Haptic Search for Hard and Soft Spheres

In this study the saliency of hardness and softness were investigated in an active haptic search task. Two experiments were performed to explore these properties in different contexts. In Experiment 1, blindfolded participants had to grasp a bundle of spheres and determine the presence of a hard target among soft distractors or vice versa. If the difference in compliance between target and distractors was small, reaction times increased with the number of items for both features; a serial strategy was found to be used. When the difference in compliance was large, the reaction times were independent of the number of items, indicating a parallel strategy. In Experiment 2, blindfolded participants pressed their hand on a display filled with hard and soft items. In the search for a soft target, increasing reaction times with the number of items were found, but the location of target and distractors appeared to have a large influence on the search difficulty. In the search for a hard target, reaction times did not depend on the number of items. In sum, this showed that both hardness and softness are salient features.     

Neural Correlates of Conflict Control on Facial Expressions with A Flanker Paradigm

Conflict control is an important cognitive control ability and it is also crucial for human beings to execute conflict control on affective information. To address the neural correlates of cognitive control on affective conflicts, the present study recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) during a revised Eriksen Flanker Task. Participants were required to indicate the valence of the central target expression while ignoring the flanker expressions in the affective congruent condition, affective incongruent condition and neutral condition (target expressions flanked by scramble blocks). Behavioral results manifested that participants exhibited faster response speed in identifying neutral target face when it was flanked by neutral distractors than by happy distractors. Electrophysiological results showed that happy target expression induced larger N2 amplitude when flanked by sad distractors than by happy distractors and scramble blocks during the conflict monitoring processing. During the attentional control processing, happy target expression induced faster P3 response when it was flanked by happy distractors than by sad distractors, and sad target expression evoked larger P3 amplitude when it was flanked by happy distractors comparing with sad distractors. Taken together, the current findings of temporal dynamic of brain activity during cognitive control on affective conflicts shed light on the essential relationship between cognitive control and affective information processing.     

Different neuroplasticity for task targets and distractors

Adult learning-induced sensory cortex plasticity results in enhanced action potential rates in neurons that have the most relevant information for the task, or those that respond strongly to one sensory stimulus but weakly to its comparison stimulus. Current theories suggest this plasticity is caused when target stimulus evoked activity is enhanced by reward signals from neuromodulatory nuclei. Prior work has found evidence suggestive of nonselective enhancement of neural responses, and suppression of responses to task distractors, but the differences in these effects between detection and discrimination have not been directly tested. Using cortical implants, we defined physiological responses in macaque somatosensory cortex during serial, matched, detection and discrimination tasks. Nonselective increases in neural responsiveness were observed during detection learning. Suppression of responses to task distractors was observed during discrimination learning, and this suppression was specific to cortical locations that sampled responses to the task distractor before learning. Changes in receptive field size were measured as the area of skin that had a significant response to a constant magnitude stimulus, and these areal changes paralleled changes in responsiveness. From before detection learning until after discrimination learning, the enduring changes were selective suppression of cortical locations responsive to task distractors, and nonselective enhancement of responsiveness at cortical locations selective for target and control skin sites. A comparison of observations in prior studies with the observed plasticity effects suggests that the non-selective response enhancement and selective suppression suffice to explain known plasticity phenomena in simple spatial tasks. This work suggests that differential responsiveness to task targets and distractors in primary sensory cortex for a simple spatial detection and discrimination task arise from nonselective increases in response over a broad cortical locus that includes the representation of the task target, and selective suppression of responses to the task distractor within this locus.     

Integration and Disruption Effects of Shape and Texture in Haptic Search

In a search task, where one has to search for the presence of a target among distractors, the target is sometimes easily found, whereas in other searches it is much harder to find. The performance in a search task is influenced by the identity of the target, the identity of the distractors and the differences between the two. In this study, these factors were manipulated by varying the target and distractors in shape (cube or sphere) and roughness (rough or smooth) in a haptic search task. Participants had to grasp a bundle of items and determine as fast as possible whether a predefined target was present or not. It was found that roughness and edges were relatively salient features and the search for the presence of these features was faster than for their absence. If the task was easy, the addition of these features could also disrupt performance, even if they were irrelevant for the search task. Another important finding was that the search for a target that differed in two properties from the distractors was faster than a task with only a single property difference, although this was only found if the two target properties were non-salient. This means that shape and texture can be effectively integrated. Finally, it was found that edges are more beneficial to a search task than disrupting, whereas for roughness this was the other way round.     

