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Proactive distractor suppression elicited by statistical regularities in visual search
Irrelevant salient objects may capture our attention and interfere with visual search. Recently, it was shown that distraction by a salient object is reduced when it is presented more frequently at one location than at other locations. The present study investigates whether this reduced distractor i...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Springer US
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8219562/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33620698 http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13423-021-01891-3 |
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author | Huang, Changrun Vilotijević, Ana Theeuwes, Jan Donk, Mieke |
author_facet | Huang, Changrun Vilotijević, Ana Theeuwes, Jan Donk, Mieke |
author_sort | Huang, Changrun |
collection | PubMed |
description | Irrelevant salient objects may capture our attention and interfere with visual search. Recently, it was shown that distraction by a salient object is reduced when it is presented more frequently at one location than at other locations. The present study investigates whether this reduced distractor interference is the result of proactive spatial suppression, implemented prior to display onset, or reactive suppression, occurring after attention has been directed to that location. Participants were asked to search for a shape singleton in the presence of an irrelevant salient color singleton which was presented more often at one location (the high-probability location) than at all other locations (the low-probability locations). On some trials, instead of the search task, participants performed a probe task, in which they had to detect the offset of a probe dot. The results of the search task replicated previous findings showing reduced distractor interference in trials in which the salient distractor was presented at the high-probability location as compared with the low-probability locations. The probe task showed that reaction times were longer for probes presented at the high-probability location than at the low-probability locations. These results indicate that through statistical learning the location that is likely to contain a distractor is suppressed proactively (i.e., prior to display onset). It suggests that statistical learning modulates the first feed-forward sweep of information processing by deprioritizing locations that are likely to contain a distractor in the spatial priority map. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8219562 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Springer US |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-82195622021-07-09 Proactive distractor suppression elicited by statistical regularities in visual search Huang, Changrun Vilotijević, Ana Theeuwes, Jan Donk, Mieke Psychon Bull Rev Brief Report Irrelevant salient objects may capture our attention and interfere with visual search. Recently, it was shown that distraction by a salient object is reduced when it is presented more frequently at one location than at other locations. The present study investigates whether this reduced distractor interference is the result of proactive spatial suppression, implemented prior to display onset, or reactive suppression, occurring after attention has been directed to that location. Participants were asked to search for a shape singleton in the presence of an irrelevant salient color singleton which was presented more often at one location (the high-probability location) than at all other locations (the low-probability locations). On some trials, instead of the search task, participants performed a probe task, in which they had to detect the offset of a probe dot. The results of the search task replicated previous findings showing reduced distractor interference in trials in which the salient distractor was presented at the high-probability location as compared with the low-probability locations. The probe task showed that reaction times were longer for probes presented at the high-probability location than at the low-probability locations. These results indicate that through statistical learning the location that is likely to contain a distractor is suppressed proactively (i.e., prior to display onset). It suggests that statistical learning modulates the first feed-forward sweep of information processing by deprioritizing locations that are likely to contain a distractor in the spatial priority map. Springer US 2021-02-23 2021 /pmc/articles/PMC8219562/ /pubmed/33620698 http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13423-021-01891-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Brief Report Huang, Changrun Vilotijević, Ana Theeuwes, Jan Donk, Mieke Proactive distractor suppression elicited by statistical regularities in visual search |
title | Proactive distractor suppression elicited by statistical regularities in visual search |
title_full | Proactive distractor suppression elicited by statistical regularities in visual search |
title_fullStr | Proactive distractor suppression elicited by statistical regularities in visual search |
title_full_unstemmed | Proactive distractor suppression elicited by statistical regularities in visual search |
title_short | Proactive distractor suppression elicited by statistical regularities in visual search |
title_sort | proactive distractor suppression elicited by statistical regularities in visual search |
topic | Brief Report |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8219562/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33620698 http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13423-021-01891-3 |
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