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From stimulus-driven to appraisal-driven attention: Towards differential effects of goal relevance and goal relatedness on attention? a
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Audric Mazzietti , Virginie Sellem & Olivier Koenig
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Laboratoire EMC, Université Lumière Lyon 2, Bron, France Published online: 06 Feb 2014.
To cite this article: Audric Mazzietti, Virginie Sellem & Olivier Koenig (2014): From stimulus-driven to appraisal-driven attention: Towards differential effects of goal relevance and goal relatedness on attention?, Cognition & Emotion, DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2014.884488 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2014.884488
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COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2014 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2014.884488
BRIEF REPORT From stimulus-driven to appraisal-driven attention: Towards differential effects of goal relevance and goal relatedness on attention?
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Audric Mazzietti, Virginie Sellem, and Olivier Koenig Laboratoire EMC, Université Lumière Lyon 2, Bron, France
The Component Process Model posits that attention is appraisal-driven rather than stimulus-driven and that the appraisal of relevance is of critical importance in such a mechanism. This means that any stimulus can attract attention or not depending on how relevant it is appraised. This hypothesis was tested in an implicit border similarity judgement task, in which thirsty participants were presented with bottles and vases that were respectively very relevant and weakly relevant to their goal to quench their thirst. These stimuli were also presented to quenched participants for whom none of the stimuli was relevant. The findings support the idea that our attention is more likely to be appraisal-driven than stimulus-driven, since bottles produced an attentional interference in thirsty participants only. It was also observed that, even if vases were judged weakly relevant by thirsty participants, they produced an attentional interference compared to empty stimuli, which was not the case in the quenched participants group. The concept of goal relatedness was proposed as an explanation for this result, and methodological implications were also discussed. Keywords: Goal relevance; Goal relatedness; Attention; Appraisal.
It is commonly admitted that our attention is preferentially deployed towards emotional events, because they are more likely to affect our survival. However, it seems more complicated to determine
which stimulus dimension is responsible for such a bias. Valence-specific conceptions posit a bottomup guidance of attention by negative stimuli only, whatever their level of negativity (Pratto & John,
Correspondence should be addressed to: Audric Mazzietti, Laboratoire EMC, Université Lumière Lyon 2, 5 Avenue Pierre Mendès France, 69676 Bron, France. E-mail: [email protected] We would like to thank Kevin Roche (EMC Lab) for helpful discussions during the elaboration of the experiment, and Dr François Osiurak for patient reviewing. This work was supported by the LABEX CORTEX [ANR-11-LABX-0042] of Université de Lyon within the programme “Investissements d’Avenir” [ANR-11-IDEX-0007] operated by the French National Research Agency (ANR). © 2014 Taylor & Francis
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1991), or a more specific guidance of attention by evolutionary-relevant threatening stimuli (Öhman, Flykt, & Esteves, 2001). Such a mechanism would be under the control of an evolved fear module (Öhman & Mineka, 2001), of which the main structure is the amygdala, and would be responsible for the fast, automatic and specific processing of negative or threatening stimuli. However, these views were heavily criticised by studies showing that highly arousing positive stimuli, such as erotic stimuli, also attract attention (e.g., Anderson, 2005). In addition, studies using event-related potentials, particularly the late positive potential, reported larger potentials for both positive and negative stimuli, compared to neutral ones, but also larger potentials for highly arousing stimuli compared to non-arousing ones (e.g., Lang & Bradley, 2010; Schupp et al., 2000). Similarly, valence non-specific amygdala activations were also observed (Anderson et al., 2003). It was therefore suggested that attention was guided in a bottom-up, valence non-specific way, by arousing stimuli (e.g., Schimmack, 2005). In line with this valence non-specific conception, and since arousal is known to be a marker of relevance (Bradley, Codispoti, Cuthbert, & Lang, 2001), an alternative view has been proposed within the framework of the Component Process Model (Scherer, 2001), which suggested a topdown guidance of attention by the appraisal, made by an individual in a particular situation, of the relevance of an event to his personal goals and needs. Indeed, it has been suggested that any stimulus may benefit from an increased attentional processing, provided it is appraised as relevant (Sander, Grandjean, & Scherer, 2005), and that the amygdala was rather a valence non-specific relevance detector than a fear detector (Sander, Grafman, & Zalla, 2003). In this perspective, valence non-specific attention captures by biologically relevant stimuli (e.g., infant and angry faces) were reported (Brosch, Sander, Pourtois, & Scherer, 2008; Brosch, Sander, & Scherer, 2007) and it was observed that the attentional processing of positive stimuli triggered the same neural patterns as the processing of negative ones (Brosch et al., 2008). In addition, some authors
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showed that induced goal relevance caused attentional biases towards goal-relevant stimuli and that such biases disappeared when the goal was fulfilled, that is, when the stimulus was not relevant anymore (Engelmann & Pessoa, 2007; Vogt, Lozo, Koster, & De Houwer, 2011). Manipulating physiological states such as hunger is also an interesting way to manipulate goal relevance because it allows inducing realistic goals and needs in participants, which is more ecological than manipulating goal relevance in an experimental situation (e.g., with a picture viewing paradigm). To our knowledge, only a few authors manipulated the relevance of food-related stimuli (e.g., chocolate) in order to show that such stimuli attract attention only when they are relevant, that is to say, only when they are presented to hungry participants (Kemps & Tiggemann, 2009; Tapper, Pothos, & Lawrence, 2010). However, using food-related stimuli such as chocolate also raises the issue of the confusion between “liking” and “wanting”, that is to say, the confusion between relevance and preferences. Indeed, food-related stimuli, particularly chocolate, have a strong hedonic connotation, so that such stimuli can attract attention without being relevant for a particular goal or need, but only because the individual likes them. A good way to solve this problem could be to manipulate thirst in the participants. Indeed, water does not have the hedonic connotation of food, since contrary to food or wine for instance, we drink it because we need it. It therefore remains a neutral stimulus until it becomes relevant for the individual who becomes thirsty. The goal of the present study was therefore to further test the hypothesis that attention is guided by the appraisal of goal relevance, and by manipulating the state of thirst of our participants. In the present study, thirsty and quenched participants performed an implicit border comparison task in which they were presented with pictures representing bottles, vases or empty stimuli. Thirst was induced prior to the task in half of the participants by eating pretzels, whereas the other half drank water. This induction process was inspired by Balcetis and Dunning (2010). Bottles were