Search goal tunes visual features optimally

How does a visual search goal modulate the activity of neurons encoding different visual features (e.g., color, direction of motion)? Previous research suggests that goal-driven attention enhances the gain of neurons representing the target's visual features. Here, we present mathematical and behavioral evidence that this strategy is suboptimal and that humans do not deploy it. We formally derive the optimal feature gain modulation theory, which combines information from both the target and distracting clutter to maximize the relative salience of the target. We qualitatively validate the theory against existing electrophysiological and psychophysical literature. A surprising prediction is that it is sometimes optimal to enhance nontarget features. We provide experimental evidence toward this through psychophysics experiments on human subjects, thus suggesting that humans deploy the optimal gain modulation strategy.     

Active maintenance of associative mnemonic signal in monkey inferior temporal cortex

We investigated the contribution of the inferior temporal (IT) cortical neurons to the active maintenance of internal representations. The activity of single neurons in the IT cortex was recorded while the monkeys performed a sequential-type associative memory task in which distractor stimuli interrupted the delay epoch between the cue and target (paired-associate) stimuli. For each neuron, information about each stimulus conveyed by the delay activity was estimated as a coefficient of multiple regression analysis. We found that target information derived from long-term memory (LTM) persisted despite the distractors. By contrast, cue information derived from the visual system was attenuated and frequently replaced by distractor information. These results suggest that LTM-derived information required for upcoming behavior is actively maintained in the IT neurons, whereas visually derived information tends to be updated irrespective of behavioral relevance.     

Search efficiency but not response interference affects visual selection in frontal eye field

Two manipulations of a visual search task were used to test the hypothesis that the discrimination of a target from distractors by visually responsive neurons in the frontal eye field (FEF) marks the outcome and conclusion of visual processing instead of saccade preparation. First, search efficiency was reduced by increasing the similarity of the distractors to the target. Second, response interference was introduced by infrequently changing the location of the target in the array. Both manipulations increased reaction time, but only the change in search efficiency affected the time needed to select the target by visually responsive neurons. This result indicates that visually responsive neurons in FEF form an explicit representation of the location of the target in the image.     

Attention facilitates multiple stimulus features in parallel in human visual cortex

Successfully locating a dangerous or desirable object within a cluttered visual scene is a commonplace yet highly adaptive skill. In the laboratory, this ability is modeled by visual search experiments in which subjects try to find a target item surrounded by an array of distracting stimuli. Under certain conditions, targets that are distinguishable from distractors by virtue of having a particular combination of shared sensory features (e.g., a particular color and orientation) can be found rapidly regardless of the number of distractors. To explain this highly efficient localization of feature-conjunction targets, "guided search" theories propose that attention is directed in parallel to the individual features that define the target, which then stands out from the distractors because of additive facilitation of its feature signals. Here we recorded frequency-tagged potentials evoked in human visual cortex and found that color and orientation features of target stimuli are indeed facilitated by attention in a parallel and additive manner. This additive feature-enhancement mechanism, reported here for the first time, not only enables rapid guided search but also plays a broader role in directing and sustaining attention to multi-feature objects and keeping them perceptually distinct from background clutter.     

