Using Speed and Accuracy and the Simon Effect to Explore the Output Form of Inhibition of Return.

Inhibition of return (IOR) refers to slower responses to targets presented at previously cued locations. Contrasting target discrimination performance over various eye movement conditions has shown the level of activation of the reflexive oculomotor system determines the nature of the effect. Notably, an inhibitory effect of a cue nearer to the input end of the processing continuum is observed when the reflexive oculomotor system is actively suppressed, and an inhibitory effect nearer the output end of the processing continuum is observed when the reflexive oculomotor system is actively engaged. Furthermore, these two forms of IOR interact differently with the Simon effect. Drift diffusion modeling has suggested that two parameters can theoretically account for the speed-accuracy tradeoff rendered by the output-based form of IOR: increased threshold and decreased trial noise. In Experiment 1, we demonstrate that the threshold parameter best accounts for the output-based form of IOR by measuring it with intermixed discrimination and localization targets. Experiment 2 employed the response-signal methodology and showed that the output-based form has no effect on the accrual of information about the target's identity. These results converge with the response bias account for the output form of IOR.

A Randomized Trial of Behavioral Nudges Delivered Through Text Messages to Increase Influenza Vaccination Among Patients With an Upcoming Primary Care Visit.

PURPOSE: To evaluate if nudges delivered by text message prior to an upcoming primary care visit can increase influenza vaccination rates. DESIGN: Randomized, controlled trial. SETTING: Two health systems in the Northeastern US between September 2020 and March 2021. SUBJECTS: 74,811 adults. INTERVENTIONS: Patients in the 19 intervention arms received 1-2 text messages in the 3 days preceding their appointment that varied in their format, interactivity, and content. MEASURES: Influenza vaccination. ANALYSIS: Intention-to-treat. RESULTS: Participants had a mean (SD) age of 50.7 (16.2) years; 55.8% (41,771) were female, 70.6% (52,826) were White, and 19.0% (14,222) were Black. Among the interventions, 5 of 19 (26.3%) had a significantly greater vaccination rate than control. On average, the 19 interventions increased vaccination relative to control by 1.8 percentage points or 6.1% (P = .005). The top performing text message described the vaccine to the patient as "reserved for you" and led to a 3.1 percentage point increase (95% CI, 1.3 to 4.9; P < .001) in vaccination relative to control. Three of the top five performing messages described the vaccine as "reserved for you." None of the interventions performed worse than control. CONCLUSIONS: Text messages encouraging vaccination and delivered prior to an upcoming appointment significantly increased influenza vaccination rates and could be a scalable approach to increase vaccination more broadly.

Eliminating the Low-Prevalence Effect in Visual Search With a Remarkably Simple Strategy.

The low-prevalence effect in visual search occurs when rare targets are missed at a disproportionately high rate. This effect has enormous significance for health and public safety and has proven resistant to intervention. In three experiments (Ns = 41, 40, and 44 adults), we documented a dramatic reduction of the effect using a simple cognitive strategy requiring no training. Instead of asking participants to search for the presence or absence of a target, as is typically done in visual search tasks, we asked participants to engage in "similarity search"-to identify the display element most similar to a target on every trial, regardless of whether a target was present. When participants received normal search instructions, we observed strong low-prevalence effects. When participants used similarity search, we failed to detect the low-prevalence effect under identical visual conditions across three experiments.

Spatio-temporal properties of oculomotor activation by multiple, simultaneous peripheral stimuli.

Oculomotor research shows that eye movements are primed toward the midpoint of an array of visual stimuli, such that an eye movement to a visual target is executed most rapidly when it appears near the midpoint of an earlier array. At longer intervals between the prime and target, this facilitatory effect can reverse to become inhibitory - such that eye movements are slower when made toward the midpoint - but the source of this inhibition is unclear. One of our prior studies suggests a global source: target proximity to the midpoint determines inhibition, consistent with the notion that oculomotor activation is responsible for the effect and the original definition of inhibition of return. A later study suggests a local source: target proximity to the nearest array element determines inhibition, consistent with the notion that repeat stimulation of an input pathway is responsible. To resolve the ambiguity we systematically test whether timing differences between studies altered the source of the inhibition. We find that both previously observed patterns are reproducible depending on the prime offset - target onset asynchrony. We also resolve the discrepancy by showing that when this asynchrony is less than 200 ms, target proximity to the array's midpoint and its proximity to any given array element can jointly determine inhibition, whereas when the asynchrony is approximately 200 ms, inhibition is robust at the midpoint of the array. At longer asynchronies, all inhibitory effects rapidly dissipate.