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therefore expected to be judged very relevant and to provoke an attentional interference in the thirsty participants group only, whereas they were expected to be judged weakly relevant and not to provoke any attentional interference in the quenched participants group. Vases were expected to be judged weakly relevant and not to provoke any attentional interference in both groups. By manipulating the relevance of the same stimuli (i.e., bottles) between the two groups, we also aimed to show that attention is appraisal-driven rather than stimulus-driven. Finally, in order to separate the effect of the induced physiological state and the effect of the appraisal of relevance, we conducted a second analysis of our data, in which participants were sorted based on their ratings of relevance and not as a function of their original induction groups. By doing so, we aimed to further support the hypothesis that the participants’ attention was guided by their appraisal of relevance.
METHOD Participants Forty-eight voluntary students (16 men, mean age = 19.5, SD = 1.9) from the University of Lyon participated to the study. Participants had normal or corrected-to-normal vision.
Material The experiment was conducted on a 21 inch iMac, using Psyscope software (Macwhinney, Cohen, & Provost, 1997), in a soundproofed room. Stimuli A set of 20 pictures depicting bottles of water with no sticker, 20 pictures depicting vases and 20 empty pictures (white background) were built for the experiment. Bottles and vases were easily identifiable. All pictures were equated for luminance using a Minolta LS-110 photometer. Twelve pictures representing simple shapes (e.g., square, circle) were built for the training session. All
pictures were presented with a lower and an upper stripped border, with left or right stripes orientations, resulting in four possible border layouts (two congruent and two non-congruent). The four possible layouts were counterbalanced so as to be equally presented in each participant, and each border-by-stimulus combination was presented equally often among participants. Pictures and borders measured 8 × 12 cm and 1 × 12 cm, respectively, and participants were positioned 90 cm from the screen.
Design and procedure The experiment comprised two phases and instructions were displayed at the beginning of each phase. The whole experimental design is illustrated in Figure 1. Induction phase Participants completed a consent form in which they indicated how long it had been since they last drunk and how much they were thirsty. They responded on a nine-point scale, from 1: “I have drunk too much” to 9: “I am extremely thirsty”. The neutral point (5) corresponded to “I am not thirsty”. Then, instructions were displayed and participants performed the training session, in which they performed 24 trials of the border comparison task. In the training session, participants were given a sound feedback in case of a wrong response and the target remained until the right answer was provided. Then, participants were randomly assigned to one of the two experimental groups. In the quenched group, participants were proposed to drink as much water as they wanted. In the thirsty group, participants were presented a serve of pretzels and were asked to eat as much as they wanted. Participants then indicated their level of thirst on the scale and performed the task. Test phase Participants were randomly presented with 60 trials (20 bottles, 20 vases and 20 empty trials) of an implicit border comparison task (see Sander, COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2014
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Figure 1. Illustration of the experimental procedure. In the induction phase, participants either ate a serve of pretzels or drank water. During the test phase, participants performed 60 trials of an implicit border comparison task in which they were presented with bottles, vases and empty stimuli. Finally, in the rating phase, participants rated the relevance and the valence of one bottle and one vase on nine-point scales.
Koenig, Georgieff, Terra, & Franck, 2005). In each trial, a fixation spot (5 × 5 mm) appeared at the centre of the screen, during a random variable time (from 500 to 950 ms). Immediately, thereafter, the target stimulus appeared at the centre of the screen. Participants had to indicate as quickly as possible, by pressing the corresponding response button, if the lower and the upper borders of the picture were identical or not, irrespective of the content of the picture. Response buttons were counterbalanced among participants. The target remained on the screen until participants gave their response. Participants were told not to process the pictures, but rather to focus on their borders. Rating phase Immediately after the task was completed, participants saw again one bottle and one vase. In order to obtain comparable ratings, the same bottle and the same vase were presented to all participants. The two pictures were presented successively,
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randomly, without borders, in the same size as in the test phase. Participants could watch the picture as long as they wanted and then decided to access the rating scales by pressing a key. They were asked to rate the relevance and the valence of each picture. For the rating of relevance, participants indicated on a nine-point scale (from 1: “not at all” to 9: “extremely strongly”), to what extent the stimulus they were presented with could affect their goals and needs in the present situation. For the rating of valence, participants indicated on a nine-point scale (from 1: “very unpleasant” to 9: “very pleasant”), to what extent the stimulus they were presented with was “pleasant” or “unpleasant” for them in the present situation. The rating scales were presented randomly and remained on the screen until participant’s response.
