Feature guidance by negative attentional templates depends on search difficulty

Conci, Markus; Deichsel, Cassandra; Müller, Hermann J.; Töllner, Thomas

doi:10.1080/13506285.2019.1581316

Cited by 48 publications

(59 citation statements)

References 35 publications

(57 reference statements)

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“…However, given that only a handful of studies examined markers of active preparatory suppression, it is premature to conclude that direct top‐down inhibition in either the spatial or feature domain is not possible. One intriguing possibility is that in contrast to preactivating an attentional template, preparatory suppression is cognitively demanding and therefore limited to contexts of especially difficult searches . Future studies that examine the effect of search difficulty on distractor inhibition at the neural level are necessary to test the idea that advance distractor suppression may selectively occur in cognitively demanding situations, and whether alpha contributes to this.…”

Section: Direct Preparatory Distractor Suppressionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inhibition in selective attention

Moorselaar

Slagter

2020

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

152

124

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Our ability to focus on goal‐relevant aspects of the environment is critically dependent on our ability to ignore or inhibit distracting information. One perspective is that distractor inhibition is under similar voluntary control as attentional facilitation of target processing. However, a rapidly growing body of research shows that distractor inhibition often relies on prior experience with the distracting information or other mechanisms that need not rely on active representation in working memory. Yet, how and when these different forms of inhibition are neurally implemented remains largely unclear. Here, we review findings from recent behavioral and neuroimaging studies to address this outstanding question. We specifically explore how experience with distracting information may change the processing of that information in the context of current predictive processing views of perception: by modulating a distractor's representation already in anticipation of the distractor, or after integration of top‐down and bottom‐up sensory signals. We also outline directions for future research necessary to enhance our understanding of how the brain filters out distracting information.

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Section: Direct Preparatory Distractor Suppressionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inhibition in selective attention

Moorselaar

Slagter

2020

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

152

124

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, given that only a handful of studies examined markers of active preparatory suppression, it is premature to conclude that direct top-down inhibition in either the spatial or feature domain is not possible. One intriguing possibility is that in contrast to pre-activating an attentional template, preparatory suppression is cognitively demanding and therefore limited to contexts of especially difficult searches (55). Future studies that examine the effect of search difficulty on distractor inhibition at the neural level are necessary to test the idea that advance distractor suppression may selectively occur in cognitively demanding situations, and whether alpha contributes to this.…”

Section: Direct Preparatory Distractor Suppressionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inhibition in selective attention

Moorselaar¹,

Slagter²

2019

Preprint

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Our ability to focus on goal-relevant aspects of the environment is critically dependent on our ability to ignore or inhibit distracting information. One perspective is that distractor inhibition is under similar voluntary control as attentional facilitation of target processing. However, a rapidly growing body of research shows that distractor inhibition often relies on prior experience with the distracting information or other mechanisms that need not rely on active representation in working memory. Yet, how and when these different forms of inhibition are neurally implemented remains largely unclear. Here, we review findings from recent behavioral and neuroimaging studies to address this outstanding question. We specifically explore how experience with distracting information may change the processing of that information in the context of current predictive processing views of perception: by modulating a distractor’s representation already in anticipation of the distractor, or after integration of top-down and bottom-up sensory signals. We also outline directions for future research necessary to enhance our understanding of how the brain filters out distracting information.

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“…Divergent findings have been reported regarding whether distractor cues can accelerate search efficiency (Arita, Carlisle, & Woodman, 2012;Beck & Hollingworth, 2015;Becker, Hemsteger, & Peltier, 2015;Olivers, 2009;Soto, Heinke, Humphreys, & Blanco, 2005;Geoffrey F Woodman & Luck, 2007). Among the studies that showed behavioral promotions, the emergence of suppression benefits seemed to be dependent on multiple factors (Conci, Deichsel, Müller, & Töllner, 2019;Han & Kim, 2009;Stilwell & Vecera, 2019;Tanda & Kawahara, 2019;Töllner, Conci, & Müller, 2015), especially the constancy of distractor cues across trials so as to form expectations (Cunningham & Egeth, 2016;Gaspelin, Leonard, & Luck, 2015;Gaspelin & Luck, 2018a;Vatterott & Vecera, 2012;Wen, Hou, & Li, 2018, for reviews, see Gaspelin & Luck, 2018bNoonan, Crittenden, Jensen, & Stokes, 2018;van Moorselaar & Slagter, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gaze dynamics of feature-based distractor inhibition under the prior-knowledge and expectation

Wen

Zhang

2020

Preprint

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Prior information about distractor facilitates selective attention to task-relevant items and helps the optimization of oculomotor planning. Particularly, feature-based attentional inhibition could be benefited from the pre-knowledge of critical features of the distractors. In the present study, we capitalized on gaze-position decoding to examine the dynamics of attentional deployment in a feature-based attentional task that involved two groups of dots (target/distractor dots) moving toward different directions. Specifically, this measurement revealed how pre-knowledge of the target's or distractor's direction modulated real-time feature-based attentional bias. In Experiment 1, participants were provided with target cues indicating the moving direction of target dots. The results showed that participants were biased towards the cued direction and tracked the target dots throughout the task period. In Experiment 2 and Experiment 3, participants were provided with cues that informed the moving direction of distractor dots. The results showed that participants would continuously monitor the distractor's direction when the distractor cue varied on a trial-by-trial basis (Experiment 2). However, when the to-be-ignored distractor direction remained constant (Experiment 3), participants would strategically bias their attention to the distractor's direction before the cue onset and reduce the cost of re-deployment of attention between trials. These results suggest that monitoring the distractor's feature is a prerequisite for feature-based attentional inhibition and this process is facilitated by the predictability of the distractor's feature.

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Feature guidance by negative attentional templates depends on search difficulty

Abstract: Running head: Negative templates and search difficulty

Cited by 48 publications

References 35 publications

Inhibition in selective attention

Inhibition in selective attention

Inhibition in selective attention

Gaze dynamics of feature-based distractor inhibition under the prior-knowledge and expectation

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