A megastudy of text-based nudges encouraging patients to get vaccinated at an upcoming doctor's appointment.

Many Americans fail to get life-saving vaccines each year, and the availability of a vaccine for COVID-19 makes the challenge of encouraging vaccination more urgent than ever. We present a large field experiment (N = 47,306) testing 19 nudges delivered to patients via text message and designed to boost adoption of the influenza vaccine. Our findings suggest that text messages sent prior to a primary care visit can boost vaccination rates by an average of 5%. Overall, interventions performed better when they were 1) framed as reminders to get flu shots that were already reserved for the patient and 2) congruent with the sort of communications patients expected to receive from their healthcare provider (i.e., not surprising, casual, or interactive). The best-performing intervention in our study reminded patients twice to get their flu shot at their upcoming doctor's appointment and indicated it was reserved for them. This successful script could be used as a template for campaigns to encourage the adoption of life-saving vaccines, including against COVID-19.

When do response-related episodic retrieval effects co-occur with inhibition of return?

At some point, spatial priming effects more faithfully reflect response selection processes than they do attentional orienting or sensory processes. Findings from the spatial cueing literature suggest that two factors may be critical: (1) the amount of identity processing that is required in order to respond correctly (feature-based response hypothesis), and (2) the amount of spatial processing that is required in order to respond correctly (space-based response hypothesis). To test the first hypothesis, we manipulated whether observers made single keypress detection or two-choice localization responses to serially presented stimuli in peripheral vision and whether stimulus identity information processing was necessary before responding. Responses were always slowest when the target location repeated, consistent with an attentional orienting bias independent of keypress responding (i.e., inhibition of return; IOR). The localization procedure revealed a subtle additional cost for changing the target location and repeating a response, consistent with a response-related episodic retrieval effect predicted by the Theory of Event Coding (TEC). Neither effect was modulated by the need to discriminate features. To test the second hypothesis, we made spatial processing indispensable to response selection by requiring a decision between a detection and localization response, depending on where the target appeared. IOR was eliminated for detection, but not localization, responses, consistent with the TEC. Collectively, the findings suggest that the amount of space-based, but not feature-based, processing that is required to determine a response is responsible for the response retrieval effects that can co-occur with IOR.

Does feature-based attention play a role in the episodic retrieval of event files?

In stimulus identification tasks, stimulus and response, and location and response information, is thought to become integrated into a common event representation following a response. Evidence for this feature integration comes from paradigms requiring keypress responses to pairs of sequentially presented stimuli. In such paradigms, there is a robust cost when a target event only partially matches the preceding event representation. This is known as the partial repetition cost. Notably, however, these experiments rely on discrimination responses. Recent evidence has suggested that changing the responses to localization or detection responses eliminates partial repetition costs. If changing the response type can eliminate partial repetition costs it becomes necessary to question whether partial repetition costs reflect feature integration or some other mechanism. In the current study, we look to answer this question by using a design that as closely as possible matched typical partial repetition cost experiments in overall stimulus processing and response requirements. Unlike typical experiments where participants make a cued response to a first stimulus before making a discrimination response to a second stimulus, here we reversed that sequence such that participants made a discrimination response to the first stimulus before making a cued response to the second. In Experiment 1, this small change eliminated or substantially reduced the typically large partial repetition costs. In Experiment 2 we returned to the typical sequence and restored the large partial repetition costs. Experiment 3 confirmed these findings, which have implications for interpreting partial repetition costs and for feature integration theories in general. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Visual working memory load does not eliminate visuomotor repetition effects.

When we respond to a stimulus, our ability to quickly execute this response depends on how combinations of stimulus and response features match to previous combinations of stimulus and response features. Some kind of memory representations must be underlying these visuomotor repetition effects. In this paper, we tested the hypothesis that visual working memory stores the stimulus information that gives rise to these effects. Participants discriminated the colors of successive stimuli while holding either three locations or colors in visual working memory. If visual working memory maintains the information about a previous event that leads to visuomotor repetition effects, then occupying working memory with colors or locations should selectively disrupt color-response and location-response repetition effects. The results of two experiments showed that neither color nor spatial memory load eliminated visuomotor repetition effects. Since working memory load did not disrupt repetition effects, it is unlikely that visual working memory resources are used to store the information that underlies visuomotor repetitions effects. Instead, these results are consistent with the view that visuomotor repetition effects stem from automatic long-term memory retrieval, but can also be accommodated by supposing separate buffers for visual working memory and response selection.