Data analysis Two different analyses were performed. First, in order to test our main hypothesis that
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manipulating physiological states would modulate the relevance of our stimuli to our participants and consequently their performance in the task, we conserved the original induction groups from which the participants for whom the induction did not succeed (i.e., the participants who judged the bottles weakly relevant in the thirsty group and those who judged the bottles relevant in the quenched group) were excluded. This concerned six participants in each group and was probably due to the fact that, for ethical reasons, we could not force our participants to eat a lot of pretzels or to drink a defined quantity of water. Second, in order to further test the hypothesis that the appraisal of relevance would be predictive of the response times in the task, participants were sorted as a function of their ratings of relevance. Participants who judged the bottle relevant (>5 on the scale) were put in the thirsty group, whereas participants who judged the bottle weakly relevant ( .15. Reaction times for correct responses were filtered for outliers so as to exclude response times lying more than 2.5 SDs above or below the individual mean. This procedure excluded .20 in both cases. Logically, they did not respond differently for bottles trials (M = 1243 ms, SE = 124) than for vases trials (M = 1231 ms, SE = 108), F(1, 34) = .95, p = .34. The correlation that was calculated between the ratings of relevance and the response times of all participants revealed that the greater the difference of relevance between bottles and vases, the greater the attentional interference, r = .39, p < .05. Results are illustrated in Figure 2.
their ratings of relevance. As a consequence, participants in the thirsty group judged bottles very relevant and very positive, contrary to vases, which were judged weakly relevant (p < .0001) and neutral (p < .001). Surprisingly, even if participants in the quenched group judged bottles more relevant than vases (p < .05), both were in fact judged weakly relevant. This was confirmed by the fact that bottles were judged more relevant in the thirsty group than in the quenched group (p < .001), whereas no difference was found for vases (p = .16). Similarly, even if participants in the quenched group tended to judge bottles more positive than vases (p = .062), both were in fact judged neutral. This was confirmed by the fact that bottles were judged more positive in the thirsty group than in the quenched group (p < .01), whereas no difference was found for vases (p = .33). The mean ratings are reported in Table 1. An ANOVA was then performed on mean response times with stimulus type (bottle, vase, and empty) as within-subject factor and group (thirsty, quenched) as between-subject factor. This analysis revealed an interaction of the factors group and stimulus type was found, F(2, 92) = 5.04, p < .01, g2p = .10. Planned comparisons revealed that, in line with our hypothesis, participants in the thirsty group responded slower for bottles trials (M = 1340 ms, SE = 47) than for empty trials (M = 1196 ms, SE = 36), F(1, 46) = 16.38, p < .001, and responded slower for bottles trials than for vases trials (M = 1260 ms, SE = 39), F(1, 46) = 7.10, p < .01. Interestingly, they also responded slower for vases trials compared to Table 1. Mean ratings of relevance and valence for bottles
and vases as a function of the group (thirsty vs. quenched) Thirsty group
Second analysis Since our main hypothesis was that relevance would be predictive of the response times in the task, whatever the physiological state, we decided to perform the same analysis, with the difference that all participants were sorted as a function of
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Relevance SE Valence SE
Quenched group
Bottles
Vases
Bottles
Vases
7.1 .25 6.8 .37
1.4 .21 4.7 .20
3.6 .57 5.7 .27
2.8 .51 5.2 .33
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empty trials, F(1, 46) = 5.46, p < .05. On the opposite, participants in the quenched group responded slower neither for bottles trials nor for vases trials, compared to empty trials (M = 1210 ms, SE = 106), ps > .46 in both cases. Logically, they did not respond differently for bottles trials (M = 1217 ms, SE = 95) than for vases trials (M = 1231 ms, SE = 108), F(1, 46) = .20, p = .66. The correlation that was calculated between the ratings of relevance and the response times of all participants revealed that the greater the difference of relevance between bottles and vases, the greater the attentional interference, r = .37, p < .05.
