Open AccessSelf-relevance and the activation of attentional networks
Author(s) -
Saga L Svensson,
Marius Golubickis,
Sam Johnson,
Johanna K. Falbén,
Neil Macrae
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
the quarterly journal of experimental psychology/quarterly journal of experimental psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.249
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1747-0226
pISSN - 1747-0218
DOI - 10.1177/17470218221112238
Subject(s) - psychology , cognitive psychology , relevance (law) , stimulus (psychology) , attentional control , attention network , cognition , visual attention , neuroscience , computer science , artificial intelligence , political science , law
Recent theoretical accounts maintain that core components of attentional functioning are preferentially tuned to self-relevant information. Evidence in support of this viewpoint is equivocal, however, with research overly reliant on personally significant (i.e., familiar) stimulus inputs (e.g., faces, forenames) and a diverse range of methodologies. Addressing these limitations, here we utilised arbitrary items (i.e., geometric shapes) and administered the Attention Network Test (ANT) to establish the extent to which self-relevance (vs friend-relevance) moderates the three subsystems of attentional functioning-alerting, orienting, and executive control. The results revealed that only executive control was sensitive to the meaning of the stimuli, such that conflict resolution was enhanced following the presentation of self-associated compared with friend-associated shapes (i.e., cues). Probing the origin of this effect, a further computational analysis (i.e., Shrinking Spotlight Diffusion Model analysis) indicated that self-relevance facilitated the narrowing of visual attention. These findings highlight when and how the personal significance of otherwise trivial material modulates attentional processing.