Attentional Priority for Temporary goals: A replication and extension of Vogt et al. (2013)

Vogt and colleagues (2013) showed in three experiments using the dot-probe task that stimuli associated with current goals (induced by instructions) are attentionally prioritized. However, the exact nature of this prioritization remains unclear. The target location task employed in the experiments allows interpretation in terms of spatial attention and response-related processes; the target discrimination task – in contrast – allows unambiguous interpretation of effects in terms of spatial attention. In the present experiment, we replicated Vogt et al.’s procedure while varying the task in a between-participants design. We replicated Vogt et al.’s results in the location task and found a corresponding – albeit significantly smaller – effect in the discrimination task. Stimuli associated with current goals were thus prioritized with respect to spatial attention. However, the reduced effect size in the discrimination task suggests that in the original experiments, response-related processes were at play in addition to attentional processes.