The processing of incoming sensory information relies on interacting mechanisms of sustained atte... more The processing of incoming sensory information relies on interacting mechanisms of sustained attention (the ability to focus attention and ignore irrelevant stimuli) and attentional capture (the ability of certain stimuli to reflexively attract one's attention). Being able to precisely predict what can capture attention when it is engaged in a demanding task is important both for understanding the nature of attention as a cognitive system and also for practical applications. While evidence indicates that exogenous capture, a mechanism previously understood to be automatic, can be eliminated while concurrently performing a demanding task, we reframe this phenomena within the theoretical framework of the 'attention set . Consequently, the specific prediction that cuing effects should reappear when dimensions of the cue overlap with those in the attention set (i.e., elements of the demanding task) was empirically tested and confirmed. Suggestions for further theoretical refinement and empirical testing are discussed.
As a ubiquitous trend in the cognitive development of children, the 'relational shift' accounts f... more As a ubiquitous trend in the cognitive development of children, the 'relational shift' accounts for a change in preference for absolute percepts towards a preference for relational percepts, and is observed across a wide variety of domains. Extensive evidence indicates that this prepotency for relational processing is also observed in how children process melodies. When recalling melodies, younger children typically recall more absolute pitch properties than older children, while the exact opposite occurs in older children. Using DORA (Discovery Of Relations by Analogy;, a domain-general symbolic-connectionist model of relation learning, we simulated the relational shift in melodic perception of children age 3-6 years based on an experiment by . DORA's performance matched the children's well, suggesting common developmental and perceptual mechanisms between the relational shift in melodic processing and the shift seen across other domains.
Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition, 2011
We explored whether the generalization of rules based on simple structures depends on attention. ... more We explored whether the generalization of rules based on simple structures depends on attention. Participants were exposed to a stream of artificial words that followed a simple syllabic structure (ABA or AAB), overlaid on a sequence of familiar noises. After passively listening, participants successfully recognized the individual words present in the stream among foils, and they were able to generalize the underlying word structure to new exemplars. Yet, when attention was diverted from the speech stream (by requiring participants to monitor the sequence of noises), recognition of the individual words fell dramatically irrespective of word structure, whereas generalization depended on stimulus structure. For structures based on vowel repetitions across nonadjacent syllables (ABA; Experiment 1), generalization was affected by attention. In contrast, for structures based on adjacent repetitions (AAB; Experiment 2), generalization capacity was unaffected by attention. This pattern of ...
The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2011
If people are shown a dynamic movie of an action such as kicking a soccer ball or hitting a tenni... more If people are shown a dynamic movie of an action such as kicking a soccer ball or hitting a tennis ball, they will respond to it faster if it requires the same effector. This standard congruency effect was reported to reverse when participants viewed static images of famous athletes not actually performing an action. It was suggested that the congruent response was inhibited because of a social contrast effect, based on an implied action, whereby responders viewed themselves as comparatively worse than the professional athlete. The present study recorded hand and foot responses when identifying static images of both famous and novice athletes in soccer and tennis. The action was either explicit or implied. In Experiment 1, a standard congruency effect was found for all images. In Experiment 2, when a response was based on the identity of the athlete rather than their expertise, the standard congruency effect was enhanced for images of novice athletes, but was eliminated for experts, suggesting a social contrast effect. Our study is the first to show that embodiment effects can be seen for implied and explicit action images of both novices and experts, and that static images are capable of eliciting priming effects associated with sport-relevant effector pairings.
The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2006
People often fail to consciously perceive visual events that are outside the focus of attention, ... more People often fail to consciously perceive visual events that are outside the focus of attention, a phenomenon referred to as inattentional blindness or IB (i.e., . Here, we investigated IB for words within and across sensory modalities (visually and auditorily) in order to assess whether dividing attention across different senses has the same consequences as dividing attention within an individual sensory modality. Participants were asked to monitor a rapid stream of pictures or sounds presented concurrently with task-irrelevant words (spoken or written). A word recognition test was used to measure the processing for unattended words compared to word recognition levels after explicitly monitoring the word stream. We were able to produce high levels of IB for visually and auditorily presented words under unimodal conditions (Experiment 1) as well as under crossmodal conditions (Experiment 2). A further manipulation revealed, however, that IB is less prevalent when attention is divided across modalities than within the same modality (Experiment 3). These findings are explained in terms of the attentional load hypothesis and suggest that, contrary to some claims, attention resources are to a certain extent shared across sensory modalities.
Background: Research has shown that crime concepts can activate attentional bias to Black faces. ... more Background: Research has shown that crime concepts can activate attentional bias to Black faces. This study investigates the possibility that some legal concepts hold similar implicit racial cues. Presumption of innocence instructions, a core legal principle specifically designed to eliminate bias, may instead serve as an implicit racial cue resulting in attentional bias.
