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09:00 - 10:30
Parallel sessions 4
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09:00 - 10:30
Room: C-Building - N14
Chair/s:
Kathrin Finke, Ingrid Scharlau, Jan Tünnermann
The Theory of Visual Attention (TVA) continues to be developed as a powerful quantitative framework for understanding attentional selection and capacity. Current research applies TVA across diverse contexts and methodologies. This symposium presents new theoretical developments, methodological advances, and applied perspectives that extend TVA’s reach and precision and sometimes challenge its present state. Estela Carmona investigates how self-relevant information shapes attentional parameters, offering insights into the role of personal significance in visual selection. Anders Petersen follows by introducing advances in modeling enumeration data within the TVA framework, extending the set of tasks that can be used with TVA. Kai Biermeier, Ngoc Chi Banh, and Ingrid Scharlau test the applicability of TVA to online scenarios and identify methodological challenges in the online estimation of attentional processing speed. Tobias Peters, Kai Biermeier, and Ingrid Scharlau apply TVA measures of attention to human–AI interaction, examining whether attentional signatures can indicate adaptive distrust. Finally, Jan Tünnermann and Ingrid Scharlau revisit lateral asymmetries in visual processing, presenting updated findings on left–right visual field differences within TVA. Together, these contributions demonstrate the continuing vitality of TVA research and its capacity to inform theoretical, methodological, and applied perspectives on visual attention but also challenges that have to be addressed. Part 2 of the symposium will turn to attentional changes in diverse populations. 
Submission 487
The Effect of Self-Relevant Information on TVA Attentional Parameters
SymposiumTalk-01
Presented by: Estela Carmona
Estela Carmona 1, Julie Lundsgaard 2, Anders Petersen 2, Polly Peers 1, Tom Manly 1, Signe Vangkilde 2
1 MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
2 Center for Visual Cognition, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Background: It has been suggested that self-relevant information modulates attention (Humphreys & Sui, 2016). However, whether this effect occurs and what mechanisms drive it remain debated. The framework offered by the Theory of Visual Attention (TVA; Bundesen, 1990) is well-suited to address this question, as it provides a computational and mechanistic account of attentional selection in vision, and TVA-based testing allows for the estimation of several core attentional parameters. A recent account combining the temporal order judgement paradigm and TVA-informed Bayesian modelling (Scheller et al., 2024) suggested that social relevance modulates early attentional selection by increasing processing rates and influencing how attentional resources are allocated across the visual field. However, more evidence is needed. Therefore, the present study investigates whether self-relevant information modulates attentional selection with a more classical TVA-based paradigm.

Methods: Healthy participants first complete a task designed to establish individual associations between neutral stimuli and themselves or a stranger. They then perform a classical TVA-based paradigm, allowing all attentional parameters to be estimated separately for self- and other-associated information.

Preliminary Status and Expected Outcomes: Data collection is ongoing, and modelling and analyses will be completed before the symposium. Analyses will test which, if any, attentional parameters are modulated by self-relevance.

Significance: This study aims to provide further evidence on whether and how self-relevant information modulates attentional processes, contributing to a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying self-related processing.