DISCUSSION The aim of the present experiment was to support the hypothesis that the appraisal of relevance is responsible for the top-down guidance of attention. More precisely, our goal was to show that an initially weakly relevant, neutral stimulus (i.e., a bottle) that usually does not attract attention, can become relevant to a temporary goal (i.e., thirst) and provoke an attentional interference. In the first analysis of our data, the original induction groups were compared, and participants for whom the induction did not succeed were excluded. The analysis was then conducted on the 36 remaining participants. Results, which support our hypothesis, are as follow. In the quenched group, bottles were judged weakly relevant, as well as vases, and did not provoke any attentional interference compared to vases or empty stimuli. On the contrary, in the thirsty group, bottles were judged very relevant and provoked an attentional interference compared to vases (which were judged weakly relevant) and empty stimuli. Interestingly, even if vases were judged weakly relevant, they also provoked an attentional interference compared to empty stimuli. In the second analysis, all 48 participants (even those for whom the induction did not succeed) were regrouped as a function of their ratings of relevance. Results completely replicated those observed in the first analysis. Such findings are interesting because they further support the
hypothesis that the appraisal of relevance guided the participants’ attention. Indeed, relevance also guided the attention of the participants for whom the induction did not succeed, that is to say, whatever their physiological state. Such an idea is also supported by the fact that, as expected, in both analyses the ratings of relevance were predictive of the response times for goal-relevant stimuli (i.e., bottles), since when bottles were judged relevant, they produced an attentional interference, and when they were judged weakly relevant, no interference was observed. In addition, in both analyses, there was a significant correlation showing that the more relevant bottles were, the greater the interference they produced was as well. Nevertheless, the ratings of relevance were not predictive of all results since, even if vases were judged weakly relevant by all participants, they provoked an attentional interference compared to empty stimuli in the thirsty group. One could argue that this interference was caused by a difference of content, since empty stimuli contained nothing, contrary to vases. However, such an argument appears partly unsatisfying because, if it was the case, the same interference should have been observed in the quenched group too. It is also plausible that, without being goal-relevant, vases could have been goal-related. Goal relatedness refers to stimuli that possess a characteristic that is potentially relevant to a goal but that do not allow fulfilling it. In the present case, the bottle was relevant for thirsty individuals because it fulfils their goal to be quenched (by providing water), but it is probable that vases were goal-related rather than non-relevant because, even if they did not fulfil the participants’ goal, they contained something relevant for them (i.e., water). Such an interpretation seems consistent with previous findings (see Vogt, de Houwer, & Crombez, 2010 but also Vogt, de Houwer, & Moors, 2011), and would suggest that the detection of relevance is a rather continuous mechanism. However, one question still remains unanswered: why were vases judged almost nonrelevant if they were goal-related? This is probably due to the fact that ratings are self-reports that COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2014
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rather reflect the result of the entire appraisal process, that is, a sort of subjective feeling (Scherer, 2004) than the appraisal of relevance only. It is therefore plausible that vases initially attracted attention because they were judged potentially relevant and that during the appraisal process they were finally judged non-relevant. This is consistent with the concept of goal conduciveness, that appears later in the appraisal process. Indeed, bottles were relevant but also goal-conducive, since they allowed fulfilling the participants’ goal to quench their thirst, contrary to vases, which contain something relevant (i.e., water) but were not goal-conducive, since they did not allow fulfilling the participants’ goal (unless in critical situation one will not drink the water of a vase to quench his thirst). One of the limitations of our work is that we did not introduce nonrelevant stimuli (e.g., shoes) in the task, so that it is not possible to be sure that the interference provoked by vases can be interpreted as an effect of goal relatedness. Nevertheless this opens interesting perspectives for future investigations of the differential effects of goal relevance and goal relatedness. Another point that needs to be discussed is the extent to which affective or motivational processes are also reflected in the data. It is true that the timing of the paradigm we used is longer than the timing of attentional processes, so that other processes could be involved in the results. Concerning the involvement of affective processes, the Component Process Model (Scherer, 2001) posits that the appraisal of relevance, as well as the whole appraisal process, is an antecedent of emotion, so that the appraisal of relevance itself can be considered as an affective process, in that it is involved in the emergence of an emotion. We therefore believe that the effect of relevance we highlighted in the present study is to a certain extent an affective (more precisely a pre-affective) attentional process. Note that more affective appraisals such as intrinsic valence could also be involved in our results, since it is appraised earlier than relevance. However, in the present study we modulated the attentional interference produced by a unique stimulus as a function of its relevance,
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which means that no intrinsic feature of the stimulus was involved in the appearance of an interference. This strongly supports the idea that attention is appraisal-driven rather than stimulusdriven. Interestingly, such a conclusion is also consistent with the conception of a relevance detection mechanism that can be reduced neither to exogenous nor to endogenous attention (see Brosch, Pourtois, Sander, & Vuilleumier, 2011). Indeed, the attentional interference towards the same stimulus was modulated as function of its relevance, which is not consistent with stimulusdriven exogenous attention, and yet, this attentional interference was involuntary, since participants were told not to process the stimuli, which is not consistent with voluntary, goal-driven attention. Similarly, one could wonder to what extent motivational processes are also reflected in the data, since the timing of our task is compatible with their deployment. This interesting issue was already addressed in a previous work of our lab (Mazzietti & Koenig, 2014), in which the effect of relevance on motivation was investigated with an attentional detection task. It was observed that, the relevance-mediated effect of motivation on attention is valence specific and can be linked with approach/avoidance action tendencies. On the contrary, previous work using the same task as in the present study (Mazzietti, Sellem, & Koenig, submitted) revealed valence non-specific interferences by both positive and negative relevant stimuli, which suggest that no motivational processes were involved in the results. Indeed, if the detection of relevant events is thought to be valence nonspecific (Brosch et al., 2007, 2008; Sander, Grandjean, et al., 2005), responding to that event implies a specific directed reaction depending on the nature of the event (i.e., its valence). Finally, the present findings support the hypothesis that attention is appraisal-driven rather than stimulus-driven and provide elements showing that the appraisal of relevance is of critical importance in such a mechanism. The possible differential effect of goal relevance and goal relatedness observed also suggests an additive effect of the appraisals of goal relevance and goal conduciveness, which implies that the appraisal of
GOAL RELEVANCE AND ATTENTION
relevance could be multicomponential. This opens interesting perspectives that need to be addressed in futures investigations. Manuscript received 3 August Revised manuscript received 7 January Manuscript accepted 13 January First published online 5 February
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From stimulus-driven to appraisal-driven attention: Towards differential effects of goal relevance and goal relatedness on attention? a
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Audric Mazzietti , Virginie Sellem & Olivier Koenig
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Laboratoire EMC, Université Lumière Lyon 2, Bron, France Published online: 06 Feb 2014.