Selective removal of a target stimulus localized by taste in humans

Recent studies have shown that people can localize a punctate gustatory stimulus on the lingual epithelium in the absence of discriminative tactile cues. The present studies examined the human ability to localize taste sensations on the tongue and to use this information to remove selectively a target stimulus (a flavored, 1 cm(3) gelatin cube) from the mouth when presented with non-target distractors that vary in number and taste. Findings indicate that humans are capable of localizing and removing either an aversive or an appetitive gustatory target from a field of tactile distractors via taste sensations alone, although this ability diminishes as the number of distractors increases (implicating serial searches, rather than parallel). In addition, humans can localize and selectively remove a target taste in the presence of distractors of another distinct taste quality. Under these conditions performance is either unaffected or reduced, which indicates that contrast with the distinct taste of the distractors does not enhance performance. Humans also are capable of removing a nearly tasteless cube from a field of flavored distractors, but this is clearly a more difficult task, suggesting that 'tactile capture' of taste occurs for the tasteless target cube and interferes with the localization of taste. Finally, perceived suprathreshold stimulus intensity did not seem to be related to the ability to localize and remove a target stimulus via taste sensations and failed to account for variations in performance across individuals.     

Evidence for differential top-down and bottom-up suppression in posterior parietal cortex

When searching for an object, we usually avoid items that are visually different from the target and objects or places that have been searched already. Previous studies have shown that neural activity in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) can be used to guide this behaviour; responses to task irrelevant stimuli or to stimuli that have been fixated previously in the trial are reduced compared with responses to potential targets. Here, we test the hypothesis that these reduced responses have a different genesis. Two animals were trained on a visual foraging task, in which they had to find a target among a number of physically identical potential targets (T) and task irrelevant distractors. We recorded neural activity and local field potentials (LFPs) in LIP while the animals performed the task. We found that LFP power was similar for potential targets and distractors but was greater in the alpha and low beta bands when a previously fixated T was in the response field. We interpret these data to suggest that the reduced single-unit response to distractors is a bottom-up feed-forward result of processing in earlier areas and the reduced response to previously fixated Ts is a result of active top-down suppression.     

Distractor Evoked Deviations of Saccade Trajectory Are Modulated by Fixation Activity in the Superior Colliculus: Computational and Behavioral Evidence

Previous studies have shown that saccades may deviate towards or away from task irrelevant visual distractors. This observation has been attributed to active suppression (inhibition) of the distractor location unfolding over time: early in time inhibition at the distractor location is incomplete causing deviation towards the distractor, while later in time when inhibition is complete the eyes deviate away from the distractor. In a recent computational study, Wang, Kruijne and Theeuwes proposed an alternative theory that the lateral interactions in the superior colliculus (SC), which are characterized by short-distance excitation and long-distance inhibition, are sufficient for generating both deviations towards and away from distractors. In the present study, we performed a meta-analysis of the literature, ran model simulations and conducted two behavioral experiments to further explore this unconventional theory. Confirming predictions generated by the model simulations, the behavioral experiments show that a) saccades deviate towards close distractors and away from remote distractors, and b) the amount of deviation depends on the strength of fixation activity in the SC, which can be manipulated by turning off the fixation stimulus before or after target onset (Experiment 1), or by varying the eccentricity of the target and distractor (Experiment 2).     

Reward-Priming of Location in Visual Search

Existing visual search research has demonstrated that the receipt of reward will be beneficial for subsequent perceptual and attentional processing of features that have characterized targets, but detrimental for processing of features that have characterized irrelevant distractors. Here we report a similar effect of reward on location. Observers completed a visual search task in which they selected a target, ignored a salient distractor, and received random-magnitude reward for correct performance. Results show that when target selection garnered rewarding outcome attention is subsequently a.) primed to return to the target location, and b.) biased away from the location that was occupied by the salient, task-irrelevant distractor. These results suggest that in addition to priming features, reward acts to guide visual search by priming contextual locations of visual stimuli.     

Distractor Detection and Suppression Have a Beneficial Effect on Attentional Blink

Background

Attentional blink (AB) is a phenomenon that describes the difficulty individuals have in reporting the second of two masked targets if the second target (T2) arrives 200–500 ms after the first target (T1). Recent studies explain the AB from cognitive resources limitation to distractors interference. For example, the temporary loss of control (TLC) hypothesis suggests that the AB is conduced by distractors disrupting the input filter for target processing. The inhibition models suggest that the T1+1 distractor triggers a suppression mechanism which could be beneficial for T1 processing but would suppress T2 at short T1–T2 lags. These models consider that the AB is caused by the appearance of distractors. However, in the present study, two methods were taken to help individuals to detect the distractors more effectively. An attenuated AB deficit was found when the distractors could be excluded or suppressed in time. We consider that under an appropriate condition the distractors detection and suppression have a beneficial effect on attentional blink.

