ABSTRACT Colour-concept associations influence fundamental processes in cognition and perception, including object recognition and visual reasoning. To understand these effects, it is necessary to understand how colour-concept associations are formed. It is assumed that colour-concept associations are learned through experiences, but questions remain concerning how association formation is influenced

ABSTRACT In visual crowding, an item representation is degraded by adjacent flanker items. Recently, the related phenomenon of visual working memory (VWM) crowding has been used to evaluate shared mechanisms between memory and perception. However, some previous studies that investigated VWM crowding suggested that it stemmed from encoding, rather than memory maintenance. In the current study, we evaluated

ABSTRACT The lack of controlled stimuli transformations is an obstacle to the study of face identity recognition. Researchers are often limited to verbalizable transformations in the creation of a dataset. An alternative approach to verbalization for interpretability is finding image-based measures that allow us to quantify transformations. We explore whether PCA could be used to create controlled

ABSTRACT When asked to align an object to what is perceived as straight ahead under conditions of an asymmetrical retinal stimulation observers systematically err in the direction of the centre of stimulation. This effect is known as Roelofs (or Dietzel-Roelofs) effect. When asked to judge the position of an object relative to an external reference under related conditions of sensory asymmetry a systematical

ABSTRACT Harmful threats can sometimes appear unexpectedly in the lives of young children, whose limited experience leads to a greater risk of endangerment. The current study adapted the Variant Odd Ball protocol to explore the effects of threat and familiarity on inattentional blindness (IB). This research evaluated reactions to presentations of evolutionarily relevant images such as millipedes, snakes

ABSTRACT Visibility and confidence are two subtly (sensation-based and intuition-based) different ways to assess our visual experiences. We investigated how different choice sets affect the ability of confidence and visibility judgments to retrieve conscious information from perceptual decision-making processes. Six participants made introspective judgments on sinusoidal gratings at close to chance

ABSTRACT The spatial resolution of the human visual field decreases considerably from the center to the periphery. However, several studies have highlighted the importance of peripheral vision for scene categorization. In Experiment 1, we investigated if peripheral vision could influence the scene categorization in central vision. We used photographs of indoor and outdoor scenes from which we extracted

ABSTRACT Because visual long-term memory relies on multiple spatially distinct brain areas, encoding representations is likely to rely on networks formed via large-scale coupled neuronal oscillations. Decreases in occipital alpha power and increases in mid-frontal theta power appear to individually contribute to the encoding of visual long-term memories. Here we ask whether these oscillations form

ABSTRACT Working memory (WM) uses knowledge and relations to organize and store multiple items in fewer structured units, or chunks. We investigated: (a) whether a crowd that exceeds the WM capacity is retained better if individuals can be grouped in social chunks; and (b) what counts as a social chunk: two individuals involved in a meaningful interaction or just spatially close and face-to-face. In

ABSTRACT Many eye tracking studies of visual search have focused on the role of the number of fixations and the nature of scan paths. Less attention has been paid to fixation durations and to how those durations are affected by stimulus features. Previous studies have shown that fixation durations can be as important as the number of fixations in explaining search times with complex stimuli (e.g.,

ABSTRACT In spatial cueing paradigms, emotional stimuli generally orient attention more efficiently, leading to modulations of behavioural and neuronal responses according to stimulus valence. In a previous study, we showed that when emotional stimuli are not consciously perceived, they cannot orient attention and that emotion is not processed when attentional load is high. In the present studies,

ABSTRACT Environmental prints (e.g., the name “Mcdonald’s” on advertising boards) provide a visual environment rich in written words at the early stage of learning to read. Children’s attention to words is closely related to the process of learning to read. However, what remains unclear is how children’s attention to words in environmental prints develops and is related to their reading ability before

ABSTRACT While some argue that emojis are processed like words, opponents note dissimilarities. We used a divided attention (DA) technique to examine whether memory for emojis, relative to words, engages primarily verbal or visuo-spatial cognitive representations. We compared the decline in memory output experienced when participants freely recalled a list of studied words or emojis under dual-task

ABSTRACT Computational models of motion perception suggest that the perceived direction of weak motion signals may sometimes be directly opposite to the true stimulus motion direction. However, this possibility cannot be assessed by using standard 2AFC motion discrimination paradigms because two opposite directions of motion were used in most studies (e.g., leftward vs. rightward). We were able to

ABSTRACT The authors investigated the influence of spatial frequencies in foveal vision in glaucomatous patients in a recognition task of facial expressions. Nineteen patients, 16 age-matched and 14 young controls saw centrally presented photographs of faces. Participants categorized the facial expressions as happy, angry or neutral. Two versions were tested: filtered faces of either low (LSF) or high

ABSTRACT Previous composite face studies have shown that an unattended face half that differs in identity or in expression from the attended face half distracts face perception. These studies have typically not controlled for the amount of information in different face halves. We investigated feature integration while participants discriminated angry and happy expressions. The stimuli were scaled using

ABSTRACT Humans do not passively respond to agents and stimuli; we engage with our environments in reciprocal and interactive fashion. This special issue of Visual Cognition presents a collection of twelve original articles which demonstrate that interactive reciprocity changes the expression of basic cognitions and motor actions as well as resulting overt cognitive and social behaviours. The results

(2022). Correction. Visual Cognition: Vol. 30, Visual Cognition on Interactive Cognition, pp. 85-85.