Detection versus discrimination: The limits of binding accounts in action control.

Actions can be investigated by using sequential priming tasks, in which participants respond to prime and probe targets (sometimes accompanied by distractors). Facilitation and interference from prime to probe are measured by repeating, changing, or partially repeating features or responses between prime and probe. According to the action control literature, feature-feature or feature-response bindings are universal and apply for all actions. The attentional orienting literature, however, suggests that if the task is to detect stimuli, such binding effects may be absent. In two experiments, we compared performance in a discrimination task and a detection task with the exact same perceptual setup of prime-probe sequences. For the discrimination task, we replicated the typical feature-response binding pattern. Crucially, we did not observe any binding effects for the detection task, which can be explained by task-specific processes or fast response execution. These results reveal an important boundary of current binding models in action control.

Is attention really biased toward the last target location in visual search? The role of focal attention and stimulus-response translation rules.

There is considerable confusion in the visual attention literature as to whether shifts of attention are biased against or in favor of previously attended regions. Studies requiring target localization have shown a performance cost when the target location randomly repeats instead of changes, whereas studies requiring arbitrary keypress responses to target identities have shown a benefit. These studies differ in the amount of attention required to the target and in the stimulus-response translation rules. To evaluate the contribution of each of these factors in accounting for the mixed results, we had participants indicate whether color singletons appeared in the left versus right visual field, or in the upper versus lower visual field, by making spatially compatible keypress responses (a between-experiment manipulation of the stimulus-response translation rules). Within each experiment, we manipulated whether a subtle discrimination of shape was necessary before localizing the target (a manipulation of focal attention). The findings revealed that the costs and benefits for repeating the target location are determined by stimulus-response translation rules, with no effect of or on attention independent of these rules. The results are accounted for by the theory of event coding, and further challenge the notion that location repetition effects reliably reflect attentional bias. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Hidden from view: Statistical learning exposes latent attentional capture.

Contingent-capture cueing paradigms have long shown that salient visual stimuli-both abrupt onsets and color singleton cues-fail to reliably capture attention if they do not resemble the search target. There may, however, be latent attentional capture in these situations, based on recent evidence that abrupt-onset cues can capture attention in difficult, but not easy, search displays (Gaspelin, Ruthruff, & Lien in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 42, 1104-1120, 2016). To test this notion, we hypothesized that it should be possible to expose any latent capture generated by cues by means of statistical learning. In two versions of the classic four-location contingent-capture paradigm with easy search displays, cues either matched or mismatched (Exp. 1, color singleton; Experiment 2, abrupt-onset singleton) a target defined by a unique color in an array of distractors. Unbeknownst to participants, in both experiments the mismatch cue predicted the upcoming target location (81.5%), whereas the match cue did not (25%). Replicating typical findings, capture was robust and stable over time for the match cues. Mismatch color cues consistently failed to produce capture throughout the experiment. Importantly, mismatch abrupt-onset cues did produce capture after the first block of trials (i.e., after statistical learning). This dissociation exposes latent capture by abrupt-onset cues. Together, the findings suggest that attentional control sets are not so powerful that all information is filtered out, while also showing that statistical learning is not so powerful that it undermines all top-down control.

The Relationship Between Spatial Attention and Eye Movements.

The nature of the relationship between spatial attention and eye movements has been the subject of intense debate for more than 40 years. Two ideas have dominated this debate. First is the idea that spatial attention shares common neural mechanisms with eye movement programming, characterizing attention as an eye movement that has been prepared but not executed. Second, based on the observation that attention shifts to saccade targets, several theories have proposed that saccade programming necessarily recruits attentional resources. In this chapter, we review the evidence for each of these ideas and discuss some of the limitations and challenges in confirming their predictions. Although they are clearly dependent under some circumstances, dissociations between spatial attention and eye movements, and clear differences in their basic functions, point to the existence of two interconnected, but separate, systems.

Examining the Role of Attention and Sensory Stimulation in the Attentional Repulsion Effect.

