptual capabilities. Pairs of players wearing chromatic (blue, yellow, red, and green) and achromatic (black, white) colored jerseys were briefly presented across a range of visual angles on a 6 m concave immersive screen. Participants were required to decide to whom to pass and recall relevant information. Findings indicate that color perception changes vary with increasing visual angle, but that the focus of attention is too small to be influenced by jersey color sensitivity. Decision-making performance decreases with increasing visual angle, but is not influenced by color. The implications for decision-making processes in sport and other professional domains are discussed.

The Attention Window: A Narrative Review of Limitations and Opportunities Influencing the Focus of Attention.

PURPOSE: Visual attention is essential in many areas ranging from everyday life situations to the workplace. Different circumstances such as driving in traffic or participating in sports require immediate adaptation to constantly changing situations and frequently the conscious perception of 2 objects or scenes at the same time. METHOD: The attention window task, a measure of attentional breadth, in which people must attend to 2 equally attention-demanding stimuli simultaneously, was introduced. This article provides a narrative review of studies using this task and outlines different factors that might influence the attention window. RESULTS: Differences in the spatial distribution of attention result, for example, from effects of age or physical activities as well as from emotional processes and those affected by current motivation, while gender does not have any influence. The window is represented as an ellipse with greater attentional breadth along the horizontal axis than the vertical axis, and it is about 5 to 6 times smaller than the human visual field. CONCLUSION: Not only everyday occurrences but also situations in sport games-for example, having an overview of the opponent, teammates, and the ball-require the ability to pay visual attention to 2 peripheral objects and continuously changing situations. Therefore, the application or avoidance of different strategies and factors is discussed to improve and adjust behavior in those situations.

Evaluating erroneous offside calls in soccer.

The ability to simultaneously attend to multiple objects declines with increases in the visual angle separating distant objects. We explored whether these laboratory-measured limits on visual attentional spread generalize to a real life context: offside calls by soccer assistant referees. We coded all offside calls from a full year of first division German soccer matches. By determining the x-y coordinates of the relevant players and assistant referee on the soccer field we were able to calculate how far assistant referees had to spread their visual attention to perform well. Counterintuitively, assistant referees made fewer errors when they were farther away from the action due to an advantageous (smaller) visual angle on the game action. The pattern held even when we accounted for individual differences in a laboratory-based attentional spread measure of ten of the assistant referees. Our finding that errors are linked to smaller visual angles may explain the complaints of fans in some situations: Those seated directly behind the assistant referee, further from the players, might actually have it easier to make the right call because the relevant players would form a smaller visual angle.

Top 10 Research Questions Related to Teaching Games for Understanding.

In this article, we elaborate on 10 current research questions related to the "teaching games for understanding" (TGfU) approach with the objective of both developing the model itself and fostering game understanding, tactical decision making, and game-playing ability in invasion and net/wall games: (1) How can existing scientific approaches from different disciplines be used to enhance game play for beginners and proficient players? (2) How can state-of-the-art technology be integrated to game-play evaluations of beginners and proficient players by employing corresponding assessments? (4) How can complexity thinking be utilized to shape day-to-day physical education (PE) and coaching practices? (5) How can game making/designing be helpfully utilized for emergent learning? (6) How could purposeful game design create constraints that enable tactical understanding and skill development through adaptive learning and distributed cognition? (7) How can teacher/coach development programs benefit from game-centered approaches? (8) How can TGfU-related approaches be implemented in teacher or coach education with the goal of facilitating preservice and in-service teachers/coaches' learning to teach and thereby foster their professional development from novices to experienced practitioners? (9) Can the TGfU approach be considered a helpful model across different cultures? (10) Can physical/psychomotor, cognitive, affective/social, and cultural development be fostered via TGfU approaches? The answers to these questions are critical not only for the advancement of teaching and coaching in PE and sport-based clubs, but also for an in-depth discussion on new scientific avenues and technological tools.

Does the inverted-U function disappear in expert athletes? An analysis of the attentional behavior under physical exercise of athletes and non-athletes.

