Reduced low-prevalence visual search detriment with increasing age: Implications for cognitive theories of aging and real-world search tasks.

When performing multiple successive visual searches, low-prevalence targets are at elevated risk of being missed. This has important implications for real-world visual search tasks, such as diagnostic medical imaging (e.g., searching for a cancer) and airport baggage security screening (e.g., searching for a weapon), which are characterized by low-prevalence targets and potentially dire consequences of target misses. Previous work on low-prevalence visual search indicates that individuals who spontaneously respond more slowly miss fewer targets, which has been attributed to higher quitting thresholds predicting better performance. Previous aging research indicates that older adults typically respond more slowly across multiple task contexts. This has been attributed to both intrinsic limitations in processing speed and a strategic trade-off to prioritize accuracy with increasing age. Synthesizing these two separate lines of research, here we tested whether older adults had a higher quitting threshold and/or slower processing speed in low-prevalence visual search, and the consequences of these for the magnitude of the low-prevalence visual search detriment. We recruited a large sample (N = 380) across a range of ages (20-80 years) and had them search for targets under low- and high-prevalence conditions. Older adults had both slower processing speed and higher quitting thresholds. Older adults were moderately less susceptible to the low-prevalence detriment, and this relationship was mediated by countervailing effects: slower processing speed exacerbated older adults' low-prevalence detriment, whereas elevated quitting threshold mitigated it. Theoretical implications for cognitive aging and practical implications for professional visual search tasks are discussed.

Four best-practice recommendations for improving the conceptualization and operationalization of motivational intensity: Reply to Kaczmarek and Harmon-Jones.

Replies to the comments made by Kaczmarek and Harmon-Jones (see record 2024-44184-002) on the current authors original article (see record 2021-21096-001). Kaczmarek and Harmon-Jones (2023) provide a commentary on our original empirical piece, does motivational intensity exist distinct from valence and arousal? (Campbell et al., 2021). In this response, we articulate the motivation behind our work, including the major issues with the conceptualization and operationalization of motivational intensity in prior literature. For example, while motivational intensity was proposed to replace valence as the determinant of cognitive scope more than a decade and a half ago, in both this original work and ongoing work since then, motivational intensity has been operationalized in a variety of questionable ways, including via participants' ratings of valence, rather than motivational intensity. That is, in multiple studies, differences in cognitive processes measured in two conditions have been attributed to motivational intensity which was not explicitly measured, while the conditions do demonstrably differ in the valence participants experienced. We explain exactly what we found in Campbell et al. (2021) and our subsequent follow-up work (Campbell et al., 2023), and what aspects of our interpretation converge versus diverge with the views offered in Kaczmarek and Harmon-Jones' commentary. We also identify four important recommendations for best-practice research going forward. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

An updating-based working memory load alters the dynamics of eye movements but not their spatial extent during free viewing of natural scenes.

The relationship between spatial deployments of attention and working memory load is an important topic of study, with clear implications for real-world tasks such as driving. Previous research has generally shown that attentional breadth broadens under higher load, while exploratory eye-movement behaviour also appears to change with increasing load. However, relatively little research has compared the effects of working memory load on different kinds of spatial deployment, especially in conditions that require updating of the contents of working memory rather than simple retrieval. The present study undertook such a comparison by measuring participants' attentional breadth (via an undirected Navon task) and their exploratory eye-movement behaviour (a free-viewing recall task) under low and high updating working memory loads. While spatial aspects of task performance (attentional breadth, and peripheral extent of image exploration in the free-viewing task) were unaffected by the load manipulation, the exploratory dynamics of the free-viewing task (including fixation durations and scan-path lengths) changed under increasing load. These findings suggest that temporal dynamics, rather than the spatial extent of exploration, are the primary mechanism affected by working memory load during the spatial deployment of attention. Further, individual differences in exploratory behaviour were observed on the free-viewing task: all metrics were highly correlated across working memory load blocks. These findings suggest a need for further investigation of individual differences in eye-movement behaviour; potential factors associated with these individual differences, including working memory capacity and persistence versus flexibility orientations, are discussed.

Broad attention does not buffer the impact of emotionally salient stimuli on performance.