To cite this article: Audric Mazzietti, Virginie Sellem & Olivier Koenig (2014): From stimulus-driven to appraisal-driven attention: Towards differential effects of goal relevance and goal relatedness on attention?, Cognition & Emotion, DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2014.884488 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2014.884488
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COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2014 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2014.884488
BRIEF REPORT From stimulus-driven to appraisal-driven attention: Towards differential effects of goal relevance and goal relatedness on attention?
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Audric Mazzietti, Virginie Sellem, and Olivier Koenig Laboratoire EMC, Université Lumière Lyon 2, Bron, France
The Component Process Model posits that attention is appraisal-driven rather than stimulus-driven and that the appraisal of relevance is of critical importance in such a mechanism. This means that any stimulus can attract attention or not depending on how relevant it is appraised. This hypothesis was tested in an implicit border similarity judgement task, in which thirsty participants were presented with bottles and vases that were respectively very relevant and weakly relevant to their goal to quench their thirst. These stimuli were also presented to quenched participants for whom none of the stimuli was relevant. The findings support the idea that our attention is more likely to be appraisal-driven than stimulus-driven, since bottles produced an attentional interference in thirsty participants only. It was also observed that, even if vases were judged weakly relevant by thirsty participants, they produced an attentional interference compared to empty stimuli, which was not the case in the quenched participants group. The concept of goal relatedness was proposed as an explanation for this result, and methodological implications were also discussed. Keywords: Goal relevance; Goal relatedness; Attention; Appraisal.
It is commonly admitted that our attention is preferentially deployed towards emotional events, because they are more likely to affect our survival. However, it seems more complicated to determine
which stimulus dimension is responsible for such a bias. Valence-specific conceptions posit a bottomup guidance of attention by negative stimuli only, whatever their level of negativity (Pratto & John,
Correspondence should be addressed to: Audric Mazzietti, Laboratoire EMC, Université Lumière Lyon 2, 5 Avenue Pierre Mendès France, 69676 Bron, France. E-mail: [email protected] We would like to thank Kevin Roche (EMC Lab) for helpful discussions during the elaboration of the experiment, and Dr François Osiurak for patient reviewing. This work was supported by the LABEX CORTEX [ANR-11-LABX-0042] of Université de Lyon within the programme “Investissements d’Avenir” [ANR-11-IDEX-0007] operated by the French National Research Agency (ANR). © 2014 Taylor & Francis
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1991), or a more specific guidance of attention by evolutionary-relevant threatening stimuli (Öhman, Flykt, & Esteves, 2001). Such a mechanism would be under the control of an evolved fear module (Öhman & Mineka, 2001), of which the main structure is the amygdala, and would be responsible for the fast, automatic and specific processing of negative or threatening stimuli. However, these views were heavily criticised by studies showing that highly arousing positive stimuli, such as erotic stimuli, also attract attention (e.g., Anderson, 2005). In addition, studies using event-related potentials, particularly the late positive potential, reported larger potentials for both positive and negative stimuli, compared to neutral ones, but also larger potentials for highly arousing stimuli compared to non-arousing ones (e.g., Lang & Bradley, 2010; Schupp et al., 2000). Similarly, valence non-specific amygdala activations were also observed (Anderson et al., 2003). It was therefore suggested that attention was guided in a bottom-up, valence non-specific way, by arousing stimuli (e.g., Schimmack, 2005). In line with this valence non-specific conception, and since arousal is known to be a marker of relevance (Bradley, Codispoti, Cuthbert, & Lang, 2001), an alternative view has been proposed within the framework of the Component Process Model (Scherer, 2001), which suggested a topdown guidance of attention by the appraisal, made by an individual in a particular situation, of the relevance of an event to his personal goals and needs. Indeed, it has been suggested that any stimulus may benefit from an increased attentional processing, provided it is appraised as relevant (Sander, Grandjean, & Scherer, 2005), and that the amygdala was rather a valence non-specific relevance detector than a fear detector (Sander, Grafman, & Zalla, 2003). In this perspective, valence non-specific attention captures by biologically relevant stimuli (e.g., infant and angry faces) were reported (Brosch, Sander, Pourtois, & Scherer, 2008; Brosch, Sander, & Scherer, 2007) and it was observed that the attentional processing of positive stimuli triggered the same neural patterns as the processing of negative ones (Brosch et al., 2008). In addition, some authors
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showed that induced goal relevance caused attentional biases towards goal-relevant stimuli and that such biases disappeared when the goal was fulfilled, that is, when the stimulus was not relevant anymore (Engelmann & Pessoa, 2007; Vogt, Lozo, Koster, & De Houwer, 2011). Manipulating physiological states such as hunger is also an interesting way to manipulate goal relevance because it allows inducing realistic goals and needs in participants, which is more ecological than manipulating goal relevance in an experimental situation (e.g., with a picture viewing paradigm). To our knowledge, only a few authors manipulated the relevance of food-related stimuli (e.g., chocolate) in order to show that such stimuli attract attention only when they are relevant, that is to say, only when they are presented to hungry participants (Kemps & Tiggemann, 2009; Tapper, Pothos, & Lawrence, 2010). However, using food-related stimuli such as chocolate also raises the issue of the confusion between “liking” and “wanting”, that is to say, the confusion between relevance and preferences. Indeed, food-related stimuli, particularly chocolate, have a strong hedonic connotation, so that such stimuli can attract attention without being relevant for a particular goal or need, but only because the individual likes them. A good way to solve this problem could be to manipulate thirst in the participants. Indeed, water does not have the hedonic connotation of food, since contrary to food or wine for instance, we drink it because we need it. It therefore remains a neutral stimulus until it becomes relevant for the individual who becomes thirsty. The goal of the present study was therefore to further test the hypothesis that attention is guided by the appraisal of goal relevance, and by manipulating the state of thirst of our participants. In the present study, thirsty and quenched participants performed an implicit border comparison task in which they were presented with pictures representing bottles, vases or empty stimuli. Thirst was induced prior to the task in half of the participants by eating pretzels, whereas the other half drank water. This induction process was inspired by Balcetis and Dunning (2010). Bottles were