ABSTRACT Observers adopt attentional control setting (ACS) based on their goals; stimuli that match the current goal will capture attention, whereas stimuli that do not match the current goal will not. In the present study, we revisited the role of VWM in maintaining ACSs capable of guiding attentional capture. Participants completed a Posner cueing task while either remembering a colour (Experiments

ABSTRACT The continuous-report task, in which subjects report the colour of a visual working memory representation by clicking on a colour wheel, has become the gold standard for measuring the precision of representations stored in visual working memory. This task requires fine motor control, typically with a mouse, but the precision of responses have been interpreted as being entirely due to the precision

ABSTRACT Visual perception and saccadic eye-movements are more precise when directed at isoeccentric locations along the horizontal compared to vertical meridian. This effect is known as horizontal-vertical anisotropy (HVA). Given that the eye-movement system plays an important role in spatial short-term memory (STM) it was hypothesized that spatial STM would also show a horizontal-vertical anisotropy

(2022). Correction. Visual Cognition: Vol. 30, Visual Cognition on Interactive Cognition, pp. 28-28.

ABSTRACT It is well known that humans demonstrate massive and surprisingly rich recognition memory for objects and/or scenes and that context typically aids retrieval of episodic memories. However, when we combine picture memory for 100 objects with the context in the form of a background scene, we find that irrelevant contexts lead to substantial impairments of object memory. Twelve experiments used

ABSTRACT Search for a target defined by a conjunction of movement and shape (moving X amongst moving Os and static Xs) is efficient, with static distractors contributing little to RT. How search is restricted to the moving items, whilst static items are ignored is not fully understood. Whether, passive bottom-up, or active top-down control processes are recruited is unknown. The current study addressed

ABSTRACT Language sometimes requires tracking the same participant in different thematic roles across multiple visual events (e.g., The girl that another girl pushed chased a third girl). To better understand how vision and language interact in role tracking, participants described videos of multiple randomly moving circles where two push events were presented. A circle might have the same role in

ABSTRACT In the two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) task, the target stimulus is presented very briefly, and participants must choose which of two options was the presented target. Some past research has assumed that the 2AFC task isolates orthographic effects, despite orthographic, semantic, and phonological differences between the options. If so, performance should not differ between word/nonword

ABSTRACT When items are presented sequentially, the evaluation of the current item is biased by both the previous item’s value (perceptual bias) and the previous response given (response bias). While these biases have been identified in judgements of facial attractiveness, it is unclear as to whether they produce assimilation and/or contrast effects. Here, two tasks were employed to measure each bias

ABSTRACT Humans can readily and effortlessly learn new faces encountered in the social environment. As a face transitions from unfamiliar to familiar, the ability to generalize across different images of the same person increases substantially. Fast periodic visual stimulation and EEG (FPVS-EEG) was used to isolate identity-specific responses that generalize across different images of the same person

ABSTRACT Recent research has emphasized the importance of using images that incorporate natural variability in appearance (i.e., ambient images) to assess face learning and recognition. Across five tasks, we provide the first examination of older adults’ face learning and recognition in ambient images. Young and older adults showed comparable performance in three tasks: when recognizing a familiar

ABSTRACT Leading another person’s gaze to establish joint attention facilitates social interaction. Previously it was found that we look back at agents who engage in joint attention quicker than at agents who display this behaviour less frequently. This paper serves to fill in two remaining knowledge gaps. Firstly, we examined whether this looking-back behaviour is replicated by a manual response.

