Article

Selective attention is not a unitary construct, but is composed of several
processes. Attention selection may be guided by low-level stimulus properties, by
the emotional value of the stimulus, or more voluntarily by the goals and plans
of the observer. Whether these three systems operate independently during
attention selection or not remains a debated question. We report results from two
studies investigating the extent to which these different attention mechanisms
may interact with one another. Using a standard dot probe paradigm wherein
effects of exogenous, emotional, and endogenous attention were orthogonally
manipulated, we found attentional facilitation effects for each component,
indicated by faster decision times for validly, as opposed to invalidly cued
targets. Moreover, results confirmed that these three attentional effects added
up in a linear fashion. Complementing ERP results allowed us to disentangle the
respective contributions of the two reflexive, bottom-up attention processes
(exogenous vs. emotional) by showing non-overlapping temporal loci for
attentional effects related either to low-level physical properties or the
emotional content of the stimulus. These findings suggest that multiple separate
attention mechanisms can operate simultaneously to yield a rapid and efficient
visual processing of various classes of potentially relevant stimuli.
CI - Copyright (c) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS