Cognitive control of auditory attention: Examining flexible preparatory “tuning” to a speaker in a multitalker set-up
Final Report Abstract
Selective listening exemplifies the role of attention in auditory information processing. Attention to speech has often been investigated in experimental paradigms using multi-talker (“cocktail party”) situations, where the listener is required to comprehend a “target” speaker whilst ignoring other concurrent (and distracting) speakers. However, most of these studies have focused on how well attention can be maintained on the same target speaker, and their primary measure has been the accuracy of reporting the content heard. In contrast, in the current project, together with the international collaborator Dr. Aureliu Lavric (Exeter, UK) as Mercator Fellow, we investigated intentional shifting of attention from one speaker to another using chronometric (reaction time, RT) measures of performance using manual responses. Our task required a number magnitude classification, but two speakers uttered concurrently single-digit numbers. A cue preceding the speech stimuli specified the target speaker by indicating the task-relevant gender (male or female) or position (i.e., speaker side: left vs. right). The main finding is that there is a substantial “switch cost” (in RT and error rate) in trials that require an attention switch relative to “repeat” trials, suggesting attentional “inertia”. In the project, we tested accounts of how proactive cognitive control can facilitate attention switching. Specifically, in the experiments we manipulated the cue-stimulus interval (i.e., the time available for preparation). We found that preparation for disengaging attention based on “switch-away” cues was effective to reduce switch costs. Moreover, we found that the proportion of trials with potential response conflict (“response-incongruent” target-distractor combinations) did not affect the efficacy of preparation on switch costs, but that the proportion of switches was critical. The preparatory reduction of switch costs was particularly strong when there was only a low proportion (25%) of attention switches, confirming previous work with visual tasks. Further studies suggested that this enhanced effect of proactive control is based on a general and more sustained (“tonic”) switch-readiness as a “meta-control” state. Other studies showed that low-level feature binding effects are even increased with preparation, suggesting that these effects depend on cue-based retrieval on whole auditory object templates, which takes some time. Finally, in an EEG study, we compared attention switching with “task” switching involving different response-mapping rules and found similar preparation effects across both requirements. The analysis and publication of the EEG data is ongoing. In sum, our findings suggest a major role of proactive cognitive control in auditory attention and that cognitive control seems to operate in a supramodal way, so that theoretical accounts of cognitive control in visual attention and task switching settings can be generalized to auditory attention.
Publications
-
Increasing the need for (and optimising the detection of) preparatory switching of auditory attention. In A. Huckauf, M. Baumann, M. Ernst, C. Herbert, M. Kiefer, & M. Sauter (Eds.), TeaP 2021 - Abstracts of the 63rd Conference of Experimental Psychologists (pp. 243). Pabst Science Publishers
Strivens, A., Koch, I. & Lavric, A.
-
Switching attention between simultaneous voices: the effect of switch probability [Conference poster abstract]. Psychonomic Society 62nd Annual Meeting (pp. 199). Online conference
Strivens, A., Koch, I. & Lavric, A.
-
Switching attention between simultaneous voices: the effect of switch probability [Conference poster presentation]. 10th Workshop of General Psychology for Doctoral candidates (ADok). University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany
Strivens, A., Koch, I. & Lavric, A.
-
Switching attention between simultaneous voices: the effect of switch probability [Conference presentation abstract]. 22nd Conference of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCoP). University of Lille, Lille, France
Strivens, A., Koch, I. & Lavric, A.
-
Does preparation reduce the effects of feature binding when switching auditory attention? [Conference poster abstract]. 23rd Conference of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCoP; pp. 202). University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
Strivens, A., Benini, E., Philipp, A.M., Koch, I. & Lavric, A.
-
Shifting attention between simultaneous voices: How we prepare to listen to a new speaker [Conference poster abstract]. Psychonomic Society 64th Annual Meeting (pp. 175-176). San Francisco, California, USA
Strivens, A., Benini, E., Philipp, A.M., Koch, I. & Lavric, A.
-
Shifting attention between simultaneous voices: how we prepare to listen to a new speaker. In J. Balint, & J. Fels (Eds.), Proceedings of the 1st Audictive conference (pp. 138-141). RWTH Aachen University, Institute for Hearing Technology and Acoustics
Strivens, A., Koch, I. & Lavric, A.
-
Switching between dichotic voices cued by gender or location: Do preparation and feature binding interact? In S, Merz, C. Frings, B. Leuchtenberg, S. Mueller, R. Neumann, B. Pastötter, L. Pingen, & G. Schui (Eds.), Abstracts of the 65th TeaP (pp. 351). Trier University, Trier, Germany
Strivens, A., Benini, E., Philipp, A.M., Koch, I. & Lavric, A.
-
Does preparation help to switch auditory attention between simultaneous voices: Effects of switch probability and prevalence of conflict. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 86(3), 750-767.
Strivens, Amy; Koch, Iring & Lavric, Aureliu
-
Exploring “phasic” vs. “tonic” accounts of the effect of switch probability on the auditory attention switch cost. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 78(6), 1061-1076.
Strivens, Amy; Koch, Iring & Lavric, Aureliu
-
Pre-empting the cue or always ready to switch? Distinguishing between theories of the switch probability effect in auditory attention switch costs. In K. Fröber, M. Abel, K. Bäuml, G. Dreisbach, O. Kliegl, M. Köster, A. Lingau, G. Volberg, & F. J. Götz (Eds.), Book of Abstracts: 66th Conference of Experimental Psychologists (pp. 375). Pabst Science Publishers
Strivens, A., Koch, I. & Lavric, A.