ABSTRACT Luck et al. (2021 Luck, S. J., Gaspelin, N., Folk, C. L., Remington, R. W., & Theeuwes, J. (2021). Progress toward resolving the attentional capture debate. Visual Cognition, 29(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/13506285.2020.1848949[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], Progress toward resolving the attentional capture debate. Visual Cognition, 29(1), 1–21. https://doi

ABSTRACT Luck, Gaspelin, Folk, Remington, and Theeuwes [2021. Progress toward resolving the attentional capture debate. Visual Cognition, 29(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/13506285.2020.1848949] argue that the debate regarding attentional capture has changed in such a way that there is now some consensus. However, even though a certain degree of agreement has been reached on the question whether

ABSTRACT Attention researchers have long debated the role that attentional control settings play in determining selection. In their article, Luck et al. (2021) have identified points of consensus among traditionally opposed models of attentional control, one of which is that prior experience (i.e., selection history) allows attentional control settings to suppress attention to salient distractors by

ABSTRACT Attentional capture is assumed to automatically trigger attentional engagement, which gates working memory access. However, recent studies show that engagement is not a necessary outcome of capture and can be disrupted by manipulations that leave capture intact. In this commentary, I suggest that these findings have important implications for the capture debate. Mainly, they suggest that capture

ABSTRACT As the debate about the automaticity of attentional capture has raged on over the years, knowledge of how selection functions has been accumulating in the literature. Luck et al. (2021) highlights emerging areas of consensus, including support for multiple mechanisms that influence attentional guidance. Here, I revisit the biased competition model of [Desimone, R., & Duncan, J. (1995). Neural

ABSTRACT Luck, Gaspelin, Folk, Remington, & Theeuwes [(in press). Progress Toward Resolving the Attentional Capture Debate. Visual Cognition] proposes that proactive attentional mechanisms suppress a salient distractor by top-down inhibitory signals. However, considering the abundance of distracting information surrounding us, an automatic and passive distractor filtering system that requires little

ABSTRACT Although physical salience looms large in the attentional capture literature, stimuli can also capture attention via salience deriving from non-physical factors. Such psychological salience can stem, for example, from the emotional resonance of stimuli or their relevance to a person’s expertise. We consider how insights from a recently proposed framework for attentional capture can be used

ABSTRACT We suggest that consideration of trial-by-trial variations, individual differences, and training data will enrich the current framework in Luck, S. J., Gaspelin, N., Folk, C. L., Remington, R. W., & Theeuwes, J. (2020. Progress toward resolving the attentional capture debate. Visual Cognition, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/13506285.2020.1848949). We consider whether attentional capture is

ABSTRACT In their article “Progress toward resolving the attentional capture debate”, Luck et al. (2021. Progress toward resolving the attentional capture debate. Visual Cognition, 29(1), 1–21.) aim at reconciling stimulus-driven, goal-driven and signal suppression accounts of visual attention. At the center of their model is a “control state” that determines activations on a priority map and thus

ABSTRACT Gaspelin and Luck describe the signal suppression hypothesis, which proposes that attentional suppression prevents the capture of visual attention by salient distractors. We will discuss several problems with this proposal. On a theoretical level, we will argue that attentional suppression is a dispensable mechanism. Most effects of attentional suppression can be easily explained by reduced

ABSTRACT We agree with [Luck, S. J., Gaspelin, N., Folk, C. L., Remington, R. W., & Theeuwes, J. (2021). Progress toward resolving the attentional capture debate. Visual Cognition, 29(1), 1–21] that selection history will play a role in explaining attentional capture. But their conception of history effects (or priming) lacks a clear explication of how attentional history fulfils the crucial role of

ABSTRACT Strong evidence supporting the top-down modulation of attention has come from studies in which participants learned to suppress a singleton in a heterogeneous four-item display. These studies have been criticized on the grounds that the displays are so sparse that the singleton is not actually salient. We argue that similar evidence of suppression has been found with substantially larger displays

ABSTRACT Is capture automatic or under our control? In a recent review, Luck and colleagues [Luck, S. J., Gaspelin, N., Folk, C. L., Remington, R. W., & Theeuwes, J. (2021). Progress toward resolving the attentional capture debate. Visual Cognition, 29(1), 1–21.] provide an important milestone for gauging our (attention researchers) progress with this question. While it may sometimes feel like we have

ABSTRACT Isaiah Berlin famously suggested that thinkers can be characterized into two groups, foxes and hedgehogs. Foxes multiply ideas, hedgehogs stretch them. Hedgehoggy thinking, based around core universal principles, has historically dominated capture research and is prominent in Luck, S. J., Gaspelin, N., Folk, C. L., Remington, R. W., & Theeuwes, J. (2021. Progress toward resolving the attentional

ABSTRACT This commentary highlights that some of the remaining discrepancies in the attentional-capture debate can be resolved by a simple assumption: observers do not use the priority map when this map is useless to solve the task. Rather, whenever search targets are known to be non-salient, observers resort to a previously postulated alternative search strategy for which (distractor) saliency signals

ABSTRACT Luck et al. [(2021). Progress toward resolving the attentional capture debate. Visual Cognition, 29(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/13506285.2020.1848949] proposed singleton suppression as a promising resolution to the attention capture debate. Specifically, salient singletons are assumed to generate an “attend-to-me” signal and therefore represent a threat that triggers suppression. One

ABSTRACT We acknowledge the empirical and theoretical advancements described within Luck et al. and commend the integration of viewpoints on the debate over attentional capture by salient distractors. Our commentary seeks to build on the conversation by drawing attention to open questions that remain about how proactive and reactive mechanisms might operate, the mechanisms of implicit learning, and

ABSTRACT Luck, Gaspelin, Folk, Remington, and Theeuwes [(2021). Progress toward resolving the attentional capture debate. Visual Cognition, 29(1), 1–21. doi:10.1080/13506285.2020.1848949] provide a valuable status report on our collective understanding of attentional capture, and they succeed at identifying common ground and articulating persisting points of discord. Here, I contribute two points.

