Cognitive control over perceptual deviance processing: Separate effects of attention manipulation for food-to-food and non-food-to-non-food odour dilution series? (follow-up experiment)

This study is run as a follow-up experiment to the study titled “Cognitive control over perceptual deviance processing in food and non-food odours”. As a follow-up to the main study, which investigated the effects of an attentional focus manipulation on the perception of odour mixtures containing both food and non-food components, we will use a similar experimental design to investigate attentional focus manipulation for odour stimuli that are mixtures of either two food (F) or two non-food (NF) components. In this way, we will be able to observe manipulation effects that are cleaned from the added influence of the stimulus identity (F vs NF). In line with the first study, we hypothesise that such cognitive manipulation causes perceptual enhancement of the attended odour components, i.e., will change the sensitivity to contamination of one odour with another. For these purposes, we will look at behavioural responses (i.e., reaction times) and how these are affected by the manipulation of attention