The study used temporal order judgment (TOJ) tasks to directly measure how motivationally significant stimuli like faces capture attention. In Experiment 1, upright faces showed prior entry over inverted faces. Experiment 2 found emotional faces had greater prior entry than neutral faces. Experiment 3 ruled out low-level feature differences by finding prior entry for inverted emotional faces. Experiment 4 eliminated prior entry for inverted faces, supporting the role of holistic processing. Experiment 5 extended these effects to realistic faces. Experiment 6 addressed response biases. Across experiments, the study provides evidence that faces and emotional expressions capture attention through visual prior entry.

1. Motivationally significant stimuli show visual prior entry: Evidence for attentional captureWest, G., Anderson, A., & Pratt, J. (2009). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 35(4), 1032-1042.

2. OutlineWhy did this study? -- Other tasks’ restrictionsVisual prior entryTemporal order judgments(TOJ)Experiment 1 to 6 Conclusion

3. Why did this study?(1) No study to date has specifically measured how attention is initially deployed toward these stimuli.

4. (2) Past studies provide little information about the exact extent to which these stimuli are initially prioritized by the visual– attentional system because initial attentional deployment was not directly measured.

5. Other tasks’ restrictionsVisual search and change detection: (1) Redistribution of attention focus to multiple spatial location. (2) Attention is likely reallocated several times before a response is made.

6. (3) These paradigms may not provide an adequate measure of the very earliest deployment of attention.

7. (Posner, Walker, Friedrich, & Rafal, 1984)Their studies assess a global attentional measure created by gauging a combination of different attentional processes. [(1),(2),(3)]

8. (1) Attentional disengagement (2) Attentional shifting (3) Attentional reengagement However, they do not measure degrees of initial attentional deployment.

9. Visual Prior EntryIs assessed by temporal order judgments (TOJs)

10. Temporal order judgments(TOJ)TOJ is a sensitivemeasure of initial attentional deployment. TOJ provides a direct and accurate measure of attentional capture.

11. TOJ tasks use cues to shift spatial attention to a particular location before the onset of two target items separated by some variable interval.

12. How to get TOJ response functionParticipants report which target item had the first onset at different stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) intervals, producing a TOJ response function.

13. TOJ response functionPerceived stimulus simultaneity (PSS)

14. Perceived stimulus simultaneity (PSS)The interval needed for the participants to perceive both target items as arriving simultaneously.

15. PSSPSS shows how much time the unattended stimulus must occur before the attended stimulus, due to prior entry, for them to be perceived as occurring simultaneously.

16. Experiment 1-6

17. Experiment 1Hypothesis: A face, a stimulus of social and biological relevance, captures attention by contrasting a face with an inverted face stimulus.

18. Procedure

19. ResultThe dashed vertical line to the right of the arrows represents the actual perceived stimulusSimultaneity calculated from the TOJ function.

20. ResultThe effect of prior entry was assessed by calculating each participant’s individual PSS, indicating the interval needed for the participant to perceive both target items as arriving simultaneously. (see previous graph: 50%’s location)

21. The average PSS was 5.88 ms, which was significantly different from zero, t(15) 2.31, p <0.038, indicating a prior entry effect for the face.

22. The inverted facewould need to be displayed almost 6 ms before the upright facefor both stimuli to be perceived as arriving at the same time.

23. Experiment 2Link with Exp. 1:The researcher wants to know whether emotional faces also have visual prior effect, compared with neutral faces.

24. Hypothesis: Emotional displays have privileged status and thus have greater attention capturing properties than faces with neutral expressions.

25. ProcedureThe procedure is the same as Exp.1. It only replaced the neutral schematic faces with

26. Result

27. ResultThe average PSS was found to be 7.85 ms,which significantly differed from zero, t(13) 2.59, p< 0.025, indicating a prior entry effect for the threatening face.

28. A face with a neutral configuration would have to be presented almost 8 ms before a face with a threatening configuration for both items to be subjectively perceived as arriving simultaneously, thus demonstrating that facial displays of threat capture attention.

29. Experiment 3Prior studies have shown that facial inversion disrupts the processing of emotional content (e.g, McKelvie, 1995; Phelps et al., 2006; Pourtois et al., 2005).

30. Experiment 3They want to know that visual prior entry effects for the angry face were driven by which one, (1) or (2)? (1) holistic processing (2) low-level featural differences

31. Experiment 3Link with Exp. 2: Compared with Exp.2, Ex.3 controls face’s features.

32. ProcedureThe procedure is the same as Exp.1. It only replaced the neutral schematic faces with

33. Result

34. ResultThe average PSS was 7.17 ms, which differed significantly from zero, t(15) 2.46, p <.025, once again indicating a prior entry effect for the threatening face.

35. Experiment 4

36. Experiment 4To further investigate whether the prior entry effect found in Experiment 2 was due to low-level featural differences between the neutral and angry face.

37. Exp. 4 預期結果與其假設之間的關係(1) If results from Experiment 2 were in fact driven by holistic emotional processing. (2) If inverting a face stimulus breaks down its holistic processing.prior entry effects should be eliminated in the present experiment.

38. 換句話說If previous results (Exp.2) were due to low-level featural confoundsA prior entry effect should still be observed

39. In addition, if participants still report that the inverted angry face produces prior entry, this could also indicate a response bias present in previous experiments. (當不確定就選比較interesting的臉。)

40. Result

41. ResultThe average PSS was calculated to be1.28 ms, which was nonsignificant, t(13) <1, indicating no reliable prior entry effect for either of the inverted face stimuli.因為visual prior effect沒有了，所以支持 Exp.2是holistic processing prior entry for the angry face can be attributed to holistic processing.

42. Experiment 5Why did Exp. 5?前面都是用schematic face, 不確定推論是否可以類推到真人的臉。

43. 和Exp. 2一樣，只是現在換成真人的臉

44. HypothesisA realistic threatening face should show visualprior entry when contrasted against a realistic neutral face.

45. Procedure和實驗二同

46. Result實驗五的結果實驗二的結果用真人的臉，所造成的shift會比用略圖的臉更大。表示visual prior effect在真人的臉會更強。

47. ResultThe average PSS was 18.26 ms, which differed significantlyfrom zero, t(11) 3.78, p .003, showing that prior entry for facialdisplays of threat extend to human face stimuli.

48. Experiment 6為了要排除response bias所以改變了指導語。-- 要受試者說”哪一個是之後才出現的?”

49. Procedure引用 Exp.5，只有指導語不同。

50. 實驗五實驗六

51. ResultThe average PSS was calculated to be 7.66 ms, which differed significantly from zero, t(13) < 2.85, p <.017, again demonstrating prior entry for human angry faces.

52. Compare Ex.1~Ex.6Visual prior entries in milliseconds are displayed for Experiments1 through 6, representing the observed attentional capture effects.

53. Conclusion

54. ConclusionThe authors demonstrate, using a novel TOJ paradigm without cues, that displays of faces and facial threat show visual prior entry effects.