ABSTRACT The integrative framework proposed by Luck and colleagues [Luck, S. J., Gaspelin, N., Folk, C. L., Remington, R. W., & Theeuwes, J. (2021). Progress toward resolving the attentional capture debate. Visual Cognition, 29(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/13506285.2020.1848949] represents major progress in the field of attention research, and remaining areas of disagreement provide an opportunity

ABSTRACT Attention – here, the selection of visual information – is necessary for the control of skills and procedures. In amendment of the principles discussed by Luck et al. [Luck, S. J., Gaspelin, N., Folk, C. L., Remington, R. W., & Theeuwes, J. (2021). Progress toward resolving the attentional capture debate. Visual Cognition, 29(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/13506285.2020.1848949], we review

ABSTRACT In their article, Luck et al. ([2021]. Progress toward resolving the attentional capture debate. Visual Cognition, 29(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/13506285.2020.1848949) outline alternative hypotheses regarding the cognitive mechanisms that modulate attention capture. This commentary addresses how control signals can be used to modulate feature gain control prior to saliency computations

ABSTRACT Whether it is possible to ignore a physically salient distractor has been a topic of active debate over the past 25 years, with empirical evidence for and against each of the theoretical stances. We put forward that predictive processing may provide a unified theoretical perspective that can account reasonably well for the empirical literature on attentional capture. In this perspective, capture

ABSTRACT In a review paper, Luck et al. [(2021). Progress toward resolving the attentional capture debate. Visual Cognition, 29(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/13506285.2020.1848949] discussed multiple perspectives on the attentional capture debate. In response to this review paper, several commentaries were written. Here, I respond to these commentaries and discuss those issues that seem to be the

ABSTRACT The many commentaries on Luck [Luck, S. J., Gaspelin, N., Folk, C. L., Remington, R. W., & Theeuwes, J. (2020). Progress toward resolving the attentional capture debate. Visual Cognition, 1–21] were thoughtful, insightful and important to future research in this area. In this response, we point out common themes and provide clarification and commentary on issues we find central to our perspective

ABSTRACT Luck et al. (2021 Luck, S. J., Gaspelin, N., Folk, C. L., Remington, R. W., & Theeuwes, J. (2021). Progress toward resolving the attentional capture debate. Visual Cognition, 29(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/13506285.2020.1848949[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) reviewed evidence that observers can learn to suppress attentional capture by salient distractors

ABSTRACT This research investigated how interactive social contexts shape basic visual attention. It has been shown that social information can modulate inhibition of return effects in joint spatial cueing tasks. We predicted that if perceptions of cooperativeness explain this phenomenon, we would then observe larger inhibition of return effects for more cooperative individuals and in highly cooperative

ABSTRACT We spontaneously orient our attention towards people whose gaze we have led (the “gaze leading” effect). Here, we investigated whether this orienting effect is sensitive to the social and emotional content of the stimuli within the interactions. Experiment 1 replicated the gaze leading effect but found no reliable influence of facial dominance or object valence. Experiment 2, where only object

ABSTRACT A black frame presented around one of 12 pictures during rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) was frequently misperceived as surrounding the preceding or following picture in the sequence (temporal migration; Intraub, 1985 Intraub, H. (1985). Visual dissociation: An illusory conjunction of pictures and forms. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 11(4), 431–442

ABSTRACT In multiple-target visual searches, subsequent search misses (SSMs; [Cain, M. S., Adamo, S. H., & Mitroff, S. R. (2013). A taxonomy of errors in multiple-target visual search. Visual Cognition, 21(7), 899–921. https://doi.org/10.1080/13506285.2013.843627]) occur when the discovery of one target hinders detection of another target (formerly referred to as Satisfaction of Search [Tuddenham,

ABSTRACT We examined the interaction among emotions, spatial frequencies (SF) and holistic analysis using an anorthoscopic paradigm, which is supposed to alter the holistic processing. Emotional and neutral faces were presented sliding behind a narrow aperture (anorthoscopy), or statically in the centre of the screen (whole-face presentation) as broadband images (Experiment 1), filtered at low-SF (Experiment