No evidence for proactive suppression of explicitly cued distractor features

Addleman, Douglas A.; Störmer, Viola S.

doi:10.3758/s13423-022-02071-7

Cited by 18 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…These observations suggest at the very least that attention was more efficiently guided towards candidate target locations, rather than or next to active suppression of distracting singletons (cf. Addleman and Störmer, 2022). It is still possible that distractor singletons were proactively suppressed, but that this was not expressed in a numerically negative effect due to countering influences from e.g., target location learning.…”

Section: Overall Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contextual uncertainty determines early attentional orienting in visual selection

Jungerius¹,

Moorselaar²,

Slagter³

2022

Preprint

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It is well-known that physically salient stimuli often inadvertently capture attention. Three factors affecting capture by such distractors have previously been identified as physical saliency, search goals, and selection history. In the present study, we set out to show that, in addition to these factors, uncertainty about the context in which distractors appear is a critical determinant of attentional capture by highly physically salient distractors. For this purpose, we manipulated singleton location and context uncertainty separately from set size in a series of capture-probe experiments. Specifically, in three experiments, we examined the effects of location and context uncertainty on attentional capture. We found that recall of letters at singleton locations remained higher than at non-singleton distractor locations when uncertainty about the location of the target and singleton was reduced, but when contextual uncertainty was reduced, either by fixing part of the search display or by exposing participants to a restricted set of displays, this difference disappeared. Our findings support the notion that contextual uncertainty is another critical factor determining whether salient distractors capture attention.

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Section: Overall Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contextual uncertainty determines early attentional orienting in visual selection

Jungerius¹,

Moorselaar²,

Slagter³

2022

Preprint

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“…For example, several studies used explicit cues that indicated to participants which features to ignore, varying that feature from trial to trial. These studies found that these cues resulted in behavioral benefits during visual search, suggesting that intention-based suppression can be effective in terms of speeding responses ( Addleman and Störmer, 2022 , Arita et al, 2012 , Carlisle and Nitka, 2019 , Wen et al, 2018 ). In contrast to these studies, another recent study used the additional singleton paradigm and cued participants on each trial to suppress one of the locations that was most likely to contain a distractor ( Wang and Theeuwes, 2018b ).…”

Section: Part 2: Distinct Types Of Distractor Suppression ( ...mentioning

confidence: 97%

“…One line of work uses distractor cueing paradigms in which participants are cued which visual feature (or location) to ignore on a subsequent visual search trial that contains targets and non-salient distractors ( Cunningham and Egeth, 2016 , Moher and Egeth, 2012 , Reeder et al, 2018 , Woodman and Luck, 2007 ). In these studies, differences in performance for a validly cued (i.e., distractor appears in the cued feature) vs. invalidly cued distractor (i.e., distractor appears in a feature other than the cue) can suggest that the intended distractor is indeed distracting ( Addleman and Störmer, 2022 ).…”

Section: Part 1: Essential Components For Experiments Design ( ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…EEG and fMRI studies measure preparatory activity, suppressed distractor-evoked sensory activity, or frontoparietal attentional consequences of reactive mechanisms ( Adam and Serences, 2021 , Marini et al, 2016 , Noonan et al, 2016 , van Moorselaar and Slagter, 2020 , Won et al, 2020 ). The vast majority of these methods estimate proactive or reactive processes by behavioral or brain responses to distractors within visual search displays, but some studies examine proactive suppression before the search display using ‘probe trials’ or direct measurements of preparatory activity ( Addleman and Störmer, 2022 , Huang et al, 2021 , van Moorselaar and Slagter, 2020 ). Given the variety of methods for measuring proactive vs. reactive suppression, it is critical to carefully distinguish between effects we observe and latent mechanisms ( Anderson, 2021 , Lamy, 2021 ; see also 3.1 , 3.3 , 4.1 ).…”

Section: Part 2: Distinct Types Of Distractor Suppression ( ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Ten simple rules to study distractor suppression

Wöstmann

Störmer

Obleser

et al. 2022

Progress in Neurobiology

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“…This cueing of distractor features can lead to search benefits compared to not presenting a cue (Arita et al, 2012;Cunningham & Egeth, 2016;Reeder, Olivers, & Pollman, 2017). 1 However, the benefits tend to be smaller relative to when targets are explicitly cued (Addleman & Störmer, 2022;Arita et al, 2012;Beck & Hollingworth, 2015, Exp. 1;Carlisle & Nitka, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distractor ignoring is as effective as target enhancement when incidentally learned but not when explicitly cued

Addleman

Störmer

2022

Atten Percept Psychophys

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Explicit knowledge about upcoming target or distractor features can increase performance in tasks like visual search. However, explicit distractor cues generally result in smaller performance benefits than target cues, suggesting that suppressing irrelevant information is less effective than enhancing relevant information. Is this asymmetry a general principle of feature-based attention? Across four experiments (N=75 each) we compared the efficiency of target selection and distractor ignoring through either incidental experience or explicit instructions. Participants searched for an orientation-defined target amidst seven distractorsthree in the target color and four in another color. In Experiment 1, either targets (Exp. 1a) or distractors (Exp. 1b) were presented more often in a specific color than other possible search colors. Response times showed comparable benefits of learned attention towards (Exp. 1a) and away from (Exp. 1b) the frequent color, suggesting that learned target selection and distractor ignoring can be equally effective. In Experiment 2, participants completed a nearly identical task, only with explicit cues to the target (Exp. 2a) or distractor color (Exp. 2b), inducing voluntary attention. Both target and distractor cues were beneficial for search performance, but distractor cues much less so than target cues, consistent with previous results. Cross-experiment analyses verified that the relative inefficiency of distractor ignoring versus target selection is a unique characteristic of voluntary attention that is not shared by incidentally learned attention, pointing to dissociable mechanisms of voluntary and learned attention to support distractor ignoring.

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No evidence for proactive suppression of explicitly cued distractor features

Cited by 18 publications

References 23 publications

Contextual uncertainty determines early attentional orienting in visual selection

Contextual uncertainty determines early attentional orienting in visual selection

Ten simple rules to study distractor suppression

Distractor ignoring is as effective as target enhancement when incidentally learned but not when explicitly cued

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