It has been claimed that a broad attentional breadth buffers the impact of negative stimuli on human perception and cognition. Here we identify issues with the research on which this claim is based, and then rigorously test the claim. To induce narrow versus broad attentional breadth participants attended to the local versus global elements of Navon stimuli, and to investigate the impact of emotionally salient stimuli on performance we measured the effect of task-irrelevant stimuli of varying emotional salience (negative, neutral, or positive) on task performance. Across a series of experiments, we found that the Navon stimuli were effective in inducing different attentional breadths, and that both negative and positive task-irrelevant stimuli slowed responses relative to neutral stimuli, but that the magnitude of this emotion-induced slowing was invariant to whether attentional breadth was broad or narrow. This indicates that a broad attentional breadth did not buffer against the effect of either negative or positive emotionally salient stimuli. These results challenge the claim the broadening attentional breadth protects against the impact of emotionally salient stimuli.

Individual differences in emotional reactions to bistable perception.

OBJECTIVE: To assess whether there are individual differences in emotional reactions to bistable images, and if so, to identify some of the psychological factors that predict them. BACKGROUND: Bistable images - which have two competing perceptual interpretations - have long been used in the scientific study of consciousness. Here we applied a different lens and investigated emotional reactions to them. Method Participants were adult humans in a cross-sectional study. Participants were presented with three bistable images and rated their emotional reactions to experiencing bistability. They also completed measures of intolerance of uncertainty, cognitive empathy, affective empathy, and negative affect. Results There were marked individual differences in these reactions, ranging from feeling highly negative to highly positive. These individual differences in emotional response to bistability were linked to a number of psychological processes: intolerance of uncertainty, cognitive empathy, and negative affect, but not affective empathy. Conclusions These finding have important implications because: (a) these emotional reactions could distort scientific investigations that use these stimuli to study non-emotional perceptual and cognitive processes; and (b) they highlight that this approach offers a useful window into how individuals react to these stimuli that demonstrate that there is not always a single viable interpretation of the world around us.

Emotion-Induced Blindness Is Impervious to Working Memory Load.

Emotionally-salient stimuli receive attentional priority. Here, we tested the extent to which top-down control can modulate this prioritization within the domain of temporal attention. To test this prioritization, we measured emotion-induced blindness, which is the effect whereby the perception of a target is impaired by the presentation of a negative distractor that precedes the target in a rapid serial visual presentation stream, relative to target perception following a neutral distractor. The degree of top-down control was investigated by manipulating participants' concurrent working memory load while performing the task. The working-memory load consisted of participants performing mathematical calculations (no load = no calculation; low load = adding two numbers; and high load = adding and subtracting four numbers). Results indicated that the magnitude of emotion-induced blindness was not affected by the working-memory load. This finding, when combined with those of previous studies, supports the notion that the prioritization of emotionally-salient stimuli in the temporal allocation of attention does not require top-down processing, while it does in the spatial allocation of attention. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-022-00176-9.

Subjective assessments of cognition and affect and their relationship with objective performance: Individuals with high levels of cognitive failures or negative affect miss more rare visual targets.

The detection of particular targets is critical in applied contexts, such as identifying cancers in diagnostic medical imaging and finding weapons in airport baggage security screening. Missed targets can have dire consequences in such contexts. These contexts are also typically characterized by low prevalence or rare targets such that most searched-through images do not contain targets. A substantive body of evidence demonstrates that humans are much more likely to miss targets when they are rare. Therefore, it is critical to understand the factors that may mitigate or exacerbate this general tendency to miss rare targets. The present study considered the relative role of individual differences in cognitive failures, cognitive empathy, and negative affect (i.e., depression, anxiety, and stress) in predicting the detection of rare targets. Across two experiments, there was evidence that individuals experiencing elevated cognitive failures were more likely to miss the rare targets. In Experiment 1, negative affect was also related to performance, but it was only cognitive failures that made a unique contribution to explaining target-present accuracy when they were pitted against one another. There was no evidence that cognitive empathy was linked to performance. These findings have important theoretical implications and also highlight potential avenues for intervention to improve the detection of rare targets. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Motivational direction diverges from valence for sadness, anger, and amusement: A role for appraisals?

Recent work has cast doubt on whether the strength of motivation (strength of avoidance or approach tendencies) experienced while viewing emotion-eliciting pictures is dissociable from felt valence (negative versus positive). The present study extended this work by testing specific discrete emotions (amusement, anger, awe, desire, sadness). Previous work has proposed separate motivational direction (avoid versus approach) from valence. In Study 1, participants (N = 60) rated the motivational direction or valence they experienced while viewing 100 pictures that each evoked one of the five discrete emotions. We found significant differences between average motivational direction and valence ratings for sadness, anger, and amusement. Critically, underlying these averages, we found that while valence responses were highly consistent, there was large variability in motivational direction, with some people indicating they wanted to approach and others indicating they wanted to avoid while viewing the same picture. Individual differences in motivational direction were largest for sadness, so in Study 2 (N = 100) we tested whether they were predicted by appraisals of the situation (e.g., ratings of how welcome or useful people believed their help would be). The three appraisals tested accounted for 64% of the variance in motivational direction, after which valence made a very small unique contribution. These findings highlight that motivational direction and valence can diverge. Given the variability in individuals' motivational direction responses, future studies designed to assess the effects of motivational direction on cognitive processes need to tailor stimuli for each participant to ensure they activate the intended motivational direction. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Don't look now! Emotion-induced blindness: The interplay between emotion and attention.

