Data from: Is predictability salient? A study of attentional capture by auditory patterns

In this series of behavioural and electroencephalography (EEG) experiments, we investigate the extent to which repeating patterns of sounds capture attention. Work in the visual domain has revealed attentional capture by statistically predictable stimuli, consistent with predictive coding accounts which suggest that attention is drawn to sensory regularities. Here, stimuli comprised rapid sequences of tone pips, arranged in regular (REG) or random (RAND) patterns. EEG data demonstrate that the brain rapidly recognizes predictable patterns manifested as a rapid increase in responses to REG relative to RAND sequences. This increase is reminiscent of the increase in gain on neural responses to attended stimuli often seen in the neuroimaging literature, and thus consistent with the hypothesis that predictable sequences draw attention. To study potential attentional capture by auditory regularities, we used REG and RAND sequences in two different behavioural tasks designed to reveal effects of attentional capture by regularity. Overall, the pattern of results suggests that regularity does not capture attention.

在本系列行为学与脑电图（electroencephalography, EEG）实验中，我们探究了重复声音模式在多大程度上会引发注意捕获。视觉领域已有研究表明，统计可预测的刺激会引发注意捕获，这与预测编码（predictive coding）理论的阐释相符——该理论认为注意力会被感官规律性所吸引。本实验所采用的刺激物为快速呈现的短音调序列，被分为规则（REG）组与随机（RAND）组两类。脑电图数据显示，大脑可快速识别可预测模式，具体表现为：相较于随机序列，规则序列诱发的脑电响应会快速增强。这种响应增强与神经影像学研究文献中常见的、对被注意刺激的神经响应增益提升现象相似，因此支持"可预测序列会吸引注意力"这一假说。为探究听觉规律性是否会引发注意捕获，我们采用规则组与随机组序列，设计了两项不同的行为学任务，旨在揭示规律性引发注意捕获的效应。综合所有实验结果的模式来看，听觉规律性并不会引发注意捕获。