Methodology/Principal Findings

Two methods were employed to help individuals to detect the distractors more effectively: enlarging the low-level-physical characteristic difference between targets and distractors (Experiment 1) and restricting the sets of distractors (Experiment 2). Attenuated AB deficits were found as using the above manipulations.

Conclusions/Significance

The present study found when the distractors are detected or identified quickly, they could be effectively suppressed, in order to reduce the interference from the targets and result in a smaller AB deficit. We suggest that the suppression mechanism for distractors have a beneficial effect on AB.     

Object recognition: holistic representations in the monkey brain

Cognitive-psychological and neuropsychological studies suggest that the human brain processes facial information in a distinct manner, relying on mechanisms that are anatomically and functionally different from those underlying the recognition of other objects. Face recognition, for instance, can be disrupted selectively as a result of localized brain damage, and relies strongly on holistic information rather than on the mere processing of local features. Similarly, in the non-human primate, distinct neocortical and limbic structures have cell populations responding specifically to face stimuli and only weakly to other visual patterns. Moreover, such cells tend to respond to the entire configuration of a face rather than to individual facial features. But are faces the only objects represented in this way? Here I present some evidence suggesting that at least one aspect of facial processing, the processing of holistic information, may be employed by the primate brain when recognizing any arbitrary homogeneous class of even artificial objects, which the monkey has to individually learn, remember, and recognize again and again from among a large number of distractors sharing a number of common features with the target. Acquiring such an expertise can induce configurational selectivity in the response of neurons in the visual system. Our findings suggests that regarding their neural encoding faces are unlikely to be 'special', but they rather are the default 'special class' of the primate visual system.     

Distractor Interference during a Choice Limb Reaching Task

According to action-centered models of attention, the patterns of distractor interference that emerge in selective reaching tasks are related to the time and effort required to resolve a race for activation between competing target and non-target response producing processes. Previous studies have only used unimanual aiming tasks and, as such, only examined the effects of competition that occurs within a limb. The results of studies using unimanual aiming movements often reveal an “ipsilateral effect” - distractors on the same side of space as the effector cause greater interference than distractors on the opposite side of space. The cost of the competition when response selection is between the limbs has yet to be addressed. Participants in the present study executed reaching movements to 1 of 4 (2 left, 2 right) possible target locations with and without a distractor. Participants made ipsilateral reaches (left hand to left targets, right hand to right targets). In contrast to studies using unimanual aiming movements, a “contralateral effect” was observed; distractors affording responses for the other hand (in contralateral space) caused more interference than distractors affording responses for the same hand. The findings from the present research demonstrate that when certain portions of response planning must be resolved prior to response initiation, distractors that code for that dimension cause the greatest interference.     

Parametric Modeling of Visual Search Efficiency in Real Scenes

How should the efficiency of searching for real objects in real scenes be measured? Traditionally, when searching for artificial targets, e.g., letters or rectangles, among distractors, efficiency is measured by a reaction time (RT) × Set Size function. However, it is not clear whether the set size of real scenes is as effective a parameter for measuring search efficiency as the set size of artificial scenes. The present study investigated search efficiency in real scenes based on a combination of low-level features, e.g., visible size and target-flanker separation factors, and high-level features, e.g., category effect and target template. Visible size refers to the pixel number of visible parts of an object in a scene, whereas separation is defined as the sum of the flank distances from a target to the nearest distractors. During the experiment, observers searched for targets in various urban scenes, using pictures as the target templates. The results indicated that the effect of the set size in real scenes decreased according to the variances of other factors, e.g., visible size and separation. Increasing visible size and separation factors increased search efficiency. Based on these results, an RT × Visible Size × Separation function was proposed. These results suggest that the proposed function is a practicable predictor of search efficiency in real scenes.     

