Bias corrected double judgment accuracy during spatial attention cueing: Unmasked stimuli with non-predictive and semi-predictive cues

•Attention-cueing effects were not due to cue bias or spatial uncertainty.•Response accuracy was improved for both location and identity judgments.•Non-predictive and semi-predictive cues improve accuracy for unmasked stimuli.•Cue location bias was lower for unmasked stimuli than masked stimuli.

The present experiments indicate that in a 7-AFC double judgment accuracy task with unmasked stimuli, cue location response bias can be quantified and removed, revealing unbiased improvements in response accuracy for valid cues compared to invalid cues. By testing for cueing effects over a range of contrast levels with unmasked stimuli, changes in the psychometric function were examined and provide insight into the mechanisms of involuntary attention which might account for the observed cueing effects. Cue validity was varied between two separate experiments showing that non-predictive (14.3%) and moderately-predictive cues (50%) equally facilitate stimulus identification and localization during transient involuntary attention capture. Observers had improved accuracy at identifying both the location and the feature identity of target letters throughout a range of contrast levels, without any dependence on backward masking. There was a leftward shift of the psychometric function threshold with valid cued data and no slope reduction suggesting that any additive hypothesis based on spatial uncertainty reduction or perceptual enhancement is not a sufficient explanation for the observed cueing effects. The interdependence of the perceptual processes of stimulus discrimination and localization were also investigated by analyzing response contingencies, showing that observers were equally skilled at making identification and localization accuracy judgments with unmasked stimuli.