By approximately 6 years of age, children can use time-based visual selection to ignore stationary stimuli, already in the visual field and prioritize the selection of newly arriving stimuli. This ability can be studied using preview search, a version of the visual search paradigm with an added temporal component, in which one set of distractors is presented (previewed) before a second set that contains the target item. Preview search is more efficient than if all items are presented simultaneously, suggesting that temporally "old" objects can be ignored (the preview benefit). In two experiments, we examined the developmental trajectory for time-based visual selection in a sample of 192 6-, 8-, and 12-year-old children (49% female, predominantly White), with adults as controls (75% female, predominantly White), in the United Kingdom. The results showed an absence of the ability to ignore previewed moving distractors in 6-year-olds and confirmed its presence from 8 years of age. However, full development of this ability, which includes maintaining inhibition of previewed items over extended periods, was only present from the age of 12. Individual differences in executive functions, namely inhibition, were associated with preview search efficiency in 6-year-olds and adults. Overall, the results suggest a developmental trajectory in the ability to ignore moving old objects that occurs in two stages and develops later than the ability to ignore previewed stationary objects. The results are discussed in terms of underlying inhibitory mechanisms, in addition to individual differences in the expression of this ability.

Goal reflection can have a beneficial impact on hope and cognitive flexibility, potentially via processes proposed under the Broaden and Build Hypothesis (BBH). In the present study, a novel goal-oriented intervention was developed to explore its efficacy in improving state and trait hope, affect, and cognitive flexibility. Using a convergent mixed methods approach, 44 participants completed a seven-day diary intervention, recording/reflecting on goals daily, in addition to questionnaire and cognitive fluency measures pre- and post-intervention. The intervention elicited increased levels of state hope, trait agency, and task fluency with converging evidence from quantitative/qualitative data. These results suggest a dynamic interrelation between hope and cognitive flexibility.

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Human facial recognition in the context of surveillance, forensics and photo-ID verification is a task for which accuracy is critical. Quite often limitations in the overall quality of facial images reduces individuals' ability in taking decisions regarding a person's identity. To verify the suitability of advanced imaging techniques to improve individuals' performance in face matching we investigate how High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging compares with traditional low (or standard) dynamic range (LDR) imaging in a facial recognition task. An HDR face dataset with five different lighting conditions is created. Subsequently, this dataset is used in a controlled experiment (N = 40) to measure performance and accuracy of human participants when identifying faces in HDR versus LDR. Results demonstrate that face matching accuracy and reaction time are improved significantly by HDR imaging. This work demonstrates scope for realistic image reproduction and delivery in face matching tasks and suggests that security systems could benefit from the adoption of HDR imaging techniques.

Adults can ignore old and prioritize newly arriving visual stimuli, enabling optimal goal-directed search (visual marking; Watson & Humphreys, 1997). However, the ability to use time of appearance to enhance visual search is currently absent in work on attentional development in children. Experiment 1 examined children's (6-, 8-, and 12-year-olds) and adults' ability to ignore old and prioritize new stimuli and the relationship of this ability to executive functions. Experiment 2 examined whether the components involved in ignoring old items (encoding and maintenance) change across age, by presenting old stimuli for relatively short (500 ms), medium (1,000 ms) or long (1,500 ms) durations. On average, all age groups could ignore old items presented for 1,000 ms to some degree, however 25% of 6-year-olds were not able to prioritize new items effectively. No relationship was observed between the development of this ability and measures of executive function. On average, all age groups could ignore old items presented for short durations, however, 6-year-olds had difficulty ignoring stimuli presented for long durations. The findings suggest that the ability to ignore old items in order to prioritize search through new information is relatively weak in 6-year-olds, especially when ignoring items over longer durations. Furthermore, the findings indicate that the encoding and maintenance components involved in prioritizing new items might follow distinct developmental trajectories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Negative faces are detected more quickly but categorized more slowly than positive faces. Using a Simon task, we examined stimulus-and response-related processes of this dissociation: If negative stimuli are both processed and responded to more quickly than positive ones, they should elicit reduced Simon effects. Conversely, if negative stimuli are processed more quickly but responded to more slowly, enlarged Simon effects should occur. Consistent with the first possibility, negative stimuli showed reduced Simon effects. Unexpectedly, this reduction transferred to neutral stimuli (arrows and pointing hands) requiring the same response as negative faces. This pattern suggests that spatial attention became biased toward the side associated with a positive-face response and away from the side associated with a negative-face response, demonstrating that, similar to higher level cognitive decision processes, even early attentional processes can be subject to a positivity bias ("Pollyanna effect").

