Where to display vital information? ERP evidence for background changes

Critical decision systems require expeditious and accurate responses to the displayed information. In addition to content, location and background are equally important. Several visual search studies have pointed out the differences and compared modes of top-down attention allocation: distractor suppression and attentional capture. Previous studies have used color (mainly) and shape as a feature but have overlooked luminance as a feature for studying underlying attention mechanisms. The present study attempts to bridge this gap. In this study, participants performed a target-distractor discrimination task by identifying a randomly appearing target from the pool of distractors based on defined luminance levels. Background change was noticed by manipulating the task such as making visible quadrant boundaries over the screen. The preliminary evidence suggested that displaying information at the top-left of the screen had higher percentage accuracy; whereas, response time (RT) remained unaffected. Improvement in RT and percentage accuracy was observed with task manipulation. Event-related potential (ERP) analysis revealed elicited Distractor Positivity (PD), providing evidence for the distractor suppression hypothesis. Further, differences emerged in the topographic plot of N2pc and PD. In sum, the result contributes to classic debate of capture vs. suppression and provides a crucial connection between display design and electrophysiological indices, emphasizing locations and background as equally important factors.