Scientists have long been interested in understanding the influence of emotionally salient stimuli on attention and perception. One experimental paradigm that has shown great promise in demonstrating the effect of such stimuli is emotion-induced blindness. That is, when emotionally salient stimuli are presented in a rapid stream of stimuli, they produce impairments in the perception of task-relevant stimuli, even though they themselves are task irrelevant. This is known as emotion-induced blindness, and it is a profound and robust form of attentional bias. Here, we review the literature on emotion-induced blindness, such as identifying the types of stimuli that elicit it, and its temporal dynamics. We discuss the role of dimensional versus categorical approaches to emotion in relation to emotion-induced blindness. We also synthesize the work examining whether certain individuals, such as those high in anxiety versus psychopathy, succumb to emotion-induced blindness to different extents, and we discuss whether the deficit can be reduced or even abolished. We review the theoretical models that have been proposed to explain the phenomenon. Finally, we identify exciting questions for future research, and elucidate useful frameworks to guide future investigations.

Shifting threat criterion for morphed facial expressions reduces negative affect.

It is well-established that anxiety and/or depression are associated with a negative bias when interpreting ambiguous information. This study tested the novel hypothesis that the criterion one sets for judging a stimulus as threatening is a core aspect of this bias. A sample of 174 participants were divided into neutral (n = 87) and threatening (n = 87) training conditions. Participants performed a facial expression detection task, in which criterion was shifted in the liberal (threatening condition) or conservative (neutral condition) direction via differential reward contingencies. Training conditions were successful in inducing large shifts in criterion as intended. There was also a small change in sensitivity in the neutral condition, however, the manipulation is still considered successful given the substantive effect size for change in criterion compared to change in sensitivity. As predicted, conservative criterion-training resulted in significantly lower levels of negative affect post-training. No significant change was found for liberal criterion-training on negative affect. Positive affect also decreased across time regardless of condition. Overall, the reduction in negative affect following conservative criterion-training demonstrates that modifying criterion impacts affect and identifies criterion setting as a potential target in the treatment of mental health disorders with prominent negative affect.

The effect of social anxiety on top-down attentional orienting to emotional faces.

One of the fundamental factors maintaining social anxiety is biased attention toward threatening facial expressions. Typically, this bias has been conceptualized as driven by an overactive bottom-up attentional system; however, this potentially overlooks the role of top-down attention in being able to modulate this bottom-up bias. Here, the role of top-down mechanisms in directing attention toward emotional faces was assessed with a modified dot-probe task, in which participants were given a top-down cue ("happy" or "angry") to attend to a happy or angry face on each trial, and the cued face was either presented with a face of the other emotion (angry, happy) or a neutral face. This study found that social anxiety was not associated with differences in shifting attention toward cued angry faces. However, participants with higher levels of social anxiety were selectively impaired in attentional shifting toward a cued happy face when it was paired with an angry face, but not when paired with a neutral face. The results indicate that top-down attention can be used to orient attention to emotional faces, but that higher levels of social anxiety are associated with selective deficits in top-down control of attention in the presence of threat. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Both negative and positive task-irrelevant stimuli contract attentional breadth in individuals with high levels of negative affect.

Emotionally-salient stimuli can capture attention to their spatial location, even when they are not relevant to a prescribed task. Here we tested whether they can influence the spatial breadth of attention. Experiment 1 tested whether small task-irrelevant emotionally-salient stimuli contracted attentional breadth when the task required a broad focus, while Experiment 2 tested whether large task-irrelevant emotionally-salient stimuli expanded attentional breadth when the task required a narrow focus. Both experiments compared the effect of negative and positive emotionally-salient images against neutral, and examined the role of participants' self-reported experiences of negative affect. Both experiments revealed slower responses following large emotionally-salient images, an effect unrelated to attentional breadth. Experiment 1 demonstrated an interaction between accuracy and negative affect, such that individuals with high levels of negative affect were less accurate at identifying global targets following both negative and positive small images, but not following neutral small images. This suggests that these small task-irrelevant emotionally-salient images contracted attentional breadth. Experiment 2 suggested that large task-irrelevant emotionally-salient images did not expand attentional breadth. We discuss how these results cannot be explained by existing models of emotion-based effects on attention and cognition, and the important implications they have for the practicalities of model-testing.

