Covert orienting of attention: An overview

Abstract

Orienting is a gateway to attention and is defined as aligning of attention with a source of sensory signal. Covert orienting is the shifting of attention without eye or head movement. It enhances performances by detecting the targets faster and more accurately. Posner's location cueing paradigm has been used to study this phenomenon scientifically and it has become one of the most important topics of research in cognitive psychology, cognitive neuropsychology, and cognitive neuroscience. In this paradigm, cue is used to orient the attention covertly where the target is likely to appear. The present paper is an endeavor to systematically define covert orienting, focus on its historical background, study this phenomenon scientifically based on the paradigm used, and explain the factors such as cue type, cue location, cue validity and SOA levels, which affects it and its exogenous and endogenous components. © Journal of the Indian Academy of Applied Psychology.