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therefore expected to be judged very relevant and to provoke an attentional interference in the thirsty participants group only, whereas they were expected to be judged weakly relevant and not to provoke any attentional interference in the quenched participants group. Vases were expected to be judged weakly relevant and not to provoke any attentional interference in both groups. By manipulating the relevance of the same stimuli (i.e., bottles) between the two groups, we also aimed to show that attention is appraisal-driven rather than stimulus-driven. Finally, in order to separate the effect of the induced physiological state and the effect of the appraisal of relevance, we conducted a second analysis of our data, in which participants were sorted based on their ratings of relevance and not as a function of their original induction groups. By doing so, we aimed to further support the hypothesis that the participants’ attention was guided by their appraisal of relevance.
METHOD Participants Forty-eight voluntary students (16 men, mean age = 19.5, SD = 1.9) from the University of Lyon participated to the study. Participants had normal or corrected-to-normal vision.
Material The experiment was conducted on a 21 inch iMac, using Psyscope software (Macwhinney, Cohen, & Provost, 1997), in a soundproofed room. Stimuli A set of 20 pictures depicting bottles of water with no sticker, 20 pictures depicting vases and 20 empty pictures (white background) were built for the experiment. Bottles and vases were easily identifiable. All pictures were equated for luminance using a Minolta LS-110 photometer. Twelve pictures representing simple shapes (e.g., square, circle) were built for the training session. All
pictures were presented with a lower and an upper stripped border, with left or right stripes orientations, resulting in four possible border layouts (two congruent and two non-congruent). The four possible layouts were counterbalanced so as to be equally presented in each participant, and each border-by-stimulus combination was presented equally often among participants. Pictures and borders measured 8 × 12 cm and 1 × 12 cm, respectively, and participants were positioned 90 cm from the screen.
Design and procedure The experiment comprised two phases and instructions were displayed at the beginning of each phase. The whole experimental design is illustrated in Figure 1. Induction phase Participants completed a consent form in which they indicated how long it had been since they last drunk and how much they were thirsty. They responded on a nine-point scale, from 1: “I have drunk too much” to 9: “I am extremely thirsty”. The neutral point (5) corresponded to “I am not thirsty”. Then, instructions were displayed and participants performed the training session, in which they performed 24 trials of the border comparison task. In the training session, participants were given a sound feedback in case of a wrong response and the target remained until the right answer was provided. Then, participants were randomly assigned to one of the two experimental groups. In the quenched group, participants were proposed to drink as much water as they wanted. In the thirsty group, participants were presented a serve of pretzels and were asked to eat as much as they wanted. Participants then indicated their level of thirst on the scale and performed the task. Test phase Participants were randomly presented with 60 trials (20 bottles, 20 vases and 20 empty trials) of an implicit border comparison task (see Sander, COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2014
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Figure 1. Illustration of the experimental procedure. In the induction phase, participants either ate a serve of pretzels or drank water. During the test phase, participants performed 60 trials of an implicit border comparison task in which they were presented with bottles, vases and empty stimuli. Finally, in the rating phase, participants rated the relevance and the valence of one bottle and one vase on nine-point scales.
Koenig, Georgieff, Terra, & Franck, 2005). In each trial, a fixation spot (5 × 5 mm) appeared at the centre of the screen, during a random variable time (from 500 to 950 ms). Immediately, thereafter, the target stimulus appeared at the centre of the screen. Participants had to indicate as quickly as possible, by pressing the corresponding response button, if the lower and the upper borders of the picture were identical or not, irrespective of the content of the picture. Response buttons were counterbalanced among participants. The target remained on the screen until participants gave their response. Participants were told not to process the pictures, but rather to focus on their borders. Rating phase Immediately after the task was completed, participants saw again one bottle and one vase. In order to obtain comparable ratings, the same bottle and the same vase were presented to all participants. The two pictures were presented successively,
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randomly, without borders, in the same size as in the test phase. Participants could watch the picture as long as they wanted and then decided to access the rating scales by pressing a key. They were asked to rate the relevance and the valence of each picture. For the rating of relevance, participants indicated on a nine-point scale (from 1: “not at all” to 9: “extremely strongly”), to what extent the stimulus they were presented with could affect their goals and needs in the present situation. For the rating of valence, participants indicated on a nine-point scale (from 1: “very unpleasant” to 9: “very pleasant”), to what extent the stimulus they were presented with was “pleasant” or “unpleasant” for them in the present situation. The rating scales were presented randomly and remained on the screen until participant’s response.
