Investigating the role of verbal templates in contingent capture by color

Abstract

To investigate if top-down contingent capture by color cues relies on verbal or semantic templates, we combined different stimuli representing colors physically or semantically in six contingent-capture experiments. In contingent capture, only cues that match the top-down search templates lead to validity effects (shorter search times and fewer errors for validly than for invalidly cued targets) resulting from attentional capture by the cue. We compared validity effects of color cues and color-word cues in top-down search for color targets (Experiment 1a) and color-word targets (Experiment 2). We also compared validity effects of color cues and color-associated symbolic cues during search for color targets (Experiment 1b) and of color-word cues during search for both color and color-word targets (Experiment 3). Only cues of the same stimulus category as the target (either color or color-word cues) captured attention. This makes it unlikely that color search is based on verbal or semantic search templates. Additionally, the validity effect of matching color-word cues during search for color-word targets was neither changed by cue-target graphic (font) similarity versus dissimilarity (Experiment 4) nor by articulatory suppression (Experiment 5). These results suggested either a phonological long-term memory template or an orthographically mediated effect of the color-word cues during search for color-words. Altogether, our findings are in line with a pronounced role of color-based templates during contingent capture by color and do not support semantic or verbal influences in this situation.

Keywords: Attention capture; Color; Contingent capture; Search templates.

Fig. 1

Exemplary trial(s) of Experiment 1a. The target is the green ring in the rightmost box (the target remained either green or blue, varied between participants, throughout the whole experiment). Two different cue versions are displayed in the boxes second from left: valid nonmatching color-ring cue (top); invalid matching color-word cue (bottom). In the experiment, German words were used. The arrows depict the flow of time. Stimuli are not drawn to scale. (Color figure online)

Fig. 2

Experiment 1a: Mean correct reaction times (in ms) for color-ring cues (upper panels) and color-word cues (lower panels) depending on stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA), cue match, and validity. Error bars represent average standard errors

Fig. 3

Experiment 1a: Mean accuracy rates in percentages for color-ring cues (upper panels) and color-word cues (lower panels) depending on stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA), cue match, and validity. Error bars represent average standard errors

Fig. 4

Exemplary trial(s) of Experiment 1b. The target is the red ring in the rightmost box (the target remained either red or yellow, varied between participants, throughout the whole experiment). Two different cue versions are displayed in the boxes second from left: valid matching color-ring cue (top); invalid nonmatching symbolic cue (bottom). The arrows depict the flow of time. Stimuli are not drawn to scale. (Color figure online)

Fig. 5

Experiment 1b: Mean correct reaction times (in ms) for color-ring cues (upper panels) and symbolic cues (lower panels) depending on stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA), cue match, and validity. Error bars represent average standard errors

Fig. 6

Experiment 1b: Mean accuracy rates in percentages for color-ring cues (upper panels) and symbolic cues (lower panels) depending on stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA), cue match, and validity. Error bars represent average standard errors

Fig. 7

Exemplary trial(s) of Experiment 2. The target is the color word green in the rightmost box (the target word remained either green or blue, varied between participants, throughout the whole experiment). Two different cue versions are displayed in the boxes second from left: valid nonmatching color-ring cue (top); invalid matching color-word cue (bottom). The arrows depict the flow of time. Stimuli are not drawn to scale. (Color figure online)

Fig. 8

Experiment 2: Mean correct reaction times (in ms) for color-ring cues (upper panels) and color-word cues (lower panels) depending on stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA), cue match, and validity. Error bars represent average standard errors

Fig. 9

Experiment 2: Mean accuracy rates in percentages for color-ring cues (upper panels) and color-word cues (lower panels) depending on stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA), cue match, and validity. Error bars represent average standard errors

Fig. 10

Example trial(s) of Experiment 3. The target is the color word green in the upper rightmost box (color-word target) or the green color ring in the lower rightmost box. The color-word cue in this example is matching and invalid. The arrows depict the flow of time. Stimuli are not drawn to scale. (Color figure online)

Fig. 11

Experiment 3: Mean correct reaction times (in ms) for color-ring targets (upper panels) and color-word targets (lower panels) depending on stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA), cue match, and validity. Error bars represent average standard errors. Note the different ranges of reaction times in the graphs for color-ring and color-word targets

Fig. 12

Experiment 3: Mean accuracy rates in percentages for color-ring targets (upper panels) and color-word targets (lower panels) depending on stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA), cue match, and validity. Error bars represent average standard errors

Fig. 13

Exemplary trial(s) of Experiment 4. The target is the color word green in the rightmost box (the target word remained either green or blue, varied between participants, throughout the whole experiment). Two different cue versions are displayed in the boxes second from left (both invalid and matching): a color-word cue written in target-dissimilar font (top); a color-word cue written in target-similar font (bottom). The arrows depict the flow of time. Stimuli are not drawn to scale. (Color figure online)

Fig. 14

Experiment 4: Mean correct reaction times (in ms) for color-word cues with a font similar to the target (upper panels) and dissimilar to the target (lower panels) depending on stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA), cue match, and validity. Error bars represent average standard errors

Fig. 15

Experiment 4: Mean accuracy rates in percentages for color-word cues with a font similar to the target (upper panels) and dissimilar to the target (lower panels) depending on stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA), cue match, and validity. Error bars represent average standard errors

Fig. 16

Experiment 5: Mean correct reaction times (in ms) for visual search plus syllable repetition (i.e., articulatory suppression task; upper panels) and visual search plus foot tapping (i.e., control task; lower panels) depending on stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA), cue match, and validity. Error bars represent average standard errors

Fig. 17

Experiment 5: Mean accuracy rates in percentages for visual search plus syllable repetition (i.e., articulatory suppression task; upper panels) and visual search plus foot tapping (i.e., control task; lower panels) depending on stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA), cue match, and validity. Error bars represent average standard errors