No effect of spatial attention on the processing of a motion ensemble: Evidence from Posner cueing.

The formation of ensemble codes is an efficient means through which the visual system represents vast arrays of information. This has led to the claim that ensemble representations are formed with minimal reliance on attentional resources. However, evidence is mixed regarding the effects of attention on ensemble processing, and researchers do not always make it clear how attention is being manipulated by their paradigm of choice. In this study, we examined the effects of Posner cueing - a well-established method of manipulating spatial attention - on the processing of a global motion stimulus, a naturalistic ensemble that requires the pooling of local motion signals. In Experiment 1, using a centrally presented, predictive attentional cue, we found no effect of spatial attention on global motion performance: Accuracy in invalid trials, where attention was misdirected by the cue, did not differ from accuracy in valid trials, where attention was directed to the location of the motion stimulus. In Experiment 2, we maximized the potential for our paradigm to reveal any attentional effects on global motion processing by using a threshold-based measure of performance; however, despite this change, there was again no evidence of an attentional effect on performance. Together, our results show that the processing of a global motion stimulus is unaffected when spatial attention is misdirected, and speak to the efficiency with which such ensemble stimuli are processed.

The relationship between the subjective experience of real-world cognitive failures and objective target-detection performance in visual search.

Visual search is a common occurrence in everyday life, such as searching for the location of keys, identifying a friend in a crowd, or scanning an upcoming intersection for hazards while driving. Visual search is also used in professional contexts, such as medical diagnostic imaging and airport baggage screening. These contexts are often characterised by low-prevalence or rare targets. Here we tested whether individual differences in the detection of targets in visual search could be predicted from variables derived from the rich informational source of participants' subjective experience of their cognitive and attentional function in everyday life. We tested this in both low-prevalence (Experiment 1) and high-prevalence (Experiment 2) visual search conditions. In both experiments, participants completed a visual search with arrays containing multiple photorealistic objects, and their task was to detect the presence of a gun. Following this, they completed the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ) and the Attentional Control Scale (ACS). In Experiment 1, the target was present on 2% of trials, while in Experiment 2, it was present on 50%. In both experiments, participants' scores on the False Triggering component of the CFQ were negatively associated with accuracy on target-present trials, while participants' scores on the Forgetfulness component of the CFQ were positively associated with target-present accuracy. These results show that objective performance in visual search can be predicted from subjective experiences of cognitive function. They also highlight that the CFQ is not monolithic. Instead, the CFQ subfactors can have qualitatively different relationships with performance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Using perceptual tasks to selectively measure magnocellular and parvocellular performance: Rationale and a user's guide.

The visual system uses parallel pathways to process information. However, an ongoing debate centers on the extent to which the pathways from the retina, via the Lateral Geniculate nucleus to the visual cortex, process distinct aspects of the visual scene and, if they do, can stimuli in the laboratory be used to selectively drive them. These questions are important for a number of reasons, including that some pathologies are thought to be associated with impaired functioning of one of these pathways and certain cognitive functions have been preferentially linked to specific pathways. Here we examine the two main pathways that have been the focus of this debate: the magnocellular and parvocellular pathways. Specifically, we review the results of electrophysiological and lesion studies that have investigated their properties and conclude that while there is substantial overlap in the type of information that they process, it is possible to identify aspects of visual information that are predominantly processed by either the magnocellular or parvocellular pathway. We then discuss the types of visual stimuli that can be used to preferentially drive these pathways.

Does motivational intensity exist distinct from valence and arousal?

The motivational intensity model proposes that the strength of one's urge to approach or avoid a stimulus is the primary driver of cognitive broadening/narrowing (Gable & Harmon-Jones, 2010d; Harmon-Jones et al., 2012). However, it is unclear whether motivational intensity is truly distinct from well-established dimensions of valence and arousal. Here we found an overwhelmingly strong relationship between motivational intensity and valence across all studies. In Study 1, we operationalized motivational intensity on 2 response rating scales and had multiple groups of participants (total 150) rate their response of motivational intensity, valence, and arousal to 300 pictures. There was a very strong relationship between motivational intensity and valence (rs in excess of .9, in studies 1a and 1b), which challenges the idea that these 2 constructs are distinct. In contrast, motivational intensity ratings were not consistently positively related to arousal ratings, with only a moderate relationship found with avoidance motivation. In Study 2 we used an implicit measure of motivational intensity and valence and asked participants to classify their motivational intensity and valence in response to 100 pictures from Study 1. A high degree of correspondence was found between motivational intensity and valence on this measure. Overall, our findings are at odds with proposals in the literature that arousal can be used as a proxy for motivational intensity across the full approach-avoidance spectrum. Furthermore, these studies suggest that the cognitive effects attributed to motivational intensity in previous literature are best explained by valence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The efficiency of visual search for a frequently changed target is preserved in older adults.