Data analysis Two different analyses were performed. First, in order to test our main hypothesis that
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manipulating physiological states would modulate the relevance of our stimuli to our participants and consequently their performance in the task, we conserved the original induction groups from which the participants for whom the induction did not succeed (i.e., the participants who judged the bottles weakly relevant in the thirsty group and those who judged the bottles relevant in the quenched group) were excluded. This concerned six participants in each group and was probably due to the fact that, for ethical reasons, we could not force our participants to eat a lot of pretzels or to drink a defined quantity of water. Second, in order to further test the hypothesis that the appraisal of relevance would be predictive of the response times in the task, participants were sorted as a function of their ratings of relevance. Participants who judged the bottle relevant (>5 on the scale) were put in the thirsty group, whereas participants who judged the bottle weakly relevant ( .15. Reaction times for correct responses were filtered for outliers so as to exclude response times lying more than 2.5 SDs above or below the individual mean. This procedure excluded .20 in both cases. Logically, they did not respond differently for bottles trials (M = 1243 ms, SE = 124) than for vases trials (M = 1231 ms, SE = 108), F(1, 34) = .95, p = .34. The correlation that was calculated between the ratings of relevance and the response times of all participants revealed that the greater the difference of relevance between bottles and vases, the greater the attentional interference, r = .39, p < .05. Results are illustrated in Figure 2.
their ratings of relevance. As a consequence, participants in the thirsty group judged bottles very relevant and very positive, contrary to vases, which were judged weakly relevant (p < .0001) and neutral (p < .001). Surprisingly, even if participants in the quenched group judged bottles more relevant than vases (p < .05), both were in fact judged weakly relevant. This was confirmed by the fact that bottles were judged more relevant in the thirsty group than in the quenched group (p < .001), whereas no difference was found for vases (p = .16). Similarly, even if participants in the quenched group tended to judge bottles more positive than vases (p = .062), both were in fact judged neutral. This was confirmed by the fact that bottles were judged more positive in the thirsty group than in the quenched group (p < .01), whereas no difference was found for vases (p = .33). The mean ratings are reported in Table 1. An ANOVA was then performed on mean response times with stimulus type (bottle, vase, and empty) as within-subject factor and group (thirsty, quenched) as between-subject factor. This analysis revealed an interaction of the factors group and stimulus type was found, F(2, 92) = 5.04, p < .01, g2p = .10. Planned comparisons revealed that, in line with our hypothesis, participants in the thirsty group responded slower for bottles trials (M = 1340 ms, SE = 47) than for empty trials (M = 1196 ms, SE = 36), F(1, 46) = 16.38, p < .001, and responded slower for bottles trials than for vases trials (M = 1260 ms, SE = 39), F(1, 46) = 7.10, p < .01. Interestingly, they also responded slower for vases trials compared to Table 1. Mean ratings of relevance and valence for bottles
and vases as a function of the group (thirsty vs. quenched) Thirsty group
Second analysis Since our main hypothesis was that relevance would be predictive of the response times in the task, whatever the physiological state, we decided to perform the same analysis, with the difference that all participants were sorted as a function of
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Relevance SE Valence SE
Quenched group
Bottles
Vases
Bottles
Vases
7.1 .25 6.8 .37
1.4 .21 4.7 .20
3.6 .57 5.7 .27
2.8 .51 5.2 .33
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empty trials, F(1, 46) = 5.46, p < .05. On the opposite, participants in the quenched group responded slower neither for bottles trials nor for vases trials, compared to empty trials (M = 1210 ms, SE = 106), ps > .46 in both cases. Logically, they did not respond differently for bottles trials (M = 1217 ms, SE = 95) than for vases trials (M = 1231 ms, SE = 108), F(1, 46) = .20, p = .66. The correlation that was calculated between the ratings of relevance and the response times of all participants revealed that the greater the difference of relevance between bottles and vases, the greater the attentional interference, r = .37, p < .05.
