Jay Pratt

Playing an Action Video Game Reduces Gender Differences in Spatial Cognition

We demonstrate a previously unknown gender difference in the distribution of spatial attention, a basic capacity that supports higher-level spatial cognition. More remarkably, we found that playing an action video game can virtually eliminate this gender difference in spatial attention and simultaneously decrease the gender disparity in mental rotation ability, a higher-level process in spatial cognition. After only 10 hr of training with an action video game, subjects realized substantial gains in both spatial attention and mental rotation, with women benefiting more than men. Control subjects who played a non-action game showed no improvement. Given that superior spatial skills are important in the mathematical and engineering sciences, these findings have practical implications for attracting men and women to these fields.

Perceiving numbers causes spatial shifts of attention

Number symbols are part of our everyday visual world. Here we show that merely looking at numbers causes a shift in covert attention to the left or right side, depending upon the numbers magnitude. This observation implies obligatory activation of number meaning and signals a tight coupling of internal and external representations of space.

Symbolic Control of Visual Attention

The present study reports four pairs of experiments that examined the role of nonpredictive (i.e., task-irrelevant) symbolic stimuli on attentional orienting. The experiments involved a simple detection task, an inhibition of return (IOR) task, and choice decision tasks both with and without attentional bias. Each pair of experiments included one experiment in which nonpredictive arrows were presented at the central fixation location and another experiment in which non-predictive direction words (e.g., “up,” “down,” “left,” “right”) were presented. The nonpredictive symbolic stimuli affected responses in all experiments, with the words producing greater effects in the detection task and the arrows producing greater effects in the IOR and choice decision tasks. Overall, the present findings indicate that there is a strong connection between the overlearned representations of the meaning of communicative symbols and the reflexive orienting of visual attention.

Rapid aimed limb movements: Age differences and practice effects in component submovements.

Two experiments are reported in which younger and older adults practiced rapid aimed limb movements toward a visible target region. Ss were instructed to make the movements as rapidly and as accurately as possible. Kinematic details of the movements were examined to assess the differences in component submovements between the 2 groups and to identify changes in the movements due to practice. The results revealed that older Ss produced initial ballistic submovements that had the same duration but traveled less far than those of younger Ss. Additionally, older Ss produced corrective secondary submovements that were longer in both duration and distance than those of the younger subjects. With practice, younger Ss modified their submovements, but older Ss did not modify theirs even after extensive practice on the task. The results show that the mechanisms underlying movements of older adults are qualitatively different from those in younger adults.

Inhibition of return is composed of attentional and oculomotor processes.

Response time can be delayed if a target stimulus appears at a location or object that was previously cued. This inhibition of return (IOR) phenomenon has been attributed to a delay in activating attentional or motor processes to a previously cued stimulus. Two experiments required subjects to localize or identify a target stimulus. In Experiment 1, the subjects’ eyes were not monitored. In Experiment 2, the subjects’ eyes were monitored, and the subjects were instructed to either execute or withhold an eye movement to a target stimulus. The results indicated that IOR was always present for location and identification responses, supporting an attentional account of IOR. However, IOR was larger when eye movements were executed, indicating that a motor component can contribute to IOR. Finally, when eye movements were withheld, IOR was larger when a target was presented alone than when it was presented with a distractor, suggesting that IOR is larger for exogenous than for endogenous covert orienting. Together, the data indicate that IOR is composed of both an oculomotor component and an attentional component.

The Spatial Distribution of Inhibition of Return

Inhibition of return (IOR) refers to the finding that response times (RTs) are typically slower for targets at previously attended (cued) locations than for targets at novel (uncued) locations. Although previous research has indicated that IOR may spread beyond a cued location, the present study is the first to examine the spatial distribution of IOR with high spatial resolution over a large portion of the central visual field. This was done by using a typical IOR procedure (cue, delay, target) with 4 cue locations and 441 target locations (each separated by 1° of visual angle). The results indicate that IOR spreads beyond the cued location to affect the cued hemifield. However, the cues also produced a gradient of RTs throughout the visual field, with inhibition in the cued hemifield gradually giving way to facilitation in the hemifield opposite the cue.

Inhibition of return in location- and identity-based choice decision tasks

Three experiments were conducted to determine whether inhibition of return can be best characterized as an attentional or a motor phenomenon. In the first experiment, subjects made choice key-press responses to the location of a target (left or right) or the identity of the target (X or +) by pressing a left or right response key. In the second experiment, the display was rotated 90° so that there was no direct spatial mapping between the vertically aligned stimulus display and the horizontally aligned response keys. In both experiments, inhibition of return was observed for location-based and identity-based choice responses, although more inhibition was seen in the identity-based responses. The results of the third experiment suggested that this larger inhibitory effect may be specific to the covert orienting of reflexive attention in response to the sudden appearance of a single peripheral stimulus in the identity tasks. Overall, the results are consistent with the attentional, not the motor, explanation of inhibition of return.

Time flies like an arrow: Space-time compatibility effects suggest the use of a mental timeline

The concept of time is elusive to direct observation, yet it pervades almost every aspect of our daily lives. How is time represented, given that it cannot be perceived directly? Metaphoric mapping theory assumes that abstract concepts such as time are represented in terms of concrete, readily available dimensions. Consistent with this, many languages employ spatial metaphors to describe temporal relations. Here we investigate whether the timeis-space metaphor also affects visuospatial attention. In a first experiment, subjects categorized the names of actors in a manner compatible or incompatible with the orientation of a timeline. In two further experiments, subjects categorized or detected left- or right-side targets following prospective or retrospective time words. All three experiments show compatibility effects between the dimensions of space (left-right) and time (earlier-later) and indicate that the concept of time does indeed evoke spatial associations that facilitate responses to targets at spatially compatible locations.

It’s Alive! Animate Motion Captures Visual Attention

Across humans’ evolutionary history, detecting animate entities in the visual field (such as prey and predators) has been critical for survival. One of the defining features of animals is their motion—self-propelled and self-directed. Does such animate motion capture visual attention? To answer this question, we compared the time to detect targets involving objects that were moving predictably as a result of collisions (inanimate motion) with the time to detect targets involving objects that were moving unpredictably, having been in no such collisions (animate motion). Across six experiments, we consistently found that targets involving objects that underwent animate motion were responded to more quickly than targets involving objects that underwent inanimate motion. Moreover, these speeded responses appeared to be due to the perceived animacy of the objects, rather than due to their uniqueness in the display or involvement of a top-down strategy. We conclude that animate motion does indeed capture visual attention.

Symbolic Control of Visual Attention: The Role of Working Memory and Attentional Control Settings

This study examined how 1 symbol is selected to control the allocation of attention when several symbols appear in the visual field. In Experiments 1-3, the critical target feature was color, and it was found that uninformative central arrows that matched the color of the target were selected and produced unintentional shifts of attention (i.e., involuntary, initiated slowly, producing long-lasting facilitatory effects). Experiment 4 tested whether such selection is the result of an attentional filter or of a competition bias due to a match of incoming information against integrated object representations stored in working memory. Here, the critical feature was shape and color was irrelevant, but matching color arrows were still selected. Thus, features of objects in working memory will bias the selection of symbols in the visual field, and such selected symbols are capable of producing unintentional shifts of attention. ((c) 2003 APA, all rights reserved)