Strategic filtering within and between sensory modalities in tactile spatial attention
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1
Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Italy
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2
Università degli Studi di Verona, Italy
Spatial attention, a key mechanism mediating interactions between humans and the environment, relies on both stimulus-driven and top-down mechanisms. A wide literature investigates attentional processes by means of target-distracter discrimination tasks, primarily in the visual and, recently, in the tactile modality. Nevertheless, the effect exerted by a potential, yet absent, distracter has rarely been assessed. The present study focuses on this aspect of strategic attentional processes in the tactile modality. We suggest that, when an endogenous filtering mechanism is engaged to cope with potential distraction, this might result in a cost regardless of the actual presence of distracters. Here we introduce a novel approach, whereby we focus our analysis on distracter-free trials in a speeded tactile discrimination task. We present four experiments in which different manipulations of the contextual distracters, such as probability, task relevance, and sensory modality, were adopted. Results highlight a cost of a potentially distracting-context (i.e. higher reaction times) in no-distracter trials. The robustness of this effect is proven by its persistence across all contextual manipulations. Moreover, the cost of potential distraction in no-distracter trials is independent of the presence of a distracter in the previous trial, suggesting a general, rather than contingent, underlying mechanism for the strategic filtering of potential distraction in the human brain. Results are consistent with the hypothesis that a supramodal monitoring and filtering system is engaged whenever potential distraction is foreseen. Although its activation is indisputably beneficial when distraction occurs, it leads to robust costs when distraction is actually expected but currently absent.
Keywords:
Attention,
supramodal
Conference:
XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI), Palma, Mallorca, Spain, 25 Sep - 29 Sep, 2011.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Poster Sessions: Neurophysiology of Cognition and Attention
Citation:
Marini
F,
Chelazzi
L and
Maravita
A
(2011). Strategic filtering within and between sensory modalities in tactile spatial attention.
Conference Abstract:
XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI).
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2011.207.00467
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Received:
25 Nov 2011;
Published Online:
28 Nov 2011.
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Correspondence:
Mr. Francesco Marini, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy, francesco.pd@gmail.com