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    All set, indeed! N2pc components reveal simultaneous attentional control settings for multiple target colours

    Grubert, Anna and Eimer, Martin (2016) All set, indeed! N2pc components reveal simultaneous attentional control settings for multiple target colours. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 42 (8), pp. 1215-1230. ISSN 0096-1523.

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    Abstract

    To study whether top-down attentional control processes can be set simultaneously for different visual features, we employed a spatial cueing procedure to measure behavioural and electrophysiological markers of task-set contingent attentional capture during search for one or two possible colour-defined targets (One Colour and Two Colour tasks). Search arrays were preceded by spatially non-predictive colour singleton cues. Behavioural spatial cueing effects indicative of attentional capture were elicited only by target-matching but not by distractor-colour cues. However, when search displays contained one target-colour and one distractor-colour object among grey nontargets, N2pc components were triggered not only by target-colour but also by distractor-colour cues both in the One Colour and Two Colour task, demonstrating that task-set nonmatching items attracted attention. When search displays contained six items in six different colours, so that participants had to adopt a fully feature-specific task set, the N2pc to distractor-colour cues was eliminated in both tasks, indicating that nonmatching items were now successfully excluded from attentional processing. These results demonstrate that when observers adopt a feature-specific search mode, attentional task sets can be configured flexibly for multiple features within the same dimension, resulting in the rapid allocation of attention to task-set matching objects only.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Additional Information: This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record.
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Science > School of Psychological Sciences
    Depositing User: Martin Eimer
    Date Deposited: 20 Apr 2016 16:03
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 17:22
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/14739

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