Negative priming under rapid serial visual presentation

Negative priming (NP) was examined under a new paradigm wherein a target and distractors were temporally separated using rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP). The results from the two experiments revealed that (a) NP was robust under RSVP, such that the responses to a target were slower when the target served as a distractor in a previous trial than when it did not; (b) NP was found regardless of whether the distractors appeared before or after the targets; and (c) NP was stronger when the distractor was more distinctive. These findings are generally similar to those on NP in the spatial search task. The implications for the processes causing NP under RSVP are discussed in the current paper.     

Visual search for orientation of faces by a chimpanzee (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Pan troglodytes</Emphasis>): face-specific upright superiority and the role of facial configural properties

A previous experiment showed that a chimpanzee performed better in searching for a target human face that differed in orientation from distractors when the target had an upright orientation than when targets had inverted or horizontal orientation [Tomonaga (1999a) Primate Res 15:215–229]. This upright superiority effect was also seen when using chimpanzee faces as targets but not when using photographs of a house. The present study sought to extend these results and explore factors affecting the face-specific upright superiority effect. Upright superiority was shown in a visual search for orientation when caricaturized human faces and dog faces were used as stimuli for the chimpanzee but not when shapes of a hand and chairs were presented. Thus, the configural properties of facial features, which cause an inversion effect in face recognition in humans and chimpanzees, were thought to be a source of the upright superiority effect in the visual search process. To examine this possibility, various stimuli manipulations were introduced in subsequent experiments. The results clearly show that the configuration of facial features plays a critical role in the upright superiority effect, and strongly suggest similarity in face processing in humans and chimpanzees.     

Interference with bottom-up feature detection by higher-level object recognition

Drawing portraits upside down is a trick that allows novice artists to reproduce lower-level image features, e.g., contours, while reducing interference from higher-level face cognition. Limiting the available processing time to suffice for lower- but not higher-level operations is a more general way of reducing interference. We elucidate this interference in a novel visual-search task to find a target among distractors. The target had a unique lower-level orientation feature but was identical to distractors in its higher-level object shape. Through bottom-up processes, the unique feature attracted gaze to the target. Subsequently, recognizing the attended object as identically shaped as the distractors, viewpoint invariant object recognition interfered. Consequently, gaze often abandoned the target to search elsewhere. If the search stimulus was extinguished at time T after the gaze arrived at the target, reports of target location were more accurate for shorter (T<500 ms) presentations. This object-to-feature interference, though perhaps unexpected, could underlie common phenomena such as the visual-search asymmetry that finding a familiar letter N among its mirror images is more difficult than the converse. Our results should enable additional examination of known phenomena and interactions between different levels of visual processes.     

Determinants of Dwell Time in Visual Search: Similarity or Perceptual Difficulty?

The present study examined the factors that determine the dwell times in a visual search task, that is, the duration the gaze remains fixated on an object. It has been suggested that an item's similarity to the search target should be an important determiner of dwell times, because dwell times are taken to reflect the time needed to reject the item as a distractor, and such discriminations are supposed to be harder the more similar an item is to the search target. In line with this similarity view, a previous study shows that, in search for a target ring of thin line-width, dwell times on thin linewidth Landolt C's distractors were longer than dwell times on Landolt C's with thick or medium linewidth. However, dwell times may have been longer on thin Landolt C's because the thin line-width made it harder to detect whether the stimuli had a gap or not. Thus, it is an open question whether dwell times on thin line-width distractors were longer because they were similar to the target or because the perceptual decision was more difficult. The present study de-coupled similarity from perceptual difficulty, by measuring dwell times on thin, medium and thick line-width distractors when the target had thin, medium or thick line-width. The results showed that dwell times were longer on target-similar than target-dissimilar stimuli across all target conditions and regardless of the line-width. It is concluded that prior findings of longer dwell times on thin linewidth-distractors can clearly be attributed to target similarity. As will be discussed towards the end, the finding of similarity effects on dwell times has important implications for current theories of visual search and eye movement control.