The processing of incoming sensory information relies on interacting mechanisms of sustained atte... more The processing of incoming sensory information relies on interacting mechanisms of sustained attention (the ability to focus attention and ignore irrelevant stimuli) and attentional capture (the ability of certain stimuli to reflexively attract one's attention). Being able to precisely predict what can capture attention when it is engaged in a demanding task is important both for understanding the nature of attention as a cognitive system and also for practical applications. While evidence indicates that exogenous capture, a mechanism previously understood to be automatic, can be eliminated while concurrently performing a demanding task, we reframe this phenomena within the theoretical framework of the 'attention set . Consequently, the specific prediction that cuing effects should reappear when dimensions of the cue overlap with those in the attention set (i.e., elements of the demanding task) was empirically tested and confirmed. Suggestions for further theoretical refinement and empirical testing are discussed.
As a ubiquitous trend in the cognitive development of children, the 'relational shift' accounts f... more As a ubiquitous trend in the cognitive development of children, the 'relational shift' accounts for a change in preference for absolute percepts towards a preference for relational percepts, and is observed across a wide variety of domains. Extensive evidence indicates that this prepotency for relational processing is also observed in how children process melodies. When recalling melodies, younger children typically recall more absolute pitch properties than older children, while the exact opposite occurs in older children. Using DORA (Discovery Of Relations by Analogy;, a domain-general symbolic-connectionist model of relation learning, we simulated the relational shift in melodic perception of children age 3-6 years based on an experiment by . DORA's performance matched the children's well, suggesting common developmental and perceptual mechanisms between the relational shift in melodic processing and the shift seen across other domains.
Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition, 2011
We explored whether the generalization of rules based on simple structures depends on attention. ... more We explored whether the generalization of rules based on simple structures depends on attention. Participants were exposed to a stream of artificial words that followed a simple syllabic structure (ABA or AAB), overlaid on a sequence of familiar noises. After passively listening, participants successfully recognized the individual words present in the stream among foils, and they were able to generalize the underlying word structure to new exemplars. Yet, when attention was diverted from the speech stream (by requiring participants to monitor the sequence of noises), recognition of the individual words fell dramatically irrespective of word structure, whereas generalization depended on stimulus structure. For structures based on vowel repetitions across nonadjacent syllables (ABA; Experiment 1), generalization was affected by attention. In contrast, for structures based on adjacent repetitions (AAB; Experiment 2), generalization capacity was unaffected by attention. This pattern of ...
The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2011
If people are shown a dynamic movie of an action such as kicking a soccer ball or hitting a tenni... more If people are shown a dynamic movie of an action such as kicking a soccer ball or hitting a tennis ball, they will respond to it faster if it requires the same effector. This standard congruency effect was reported to reverse when participants viewed static images of famous athletes not actually performing an action. It was suggested that the congruent response was inhibited because of a social contrast effect, based on an implied action, whereby responders viewed themselves as comparatively worse than the professional athlete. The present study recorded hand and foot responses when identifying static images of both famous and novice athletes in soccer and tennis. The action was either explicit or implied. In Experiment 1, a standard congruency effect was found for all images. In Experiment 2, when a response was based on the identity of the athlete rather than their expertise, the standard congruency effect was enhanced for images of novice athletes, but was eliminated for experts, suggesting a social contrast effect. Our study is the first to show that embodiment effects can be seen for implied and explicit action images of both novices and experts, and that static images are capable of eliciting priming effects associated with sport-relevant effector pairings.
The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2006
People often fail to consciously perceive visual events that are outside the focus of attention, ... more People often fail to consciously perceive visual events that are outside the focus of attention, a phenomenon referred to as inattentional blindness or IB (i.e., . Here, we investigated IB for words within and across sensory modalities (visually and auditorily) in order to assess whether dividing attention across different senses has the same consequences as dividing attention within an individual sensory modality. Participants were asked to monitor a rapid stream of pictures or sounds presented concurrently with task-irrelevant words (spoken or written). A word recognition test was used to measure the processing for unattended words compared to word recognition levels after explicitly monitoring the word stream. We were able to produce high levels of IB for visually and auditorily presented words under unimodal conditions (Experiment 1) as well as under crossmodal conditions (Experiment 2). A further manipulation revealed, however, that IB is less prevalent when attention is divided across modalities than within the same modality (Experiment 3). These findings are explained in terms of the attentional load hypothesis and suggest that, contrary to some claims, attention resources are to a certain extent shared across sensory modalities.
Background: Research has shown that crime concepts can activate attentional bias to Black faces. ... more Background: Research has shown that crime concepts can activate attentional bias to Black faces. This study investigates the possibility that some legal concepts hold similar implicit racial cues. Presumption of innocence instructions, a core legal principle specifically designed to eliminate bias, may instead serve as an implicit racial cue resulting in attentional bias.
Uploads
Papers by Scott Sinnett