Visual search is a psychological function integral to most people's daily lives. The extent to which visual search efficiency, and in particular the ability to use top-down attention in visual search, changes across the lifespan has been the focus of ongoing research. Here we sought to understand how the ability to frequently and dynamically change the target in a conjunction search task was affected by ageing. To do this, we compared visual search performance of a group of younger and older adults under conditions in which the target type was determined by a cue and could change on trial-to-trial basis (Intermixed), versus when the target type was fixed for a block of trials (Blocked). Although older adults were overall slower at the conjunction visual search task, and both groups were slower in the Intermixed compared with the Blocked Condition, older adults were not disproportionately affected by the Intermixed relative to the Blocked conditions. These results indicate that the ability to frequently change the target of visual search is preserved in older adults. This conclusion is consistent with an emerging consensus that many aspects of visual search and top-down contributions to it are preserved across the lifespan. It is also consistent with a growing body of work which challenges the neurocognitive theories of ageing that predict sweeping deficits in complex top-down components of cognition.

When cognitive control harms rather than helps: individuals with high working memory capacity are less efficient at infrequent contraction of attentional breadth.

Different attentional breadths facilitate performance on different types of perceptual tasks. For instance, a narrow attentional breadth improves spatial resolution; whereas a broad attentional breath enhances face perception. This means that to optimise attention for the dynamic demands of real-world vision, it is necessary to efficiently resize attentional breadth. Previous research has shown that individuals differ considerably in how efficiently they can resize their attentional breadth. Since working memory capacity can be conceptualised as the ability to effectively regulate one's attentional resources, the present study examined whether individual differences in attentional resizing efficiency were related to working memory capacity. Tasks that gauge the efficiency of attentional contraction (resizing from broad to narrow focus) and attentional expansion (resizing from narrow to broad) were used, in addition to standard working memory measures. It was found that individuals high in working memory capacity experienced a greater cost in attentional contraction, that is, they were less efficient in resizing from a broad to a narrow attentional focus. This is likely because the attentional resizing tasks encourage the setting of a particular attentional breadth for the majority of trials in a block, and then gauge efficiency in changing from this breadth on the minority of trials. This means that high-capacity individuals may have more readily adopted the dominant attentional breadth, particularly in the majority-global condition, thereby incurring a greater cost on the infrequent trials requiring resizing to the local level. This shows that at least in some circumstances, greater cognitive control can be a relative disadvantage.

Attentional control both helps and harms empathy.

Empathy is an important psychological process. It consists of two dissociable components: cognitive empathy (adopting another's perspective and understanding their emotions), and affective empathy (the vicarious experiences of another's emotions). Here we examined individual differences in cognitive and affective empathy, and how they were related to two different aspects of attentional control: focusing and shifting. A sample of 299 adult participants completed psychometrically validated questionnaires, the Attentional Control Scale and the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy. Individuals who reported a greater ability to shift their attention in everyday life exhibited higher levels of cognitive but not affective empathy, whereas individuals who reported greater ability to focus their attention demonstrated lower levels of affective but not cognitive empathy. This reveals how cognitive-attentional processes are selectively related to core social and emotional functioning, highlighting the importance of considering these distinct sub-processes of empathy and of attentional control.

Examining the effects of social anxiety and other individual differences on gaze-directed attentional shifts.

Gaze direction is a powerful social cue, and there is considerable evidence that we preferentially direct our attentional resources to gaze-congruent locations. While a number of individual differences have been claimed to modulate gaze-cueing effects (e.g., trait anxiety), the modulation of gaze cueing for different emotional expressions of the cue has not been investigated in social anxiety, which is characterised by a range of attentional biases for stimuli perceived to be socially threatening. Therefore, in this study, we examined whether social anxiety modulates gaze-cueing effects for angry, fearful, and neutral expressions, while controlling for other individual-differences variables that may modulate gaze cueing: trait anxiety, depression, and autistic-like traits. In a sample of 100 female participants, we obtained large and reliable gaze-cueing effects; however, these effects were not modulated by social anxiety, or by any of the other individual-differences variables. These findings attest to the social importance of gaze cueing, and also call into question the replicability of individual differences in the effect.