TY - JOUR

T1 - Spatiotemporal competition and task-relevance shape the spatial distribution of emotional interference during rapid visual processing

T2 - Evidence from gaze-contingent eye-tracking

AU - Kennedy, Briana L.

AU - Pearson, Daniel

AU - Sutton, David J.

AU - Beesley, Tom

AU - Most, Steven B.

N1 - The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13414-017-1448-9

PY - 2018/2

Y1 - 2018/2

N2 - People’s ability to perceive rapidly presented targets can be disrupted both by voluntary encoding of a preceding target and by spontaneous attention to salient distractors. Distinctions between these sources of interference can be found when people search for a target in multiple rapid streams instead of a single stream: voluntary encoding of a preceding target often elicits subsequent perceptual lapses across the visual field, whereas spontaneous attention to emotionally salient distractors appears to elicit a spatially localized lapse, giving rise to a theoretical account suggesting that emotional distractors and subsequent targets compete spatiotemporally during rapid serial visual processing. We used gaze-contingent eye-tracking to probe the roles of spatiotemporal competition and memory encoding on the spatial distribution of interference caused by emotional distractors, while also ruling out the role of eye-gaze in driving differences in spatial distribution. Spontaneous target perception impairments caused by emotional distractors were localized to the distractor location regardless of where participants fixated. But when emotional distractors were task-relevant, perceptual lapses occurred across both streams while remaining strongest at the distractor location. These results suggest that spatiotemporal competition and memory encoding reflect a dual-route impact of emotional stimuli on target perception during rapid visual processing.

AB - People’s ability to perceive rapidly presented targets can be disrupted both by voluntary encoding of a preceding target and by spontaneous attention to salient distractors. Distinctions between these sources of interference can be found when people search for a target in multiple rapid streams instead of a single stream: voluntary encoding of a preceding target often elicits subsequent perceptual lapses across the visual field, whereas spontaneous attention to emotionally salient distractors appears to elicit a spatially localized lapse, giving rise to a theoretical account suggesting that emotional distractors and subsequent targets compete spatiotemporally during rapid serial visual processing. We used gaze-contingent eye-tracking to probe the roles of spatiotemporal competition and memory encoding on the spatial distribution of interference caused by emotional distractors, while also ruling out the role of eye-gaze in driving differences in spatial distribution. Spontaneous target perception impairments caused by emotional distractors were localized to the distractor location regardless of where participants fixated. But when emotional distractors were task-relevant, perceptual lapses occurred across both streams while remaining strongest at the distractor location. These results suggest that spatiotemporal competition and memory encoding reflect a dual-route impact of emotional stimuli on target perception during rapid visual processing.

KW - Attentional capture

KW - Attentional blink

KW - Visual awareness

U2 - 10.3758/s13414-017-1448-9

DO - 10.3758/s13414-017-1448-9

M3 - Journal article

VL - 80

SP - 426

EP - 438

JO - Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics

JF - Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics

SN - 1943-3921

IS - 2

ER -