ISSN 0439-755X
CN 11-1911/B

Acta Psychologica Sinica ›› 2022, Vol. 54 ›› Issue (3): 221-235.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2022.00221

• Reports of Empirical Studies •     Next Articles

The effects of expectation on attention are dependent on whether expectation is on the target or on the distractor

ZHOU Zinuan, CHEN Yanzhang, FU Shimin()   

  1. Department of Psychology and Center for Brain and Cognitive Sciences, School of Education, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510006, ChinaKey words visual expectation, visual attention, spatial cue, visual search, peripheral cue
  • Received:2021-07-21 Published:2022-03-25 Online:2022-01-25
  • Contact: FU Shimin E-mail:fusm@gzhu.edu.cn
  • Supported by:
    This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(31970993)

Abstract:

Previous studies have shown that both expectation and attention mechanisms can promote perceptual behavior, but it is still controversial on how they interact together and it is unclear on the role of expected subject in their interaction. This research explores the different influences of target expectation and distractor expectation on spatial attention effect through four experiments, by using a paradigm combined spatial cueing and visual search. The results show that: (1) when a target is expected, expectation and attention influenced performance in an interactive way; (2) when a distractor is expected, expectation and attention influenced performance in an independent way; (3) when a target is expected, the change of task difficulty caused by increasing the number of stimuli doesn’t affect the relationship between expectation and attention. This shows that whether spatial expectation affects spatial attentional effect depends on the expected subject——when a target is expected, expectation and attention affect perceptual behavior interactively; when a distractor is expected, expectation and attention affect perceptual behavior independently. Moreover, the relationship between expectation and attention is not influenced by task difficulty.

Key words: visual expectation, visual attention, spatial cue, visual search, peripheral cue