Distraction by a salient object can be reduced when we implicitly learn to suppress its most likely location. The current study investigated whether this suppression can also be tuned to the time at which the distractor is likely to appear. Participants performed the additional singleton task, in which they searched for a unique shape while a color singleton distractor was present. Following the fixation point, the search display was presented either after a short (500 ms) or long (1,500 ms) time interval. Critically, the color singleton distractor was presented relatively frequently at one high probability location after the short interval and at another high probability location after the long interval. The results showed that attentional capture at the two high probability locations was reduced relative to low probability distractor locations. More importantly, this reduction was greater when the color singleton distractor appeared at a high probability location after its associated interval than after the other interval. These findings indicate that participants learn to suppress particular locations at particular moments in time, suggesting that the spatial priority map of attentional selection is dynamically adjusted during the trial. Public Significance StatementIt is important that we are able to suppress irrelevant salient objects to prevent interference in our daily activities. This study shows that we are able to learn not only where to suppress irrelevant objects but also when to suppress them.

Error processing is critical for adaptive behaviors. Acute stress has been found to influence error processing. However, the neural dynamic correlates underlying this modulation remain elusive. To address this issue, we recruited 39 healthy male participants, who performed a two-session task before and after an acute stress test while their behavioral and EEG data were recorded. The participants were randomly exposed to either a stress condition (Maastricht Acute Stress Test) or a control condition. The stress test consisted of several hand immersion tasks (ice-cold water, 2°C) and mental arithmetic tasks. A color-word Stroop task was used to investigate the stress effect on error responses. Based on the level of stress-induced cortisol, the participants in the stress group were further classified as low (N = 13) or high (N = 13) cortisol responders. The results indicated that only in the high cortisol responders, the error-related negativity (ERN) amplitude was reduced after acute stress. In addition, the ∆ERN in the high cortisol responders was significantly smaller than that in the low cortisol responders. These results suggest that acute stress impairs error detection. However, the error positivity amplitudes increased in the stress group compared to the control group, indicating that acute stress leads to greater error assessment. Taken together, these results suggest that acute stress impairs error detection, which is modulated by individuals' response level following acute stress, and leads to more emotional and/or motivational responses to the error signal once the error is consciously realized. K E Y W O R D Sacute stress, cortisol, ERN (error-related negativity), error monitoring, Pe (error positivity)

In dynamic environments, statistical learning of spatial and temporal regularities guides visual attention in space and time. In the current study, we explored whether and how combined spatiotemporal regularities regarding target events guide visual attention. In three experiments, participants performed the additional singleton task. They were asked to search for a target stimulus with a unique shape among five non-target distractors and respond to the orientation of a line inside the target. Unbeknownst to the participants, the moment in time that the search display was presented was predictive of the target location. Specifically, the target was more likely to be presented at one high-probability location after a short interval and at another high-probability location after a long interval. The results showed that participants’ performance was better for high-probability locations than for low-probability locations. Moreover, visual search efficiency was greater when the target appeared at the high-probability location after its associated interval than when it occurred there after its nonassociated interval, regardless of whether the distribution of intervals was uniform (Experiment 1), exponential (Experiment 2), or anti-exponential (Experiment 3). Taken together, the results indicate that implicitly learned spatiotemporal regularities dynamically guide visual attention towards the probable target location.

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