Modulation of non-spatial attention and the global/local processing bias

▶ Under low levels of alertness spatial attention in normal, healthy individuals is biased to the right much like patients with hemispatial neglect. ▶ The current study examined this alertness/attention interaction to determine if perceptual processes favoring one hemisphere over another are affected by this relationship. ▶ Following a brief (16-min) continuous performance task designed to elicit behaviors associated with alertness, participants showed significantly less local interference when attending the global dimension and more global interference when attending the local dimension on the Navon discrimination task compared to a control task condition. ▶ The results indicate that exercising tonic and phasic alertness produces a global processing bias.