It has been suggested that visual attention warps space, such that stimuli appearing near its locus are perceived as farther away than they actually are. This is known as the attentional repulsion effect (ARE). Recent data challenge the role of attention as the sole factor responsible for the ARE, suggesting instead that the ARE is, at least in part, a product of low level sensory interactions between a peripheral orienting cue and the Vernier target stimulus used to measure the effect. Here, we directly test whether attentional orienting, without a cue in peripheral vision to guide attention, is sufficient for generating an ARE. In Experiment 1, attention was guided to the visual periphery by a central symbolic cue that reliably indicated the locations of to-be-identified targets in peripheral vision. On a subset of trials, we probed for an ARE with Vernier targets. Reaction time (RT) data revealed that the cue guided attention but there was no trace of an ARE. In Experiment 2, we ensured that the Vernier targets were sensitive to the ARE by using the standard spatially uninformative peripheral cue to guide attention instead of the central symbolic cue. RT data again revealed that the cue guided attention, while the Vernier targets revealed an ARE. Collectively, these data suggest that attentional orienting without peripheral sensory stimulation is not sufficient for generating an ARE.

Is attention really biased toward the last target location in visual search? Attention, response rules, distractors, and eye movements.

The visual search and target-target cueing literatures have reached opposite conclusions about whether a shift of attention is biased toward or away from, respectively, previously attended target locations. In this article, we aimed to figure out why. The main differences between the two experimental approaches concern (1) the stimulus-response translation rules ("what" identification keypresses vs. "where" localization responses), (2) the amount of attention required in order to identify the target, and (3) distractor presence or absence. Experiment 1 tested the role of stimulus-response translation rules by requiring both an eye movement "where" response and a keypress "what" response to each target, in a typical search paradigm. Eye movements showed a bias away from the vicinity of the previous target, whereas keypresses showed a bias toward the previous target location, but only when the keypress response repeated. Experiment 2 removed the keypress identification requirement, to test whether reducing the amount of attention to the target would alter the eye movement bias; it did not. Experiment 3 removed the distractors, to test whether eliminating the potential for distractor location effects would alter the eye movement bias; it did, by accentuating the eye movement bias against the last target location. Collectively, the findings revealed that different stimulus-response translation rules and distractor-processing requirements are the main reasons for the discrepancy, while demonstrating that shifts of attention intrinsically tend away from prior target locations. The findings are generally consistent with episodic-retrieval and inhibited spatial-reorienting theories.

Does the relation between the control of attention and second language proficiency generalize from India to Canada?

Over the last decades, the extralinguistic benefits of bilingualism have been intensively debated. The current study was aimed at clarifying whether bilingualism speeds attentional disengagement. Reflecting faster disengagement, Mishra, Hilchey, Singh, and Klein (2012) observed an earlier onset of inhibition of return (IOR) for high than for low-proficient bilinguals. In contrast, Hernandez, Costa, Fuentes, Vivas, and Sebastian-Galles (2010) failed to find any difference between bilinguals and monolinguals. We investigated the source of this discrepancy, while improving methodology by using a large sample composed of 100 Canadians, objective assessments of second language skills (Nelson-Denny Reading test), and controlling for nonverbal intelligence, age, sex, and video-gaming. Results were analyzed with self-report and objective measures of second language proficiency as well as dichotomous and continuous measures. Compared to less proficient bilinguals, highly proficient bilinguals tended to respond faster overall, hinting at an executive processing advantage. However, contrary to Mishra et al.'s findings, bilingual proficiency did not affect either the onset of IOR or magnitude of IOR. (PsycINFO Database Record

Testing the role of response repetition in spatial priming in visual search.

In common "attention" tasks, which require stimulus-identity processing prior to the formation of a speeded key-press response, spatial priming effects depend on response repetition. Typically, the repetition of a stimulus location is advantageous when the prior response repeats, but disadvantageous or inconsequential when the prior response changes. This link between responding and space makes it difficult to draw inferences about attentional bias from two-choice key-press tasks. Instead, the findings are accounted for by episodic retrieval theories, which argue that the response associated with a prior stimulus location is retrieved when a later stimulus occupies its space. This retrieval operation is advantageous if the prior response is needed but not otherwise, which explains typical patterns. This perspective motivated us to evaluate whether spatial priming effects in the visual-search literature depend critically on response repetition. To assess this, we reevaluated a series of experiments recently published by Tower-Richardi, Leber, and Golomb (Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 78(1), 114-132, 2016). Their goal was to determine the reference frame of spatial priming across visual search displays. Reassessment reveals that spatial priming was strongly dependent on response repetition when spatiotopic, retinotopic, and object-centered reference frames were perfectly confounded. However, when eye movements were made to dissociate the spatiotopic and object-centered reference frame from the retinotopic reference frame, spatial priming was positive and unaffected by response repetition. The findings demonstrate that at least two distinct processes factor into spatial priming across visual searches, which occur at different levels of representation.

