The HED Task Catalog is under development. IDs are not stable until formal release. Comments are welcome at github.com/hed-standard/hed-task/issues.

Posner Spatial Cueing Task

HED task ID: hedtsk_posner_spatial_cueing

Family: Attentional cueing and orienting tasks

Also known as: Posner Task, Spatial Cueing Task

A central or peripheral cue indicates the likely target location; RT differences between valid, neutral, and invalid cues index covert spatial orienting.

Description

The Posner Spatial Cueing Task measures covert orienting of visual attention. Participants fixate on a central point with two peripheral locations marked. A cue stimulus appears (exogenous: at the target location; or endogenous: a central arrow) followed by a target stimulus at one of the peripheral locations. Cues can be valid (same location as target) or invalid (opposite location). The cueing effect (faster RT to validly cued targets vs. invalidly cued) reflects the cost and benefit of attentional orienting. The task dissociates different components of attention: engaging, disengaging, and shifting.

Inclusion test

An experiment is an instance of this task when its procedure matches, it manipulates at least one of the listed variables, and it records at least one of the listed measures.

Procedure

A cue (peripheral flash or central arrow) indicates a likely target location; the target then appears at the cued or uncued location and participants detect or discriminate it.

Manipulation

Cue type (exogenous/peripheral vs. endogenous/central); cue validity (proportion valid trials); SOA; target task (detection vs. discrimination).

Measurement

RT difference between valid and invalid trials (attention effect); costs (invalid − neutral) and benefits (neutral − valid); IOR at long SOAs.

Variations

Named versions that change what the participant experiences or does. The identifier of a variation is hedvar_<task>__<variation>.

Variation

Description

Justification

Exogenous (Peripheral) Cueing

hedvar_posner_spatial_cueing__exogenous_peripheral_cueing

Abrupt-onset cue at potential target location; captures attention reflexively.

Peripheral onset cue drives automatic orienting; canonical exogenous attention

Endogenous (Central) Cueing

hedvar_posner_spatial_cueing__endogenous_central_cueing

Central symbolic cue (arrow, letter) indicating likely target location; requires volitional orienting.

Central arrow cue drives voluntary orienting; different mechanism

Valid, Invalid, and Neutral Cue Conditions

hedvar_posner_spatial_cueing__valid_invalid_and_neutral_cue_conditions

Standard design decomposing attention effects into costs (invalid minus neutral) and benefits (neutral minus valid).

Three cue validity conditions test benefit and cost of orienting

Inhibition of Return (IOR) Paradigm

hedvar_posner_spatial_cueing__inhibition_of_return_ior_paradigm

Long cue-target SOAs (>300 ms) with peripheral cues revealing inhibitory tagging of previously attended locations.

Long SOA reverses validity benefit; distinct temporal structure

Gap vs. Overlap Conditions

hedvar_posner_spatial_cueing__gap_vs_overlap_conditions

Fixation point disappears (gap) or remains (overlap) at cue onset; modulates saccade latency and disengagement.

Fixation offset before/during cue changes alerting

Double-Cue Paradigm

hedvar_posner_spatial_cueing__double_cue_paradigm

Two successive cues to examine dynamic reorienting.

Both locations cued simultaneously; tests alerting without orienting

Predictive vs. Non-Predictive Cues

hedvar_posner_spatial_cueing__predictive_vs_non_predictive_cues

Cues with varying validity ratios (50%, 75%, 100%) to separate voluntary from reflexive orienting.

Cue validity changes attentional weight given to cue

Feature-Based Cueing

hedvar_posner_spatial_cueing__feature_based_cueing

Cueing attention to a feature dimension (color, orientation) rather than a spatial location.

Feature rather than location cued; tests feature-based attention

Object-Based Cueing

hedvar_posner_spatial_cueing__object_based_cueing

Cueing within vs. between objects to study object-based attention.

Object defines cued location; tests object-based attention

Cross-Modal Cueing

hedvar_posner_spatial_cueing__cross_modal_cueing

Auditory or tactile cues directing visual spatial attention.

Auditory or tactile cue precedes visual target; cross-modal orienting

Detection vs. Discrimination Targets

hedvar_posner_spatial_cueing__detection_vs_discrimination_targets

Simple detection tasks vs. discrimination (identity, orientation) at cued locations.

Simple detection vs. identity discrimination; different response task

Cognitive processes

This task is designed to engage the following processes:

Key references

  • Posner, M. I. (1980). Orienting of attention. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 32(1), 3-25. (DOI, PubMed)

  • Corbetta, M., & Shulman, G. L. (2002). Control of goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention in the brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 3(3), 201-215. (DOI, PubMed)

  • Corbetta, M., Kincade, J. M., Lewis, C., Snyder, A. Z., & Sapir, A. (2005). Neural basis and recovery of spatial attention deficits in spatial neglect. Nature Neuroscience, 8(11), 1603-1610. (DOI, PubMed)

Further references

  • Chica, A. B., Martín-Arévalo, E., Botta, F., & Lupiáñez, J. (2014). The Spatial Orienting paradigm: How to design and interpret spatial attention experiments. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 40, 35–51. (DOI, PubMed)

  • Theeuwes, J. (2019). Goal-driven, stimulus-driven, and history-driven selection. Current Opinion in Psychology, 29, 97–101. (DOI, PubMed)

  • Petersen, S. E., & Posner, M. I. (2012). The attention system of the human brain: 20 years after. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 35, 73–89. (DOI, PubMed)

  • Dugué, L., Merriam, E. P., Heeger, D. J., & Carrasco, M. (2020). Differential impact of endogenous and exogenous attention on activity in human visual cortex. Scientific Reports, 10, 21274. (DOI, PubMed)