The visual marking mechanism (Watson & Humphreys, 1997) allows new objects to be prioritized by applying top-down inhibition to a set of previewed distractors, increasing the efficiency of future visual search. However, if this inhibition results in little or no search facilitation, do people continue to apply it or do they strategically withhold it? Here we present 6 experiments in which we examined how participants control this inhibitory mechanism. Experiments 1 to 3 showed that in difficult search contexts, participants did not modulate the extent to which they applied inhibition based on the proportion of trials in which inhibition would have been useful. This was the case, even when explicitly cued before each trial as to the utility of applying inhibition (Experiment 4). In contrast, when search was conducted in predominantly easy search contexts, there was some evidence that inhibition was applied strategically (Experiments 5 and 6); however, the extent of this control was relatively modest. The findings are discussed in terms of the mechanisms of top-down attentional control and implications for failures of attention in real-world contexts.

Facial stimuli have been shown to accrue a special status within visual processing, particularly when attention is prioritized to one face over another on the basis of affective content. This has been examined in relation to the ability of faces to guide or hold attention, or to resist attentional suppression. Previous work has shown that schematic faces can only be partially ignored and that the emotional valence of to-be-ignored faces has little effect. Given recent debates concerning the use of schematic faces, here we examined the ease with which photorealistic faces could be ignored. Although we found evidence of a partial preview benefit for these stimuli, the findings were complex, with stimulus salience, valence, and threat content interacting to affect both the strength of the benefit and target detection efficiency (Exps. 1–3). Experiment 4 then clarified the effects of physical salience and perceived stimulus similarity in the previous experiments, demonstrating that a combination of these factors is likely to account for the search patterns observed.

Visual search is facilitated when half of the distractors are presented in advance and can be actively inhibited – the preview benefit (Watson & Humphreys, 1997). We investigated the developmental course of this top-down inhibitory control by measuring the preview benefit in children of middle to late childhood. In order to evaluate whether this process followed a similar trajectory to more traditional measures of top-down cognitive control, children also completed executive function (EF) tasks assessing switching, inhibition (Shape-School Extended; Ellefson & Espy, 2005), and verbal/ spatial memory tests (Working Memory Test Battery for Children; Pickering & Gathercole, 2001). Our results show that a preview benefit is observed at small display sizes for 6 and 8 year old children, but that it is not present at larger display sizes. The preview benefit emerges fully in 12 year-old children at all display sizes. Children of all age groups searched baseline single feature, conjunction and preview search tasks more slowly than adults and produced more errors. Both the response times and the number of errors decreased with age. None of the EF measures correlated with the strength of the preview benefit. This suggests that: a) top-down inhibition does not develop until late childhood, b) preview search at small display sizes is mediated by different processes than at large display sizes, and c) top-down inhibition applied in time-based visual selection is different from inhibition during search, and from inhibition measured by current EF tasks. Overall, these results show that the attentional mechanisms involved in inhibitory time-based selection develop over the age range of 8 to 12 years. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2014

The deployment of visual attention to faces has been studied extensively in traditional lab-based experiments over the past thirty years. Despite the breadth of knowledge gained from these studies, little is known about how people behave outside the laboratory in this domain. For example, are faces attended to in the same way during complex real-world interactions as in lab-based studies, where faces are normally static, isolated, and devoid of social context? Here, we recorded fixations made by five observers taking part in a real transaction in a social setting (e.g., buying a coffee or snack), as part of a mobile eye-tracking task on the UBC campus (Foulsham, Walker and Kingstone, 2011). We analysed fixations to the five most relevant faces, defined by proximity, distinctiveness from the background (i.e., where crowds were viewed) and task relevance, for each recording. In a second experiment, we compared these to fixations made by 16 new observers watching videos of the transactions in a lab setting. Fixations to relevant face stimuli were more frequent in lab-based viewing conditions (17%), than in the real-world condition (13%). Moreover in lab-based viewing, there was a strong bias (47% of fixations) towards the faces of those most important to the transaction (e.g., baristas or shop assistants) compared to bystanders within the scene (25%, for real world observers). This study is among the first to investigate attention to faces in realistic situations, and the findings are explored with reference to conventions of social interaction and personality traits/interactional dispositions of the lab-based observers. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2012

