We introduce a computational model of the negative priming (NP) effect that includes perception, memory, attention, decision making, and action. The model is designed to provide a coherent picture across competing theories of NP. The model is formulated in terms of abstract dynamics for the activations of features, their binding into object entities, their semantic categorization as well as rel...

Stability and flexibility are fundamental to an intelligent cognitive system. Here, we examined the relationship between stability in selective attention and explicit control of flexible attention. Preschoolers were tested on the Dimension Preference (DP) task, which measures the stability of selective attention to an implicitly primed dimension, and the Dimension Change Card Sort (DCCS) task, ...

OBJECTIVE Early maltreatment increases lifetime risk of psychopathology. Emerging models suggest that exposure to maltreatment leads to changes in cognitive processes associated with the processing of threat, including processes of selective attention. Existing data may be interpreted to suggest that maltreatment is associated with an automatic attentional engagement with threatening cues, or t...

How does the multi-sensory nature of stimuli influence information processing? Cognitive systems with limited selective attention can elucidate these processes. Six-year-olds, 11-year-olds and 20-year-olds engaged in a visual search task that required them to detect a pre-defined coloured shape under conditions of low or high visual perceptual load. On each trial, a peripheral distractor that c...

Selective attention is atypical in individuals with autism spectrum conditions. Evidence suggests this is also the case for those with high levels of autistic traits. Here we investigated the neural basis of spatial attention in those with high and low levels of self-reported autistic traits via analysis of ERP deflections associated with covert attention, target selection and distractor suppre...

In our daily lives, our capacity to selectively attend to stimuli within or across sensory modalities enables enhanced perception of the surrounding world. While previous research on selective attention has studied this phenomenon extensively, two important questions still remain unanswered: (1) how selective attention to a single modality impacts sensory integration processes, and (2) the mech...

Sequences of events can affect selective attention either through proactive mechanisms, through reactive mechanisms, or through a combination of the two. The current study examined electrophysiological responses to both prime and target stimuli in a primed dichotic listening task. Each trial presented a distractor prime syllable followed by two simultaneous syllables, and participants were aske...

Humans survive in environments that contain a vast quantity and variety of visual information. All items of perceived visual information must be represented within a limited number of brain networks. The human brain requires mechanisms for selecting only a relevant fraction of perceived information for more in-depth processing, where neural representations of that information may be actively ma...