Distractor suppression leads to reduced flanker interference
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Distractor suppression leads to reduced flanker interference Yavor Ivanov 1,2
&
Jan Theeuwes 1,2
Accepted: 16 September 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Recent studies using the additional singleton paradigm have shown that regularities in distractor locations can cause biases in the spatial priority map, such that attentional capture by salient singletons is reduced for locations that are likely to contain distractors. It has been suggested that this type of suppression is proactive (i.e., occurring before display onset). The current study replicated the original findings using an online version of the task. To further assess the suppression of high-probability locations, we employed a congruence manipulation similar to the traditional flanker effect, where distractors could be either congruent or incongruent with the response to the target. Experiment 1 shows that through statistical learning distractor suppression reduces the interference from incongruent distractors, as participants made less errors in high-probability versus low-probability conditions. In Experiment 2, participants were forced to search for a specific target feature (the so-called feature-search mode), which is assumed to allow participants to ignore distractors in a top-down manner. Yet even when this “top-down” search mode was employed, there was still a congruence effect when the distractor singleton was presented at the low-probability but not at the high-probability location. The absence, but not reversal, of a congruence effect at the high-probability location also further indicates that this distractor suppression mechanism is proactive. The results indicate that regardless of the search mode used, there is suppression of the high-probability location indicating that this location competes less for attention within the spatial priority map than all other locations. Keywords Attention . Statistical learning . Distractor suppression . Top-down/bottom-up . Habituation
To interact with our immediate environment, it is crucial that we focus on information that is relevant to us and avoid distraction by irrelevant salient information. Selective attention makes it possible to enhance the processing of particular elements in a visual display (C. W. Eriksen & Hoffman, 1974), while filtering out irrelevant information (Broadbent, 1958). Most theories adhere the position that selective attention is the result of an interaction between the goals of the observer (topdown control; goal-driven; Egeth & Yantis, 1997) and the
J.T. was supported by a European Research Council (ERC) advanced grant 833029—[LEARNATTEND]. The data and analysis script will be offered upon request. * Yavor Ivanov [email protected] 1
Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Van der Boechorststraat 7, 1081 BT Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2
Institute of Brain and Behavior Amsterdam (iBBA), Amsterdam, The Netherlands
properties of the stimuli in the environment (bottom-up; stimulus-driven; Theeuwes, 2010). Even though this top-down an
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