Six experiments examined the influence of emotional valence on the tagging and enumeration of multiple targets. Experiments 1, 5 and 6 found that there was no difference in the efficiency of tagging/enumerating multiple negative or positive stimuli. Experiment 2 showed that, when neutral-expression face distractors were present, enumerating negative targets was faster overall, but was only more efficient for small numbers of targets. Experiments 3 and 4 determined that this negative target advantage was most likely caused by increased attentional guidance to negatively-valenced stimuli and was not based on simple visual feature differences. The findings suggest that a multiple-target negative stimulus advantage will only occur under conditions of attentional competition, and for relatively small numbers of targets. The results are discussed in relation to theories of multiple- and single-item processing, threat-priority mechanisms, and the types of representations that support different attentional tasks.

It has been suggested that downward pointing triangles convey negative valence, perhaps because they mimic an underlying primitive feature present in negative facial expressions (Larson, Aronoff, and Stearns, 2007). Here, we test this proposition using a flanker interference paradigm in which participants indicated the valence of a central face target, presented between two adjacent distracters. Experiment 1 showed that, compared with face flankers, downward pointing triangles had little influence on responses to face targets. However, in Experiment 2, when attentional competition was increased between target and flankers, downward pointing triangles slowed responses to positively valenced face targets, and speeded them to negatively valenced targets, consistent with valence-based flanker compatibility effects. These findings provide converging evidence that simple geometric shapes may convey emotional valence.

Previous work has proposed that simple geometric shapes, carrying the features present within negative or threatening faces are especially effective at capturing or guiding attention. Here we test this account and provide converging evidence for a threat-based attentional advantage. Experiment 1 found that downward-pointing triangles continue to be detected more efficiently than upward-pointing triangles when: (i) both overall RT and search slope measures are obtained; and (ii) when the set size is varied and the stimuli are presented in random configurations. Experiment 2 tested and ruled out an alternative account of the selection advantage, based on differences between triangle shape consistencies with scene perspective cues. Overall, the data provide converging evidence that simple geometric shapes, which might be particularly important in providing emotional signals in faces, can also attract attention preferentially even when presented outside of a face context.

The de-prioritization of old (previewed) items already in the field enables increased search efficiency for new items in the preview search paradigm (Watson & Humphreys, 1997). This effect has been replicated using valenced schematic faces (Blagrove & Watson, submitted). Previous work shows that changes to old previewed items that are likely to be of behavioural relevance (e.g., shape changes made when the new items are added), cause the old items to re-compete for selection with the new items. In contrast, less behaviourally relevant changes (e.g., color or luminance changes) have no effect and the old items remain suppressed. Here we examined the effect of changes in emotional valence to old previewed items. Specifically, we compared the detection of a schematic face target (either positively or negatively valenced) in a Preview condition (neutral preview, changing to a valenced distractor set) with a Half Element Baseline (neutral distractors only) and Full Element Baseline (mixed valenced and neutral distractor set). A neutral to negative change in the valence of previewed faces (Experiment 1) saw the preview benefit abolished, with search efficiency impaired, relative to both baseline conditions. In contrast, a neutral to positive preview change (Experiment 2) demonstrated a partial preview benefit, where participants were more efficient than in the Full Element Baseline. This contrast across experiments was also reflected in the numerical strength of the Preview Benefit, via an index of Preview search efficiency (PEI) (Experiment 1: PEI=0.08; Experiment 2: PEI= 0.41). Overall, the findings show that ignoring a negative change in expression is more difficult than ignoring a positive change in expression, consistent with ecological considerations.