TY - JOUR
T1 - Increased experience amplifies the activation of task-irrelevant category representations
AU - Wu, Rachel
AU - Pruitt, Zoe
AU - Zinszer, Benjamin D.
AU - Cheung, Olivia S.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Richard Aslin and Rebecca Nako for useful discussions on the study design and data interpretations. We also thank Stefan Van der Stigchel, Veronica Mazza, and two other anonymous reviewers, as well as the members of the CALLA lab, for insightful comments on previous versions of the manuscript. This research was conducted at the University of Rochester with funding from an NRSA (F32HD070537) from NICHD to R.W., and from an NIH Grant (HD-037082) to Richard Aslin.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016, The Psychonomic Society, Inc.
PY - 2017/2/1
Y1 - 2017/2/1
N2 - Prior research has demonstrated the benefits (i.e., task-relevant attentional selection) and costs (i.e., task-irrelevant attentional capture) of prior knowledge on search for an individual target or multiple targets from a category. This study investigated whether the level of experience with particular categories predicts the degree of task-relevant and task-irrelevant activation of item and category representations. Adults with varying levels of dieting experience (measured via 3 subscales of Disinhibition, Restraint, Hunger; Stunkard & Messick, Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 29(1), 71–83, 1985) searched for targets defined as either a specific food item (e.g., carrots), or a category (i.e., any healthy or unhealthy food item). Apart from the target-present trials, in the target-absent “foil” trials, when searching for a specific item (e.g., carrots), irrelevant items from the target’s category (e.g., squash) were presented. The ERP (N2pc) results revealed that the activation of task-relevant representations (measured via Exemplar and Category N2pc amplitudes) did not differ based on the degree of experience. Critically, however, increased dieting experience, as revealed by lower Disinhibition scores, predicted activation of task-irrelevant representations (i.e., attentional capture of foils from the target item category). Our results suggest that increased experience with particular categories encourages the rapid activation of category representations even when category information is task irrelevant, and that the N2pc in foil trials could potentially serve as an indication of experience level in future studies on categorization.
AB - Prior research has demonstrated the benefits (i.e., task-relevant attentional selection) and costs (i.e., task-irrelevant attentional capture) of prior knowledge on search for an individual target or multiple targets from a category. This study investigated whether the level of experience with particular categories predicts the degree of task-relevant and task-irrelevant activation of item and category representations. Adults with varying levels of dieting experience (measured via 3 subscales of Disinhibition, Restraint, Hunger; Stunkard & Messick, Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 29(1), 71–83, 1985) searched for targets defined as either a specific food item (e.g., carrots), or a category (i.e., any healthy or unhealthy food item). Apart from the target-present trials, in the target-absent “foil” trials, when searching for a specific item (e.g., carrots), irrelevant items from the target’s category (e.g., squash) were presented. The ERP (N2pc) results revealed that the activation of task-relevant representations (measured via Exemplar and Category N2pc amplitudes) did not differ based on the degree of experience. Critically, however, increased dieting experience, as revealed by lower Disinhibition scores, predicted activation of task-irrelevant representations (i.e., attentional capture of foils from the target item category). Our results suggest that increased experience with particular categories encourages the rapid activation of category representations even when category information is task irrelevant, and that the N2pc in foil trials could potentially serve as an indication of experience level in future studies on categorization.
KW - Attentional selection
KW - Categorization
KW - Dieting
KW - N2pc ERP
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85006153421&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.3758/s13414-016-1254-9
DO - 10.3758/s13414-016-1254-9
M3 - Article
C2 - 27981522
AN - SCOPUS:85006153421
SN - 1943-3921
VL - 79
SP - 522
EP - 532
JO - Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics
JF - Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics
IS - 2
ER -