The dynamic competition between item distinctiveness and attentional boost effect.

The Attentional Boost Effect (ABE) refers to the enhancement in memory for background information that co-occurs with the detection of a target in a detection task. Previous research suggests that this effect is modulated by item distinctiveness, meaning that when background items have high distinct...

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Publicado en:Memory & Cognition Vol. 54; no. 5; pp. 1773 - 1790
Autores principales: Meng, Yingfang, Chen, Peijie, Xu, Shuangxing, Zhao, Xin, Huang, Qiuhua, Paterson, Kevin B.
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Springer Nature Jul2026
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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      dt: Jul2026
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        atl: The dynamic competition between item distinctiveness and attentional boost effect.
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        au:
          Meng, Yingfang
          Chen, Peijie
          Xu, Shuangxing
          Zhao, Xin
          Huang, Qiuhua
          Paterson, Kevin B.
        affil:
          https://ror.org/020azk594 School of Psychology, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, China
          https://ror.org/04h699437 School of Psychology and Vision Sciences, University of Leicester, Leciester, UK
          https://ror.org/05x2td559 Faculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China
      su:
        Task performance
        Universities & colleges
        Attention
        Memory
        Analysis of variance
        College students
        Cognition
        Repeated measures design
        Data analysis
        Questionnaires
        Cognitive processing speed
        Descriptive statistics
        Experimental design
        Psychology of movement
        Statistics
        Reaction time
        Comparative studies
        Data analysis software
      sug:
        subj:
          Task performance
          Universities & colleges
          Attention
          Memory
          Analysis of variance
          College students
          Cognition
          Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools
          Repeated measures design
          Data analysis
          Questionnaires
          Cognitive processing speed
          Descriptive statistics
          Experimental design
          Psychology of movement
          Statistics
          Reaction time
          Comparative studies
          Data analysis software
      keyword:
        Attentional Boost Effect
        Item distinctiveness
        Onset time
        Psychology and Cognitive Sciences Psychology
        Target detection
        Attentional Boost Effect
        Item distinctiveness
        Onset time
        Psychology and Cognitive Sciences Psychology
        Target detection
      ab: The Attentional Boost Effect (ABE) refers to the enhancement in memory for background information that co-occurs with the detection of a target in a detection task. Previous research suggests that this effect is modulated by item distinctiveness, meaning that when background items have high distinctiveness (e.g., low-frequency words, negative items), the ABE is significantly reduced or even disappears. However, in previous studies, the detection stimulus and background items were synchronized in their onset times, which could lead to maximal overlap between the two enhancement effects. Accordingly, to further understand the relationship between item distinctiveness and target detection, we manipulated distinctive and nondistinctive memory items in three experiments and manipulated the onset time of detections stimuli. Distinctiveness was varied by manipulating the word frequency (Experiment 1), and the emotional valence of both words (Experiment 2) and images (Experiment 3). The detection stimulus was presented within two time windows: 0–100 ms or 400–500 ms during the presentation of background items. The results indicated that, compared with word frequency, negative valence exerted a more pronounced modulation of the ABE, and this modulation was not influenced by the onset time of detection stimulus. This finding further deepens our understanding of the interaction between item distinctiveness and the ABE, suggesting a complex competitive relationship between the two effects.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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