A number of studies document that physical exercise influences cognitive performance in a variety of ways. Some of these studies present the relationship between the workload of exercise and the activation level of the central nervous system as an inverted-U relationship. Among the factors that could be responsible for diverging results are the participants' individual fitness level and the athletic status. While athletes and non-athletes do not differ in general cognitive skills, athletes are better able to maintain these during physical exercise especially under high exercise intensities. Hence, we hypothesized that the inverted-U function applies for non-athletes but disappears in team sports experts. We compared athletes' and non-athletes' cognitive performance on a measure of attentional behavior under three different physical exercise intensities. Results showed an increase of non-athletes' attentional breadth right up to a certain level of maximal aerobic power before decreasing, as expected according to an inverted-U curve. In contrast, athletes' attentional breadth continued to increase with higher physical exercise intensities. We concluded that physical exercise influences participants' attentional behavior and that individual fitness acts as a moderator of this relationship.

The size and shape of the attentional "spotlight" varies with differences in sports expertise.

Focused attention enhances processing of some aspects of the world at the expense of unattended items. Although focused attention has been studied for decades, few studies have measured individual and group differences in how people distribute attention. In three studies, we explored differences in the breadth and distribution of attention as a function of athletic expertise. Study 1 found 25% greater attention breadth in expert athletes than in novices. Study 2 found that the distribution of focused attention for experts varied as a function of the type of athletic expertise: Experts in sports that demand greater horizontal distribution of attention (e.g., soccer) showed greater horizontal breadth of attention than did those whose sports demand more vertical attention (e.g., volleyball), and vice versa. Study 3 used a slightly modified design to replicate the results of Studies 1 and 2. Overall, the findings reveal a systematic association between the measured "shape" of focused attention in a laboratory task and expertise in a real-world skill.

Fixation strategy influences the ability to focus attention on two spatially separate objects.

The ability to devote attention simultaneously to multiple visual objects plays an important role in domains ranging from everyday activities to the workplace. Yet, no studies have systematically explored the fixation strategies that optimize attention to two spatially distinct objects. Assuming the two objects require attention nearly simultaneously, subjects either could fixate one object or they could fixate between the objects. Studies measuring the breadth of attention have focused almost exclusively on the former strategy, by having subjects simultaneously perform one attention-demanding task at fixation and another in the periphery. We compared performance when one object was at fixation and the other was in the periphery to a condition in which both objects were in the periphery and subjects fixated between them. Performance was better with two peripheral stimuli than with one central and one peripheral stimulus, meaning that a strategy of fixating between stimuli permitted greater attention breadth. Consistent with the idea that both measures tap attention breadth, sport experts consistently outperformed novices with both fixation strategies. Our findings suggest a way to improve performance when observers must pay attention to multiple objects across spatial regions. We discuss possible explanations for this performance advantage.

Moderate movement, more vision: effects of physical exercise on inattentional blindness.

Research on inattentional blindness shows that individuals fail to notice unexpected objects or events when attention is focused elsewhere. The majority of previous studies on inattentional blindness have been performed at rest, even though there are several real-life situations that require both physical exercise and focus of attention to accomplish a particular task. A number of different studies have demonstrated that physical exercise influences cognitive performance and attention processes in a variety of ways. Relatively little is known about the effects of physical load on inattentional blindness. The present study was the first attempt to investigate inattentional blindness effects as a function of physical load. Participants were randomly assigned to three groups where they performed two different inattentional blindness tasks: at rest (group 1) and on a bicycle ergometer under moderate (group 2) or high (group 3) physical exercise. The results showed a decrease of inattentional blindness effects from the resting to the moderate exercise condition, and then an increase for the high physical exercise condition, representing an inverted-U plot. Findings support the notion that physical exercise influences individuals' attention performance. We concluded that moderate physical exercise has a positive impact on inattentional blindness, given that people under moderate physical exercise more frequently notice an unexpected object when attention is diverted to another task, and that this evidence should be taken into account when considering certain real-life events.