DISCUSSION The aim of the present experiment was to support the hypothesis that the appraisal of relevance is responsible for the top-down guidance of attention. More precisely, our goal was to show that an initially weakly relevant, neutral stimulus (i.e., a bottle) that usually does not attract attention, can become relevant to a temporary goal (i.e., thirst) and provoke an attentional interference. In the first analysis of our data, the original induction groups were compared, and participants for whom the induction did not succeed were excluded. The analysis was then conducted on the 36 remaining participants. Results, which support our hypothesis, are as follow. In the quenched group, bottles were judged weakly relevant, as well as vases, and did not provoke any attentional interference compared to vases or empty stimuli. On the contrary, in the thirsty group, bottles were judged very relevant and provoked an attentional interference compared to vases (which were judged weakly relevant) and empty stimuli. Interestingly, even if vases were judged weakly relevant, they also provoked an attentional interference compared to empty stimuli. In the second analysis, all 48 participants (even those for whom the induction did not succeed) were regrouped as a function of their ratings of relevance. Results completely replicated those observed in the first analysis. Such findings are interesting because they further support the
hypothesis that the appraisal of relevance guided the participants’ attention. Indeed, relevance also guided the attention of the participants for whom the induction did not succeed, that is to say, whatever their physiological state. Such an idea is also supported by the fact that, as expected, in both analyses the ratings of relevance were predictive of the response times for goal-relevant stimuli (i.e., bottles), since when bottles were judged relevant, they produced an attentional interference, and when they were judged weakly relevant, no interference was observed. In addition, in both analyses, there was a significant correlation showing that the more relevant bottles were, the greater the interference they produced was as well. Nevertheless, the ratings of relevance were not predictive of all results since, even if vases were judged weakly relevant by all participants, they provoked an attentional interference compared to empty stimuli in the thirsty group. One could argue that this interference was caused by a difference of content, since empty stimuli contained nothing, contrary to vases. However, such an argument appears partly unsatisfying because, if it was the case, the same interference should have been observed in the quenched group too. It is also plausible that, without being goal-relevant, vases could have been goal-related. Goal relatedness refers to stimuli that possess a characteristic that is potentially relevant to a goal but that do not allow fulfilling it. In the present case, the bottle was relevant for thirsty individuals because it fulfils their goal to be quenched (by providing water), but it is probable that vases were goal-related rather than non-relevant because, even if they did not fulfil the participants’ goal, they contained something relevant for them (i.e., water). Such an interpretation seems consistent with previous findings (see Vogt, de Houwer, & Crombez, 2010 but also Vogt, de Houwer, & Moors, 2011), and would suggest that the detection of relevance is a rather continuous mechanism. However, one question still remains unanswered: why were vases judged almost nonrelevant if they were goal-related? This is probably due to the fact that ratings are self-reports that COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2014
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rather reflect the result of the entire appraisal process, that is, a sort of subjective feeling (Scherer, 2004) than the appraisal of relevance only. It is therefore plausible that vases initially attracted attention because they were judged potentially relevant and that during the appraisal process they were finally judged non-relevant. This is consistent with the concept of goal conduciveness, that appears later in the appraisal process. Indeed, bottles were relevant but also goal-conducive, since they allowed fulfilling the participants’ goal to quench their thirst, contrary to vases, which contain something relevant (i.e., water) but were not goal-conducive, since they did not allow fulfilling the participants’ goal (unless in critical situation one will not drink the water of a vase to quench his thirst). One of the limitations of our work is that we did not introduce nonrelevant stimuli (e.g., shoes) in the task, so that it is not possible to be sure that the interference provoked by vases can be interpreted as an effect of goal relatedness. Nevertheless this opens interesting perspectives for future investigations of the differential effects of goal relevance and goal relatedness. Another point that needs to be discussed is the extent to which affective or motivational processes are also reflected in the data. It is true that the timing of the paradigm we used is longer than the timing of attentional processes, so that other processes could be involved in the results. Concerning the involvement of affective processes, the Component Process Model (Scherer, 2001) posits that the appraisal of relevance, as well as the whole appraisal process, is an antecedent of emotion, so that the appraisal of relevance itself can be considered as an affective process, in that it is involved in the emergence of an emotion. We therefore believe that the effect of relevance we highlighted in the present study is to a certain extent an affective (more precisely a pre-affective) attentional process. Note that more affective appraisals such as intrinsic valence could also be involved in our results, since it is appraised earlier than relevance. However, in the present study we modulated the attentional interference produced by a unique stimulus as a function of its relevance,
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which means that no intrinsic feature of the stimulus was involved in the appearance of an interference. This strongly supports the idea that attention is appraisal-driven rather than stimulusdriven. Interestingly, such a conclusion is also consistent with the conception of a relevance detection mechanism that can be reduced neither to exogenous nor to endogenous attention (see Brosch, Pourtois, Sander, & Vuilleumier, 2011). Indeed, the attentional interference towards the same stimulus was modulated as function of its relevance, which is not consistent with stimulusdriven exogenous attention, and yet, this attentional interference was involuntary, since participants were told not to process the stimuli, which is not consistent with voluntary, goal-driven attention. Similarly, one could wonder to what extent motivational processes are also reflected in the data, since the timing of our task is compatible with their deployment. This interesting issue was already addressed in a previous work of our lab (Mazzietti & Koenig, 2014), in which the effect of relevance on motivation was investigated with an attentional detection task. It was observed that, the relevance-mediated effect of motivation on attention is valence specific and can be linked with approach/avoidance action tendencies. On the contrary, previous work using the same task as in the present study (Mazzietti, Sellem, & Koenig, submitted) revealed valence non-specific interferences by both positive and negative relevant stimuli, which suggest that no motivational processes were involved in the results. Indeed, if the detection of relevant events is thought to be valence nonspecific (Brosch et al., 2007, 2008; Sander, Grandjean, et al., 2005), responding to that event implies a specific directed reaction depending on the nature of the event (i.e., its valence). Finally, the present findings support the hypothesis that attention is appraisal-driven rather than stimulus-driven and provide elements showing that the appraisal of relevance is of critical importance in such a mechanism. The possible differential effect of goal relevance and goal relatedness observed also suggests an additive effect of the appraisals of goal relevance and goal conduciveness, which implies that the appraisal of
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relevance could be multicomponential. This opens interesting perspectives that need to be addressed in futures investigations. Manuscript received 3 August Revised manuscript received 7 January Manuscript accepted 13 January First published online 5 February
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