Feature integration in basic detection and localization tasks: Insights from the attentional orienting literature.

Once presumed to be intimately related, feature integration and the consequences of attentional orienting are now often studied separately. Yet the paradigms used to study each can be highly similar; participants respond to a stimulus, which is then followed by a second stimulus, matching or mismatching the first on some feature(s). Given the similarities between the methods, it seems likely that these fields each could gain insights regarding their own work by looking at the other. Here we note a peculiarity of feature integration research: It relies on paradigms that require or encourage participants to identify the nonspatial features of a stimulus in order to make the correct response. This leaves open the question of whether feature integration effects can be found in tasks that do not require stimulus identity (e.g., color or shape) processing. To answer this question, we reviewed attentional orienting studies that manipulated whether stimulus identity repeated but that required only detection or localization responses, irrespective of stimulus identity. With one exception, feature integration effects were absent from those experiments. Furthermore, we attempted to replicate the exception and found no feature integration effects. Our review shows that detection and localization paradigms are particularly useful for studying the consequences of attentional orienting in the absence of integration effects, and that these same tasks provide a baseline to understand the sources of feature integration effects with only slightly variations in the basic task.

Out with the new, in with the old: Exogenous orienting to locations with physically constant stimulation.

Dominant methods of investigating exogenous orienting presume that attention is captured most effectively at locations containing new events. This is evidenced by the ubiquitous use of transient stimuli as cues in the literature on exogenous orienting. In the present study, we showed that attention can be oriented exogenously toward a location containing a completely unchanging stimulus by modifying Posner's landmark exogenous spatial-cueing paradigm. Observers searched a six-element array of placeholder stimuli for an onset target. The target was preceded by a decrement in luminance to five of the six placeholders, such that one location remained physically constant. This "nonset" stimulus (so named to distinguish it from a traditional onsetting transient) acted as an exogenous cue, eliciting patterns of facilitation and inhibition at the nonset location and demonstrating that exogenous orienting is not always evident at the location of a visual transient. This method eliminates the decades-long confounding of orienting to a location with the processing of new events at that location, permitting alternative considerations of the nature of attentional selection.

Dissociating Orienting Biases From Integration Effects With Eye Movements.

Despite decades of research, the conditions under which shifts of attention to prior target locations are facilitated or inhibited remain unknown. This ambiguity is a product of the popular feature discrimination task, in which attentional bias is commonly inferred from the efficiency by which a stimulus feature is discriminated after its location has been repeated or changed. Problematically, these tasks lead to integration effects; effects of target-location repetition appear to depend entirely on whether the target feature or response also repeats, allowing for several possible inferences about orienting bias. To parcel out integration effects and orienting biases, we designed the present experiments to require localized eye movements and manual discrimination responses to serially presented targets with randomly repeating locations. Eye movements revealed consistent biases away from prior target locations. Manual discrimination responses revealed integration effects. These data collectively revealed inhibited reorienting and integration effects, which resolve the ambiguity and reconcile episodic integration and attentional orienting accounts.

Placeholders dissociate two forms of inhibition of return.

Decades of research using Posner's classic spatial cueing paradigm has uncovered at least two forms of inhibition of return (IOR) in the aftermath of an exogenous, peripheral orienting cue. One prominent dissociation concerns the role of covert and overt orienting in generating IOR effects that relate to perception- and action-oriented processes, respectively. Another prominent dissociation concerns the role of covert and overt orienting in generating IOR effects that depend on object- and space-based representation, respectively. Our objective was to evaluate whether these dichotomies are functionally equivalent by manipulating placeholder object presence in the cueing paradigm. By discouraging eye movements throughout, Experiments 1A and 1B validated a perception-oriented form of IOR that depended critically on placeholders. Experiment 2A demonstrated that IOR was robust without placeholders when eye movements went to the cue and back to fixation before the manual response target. In Experiment 2B, we replicated Experiment 2A's procedures except we discouraged eye movements. IOR was observed, albeit only weakly and significantly diminished relative to when eye movements were involved. We conclude that action-oriented IOR is robust against placeholders but that the magnitude of perception-oriented IOR is critically sensitive to placeholder presence when unwanted oculomotor activity can be ruled out.