Top-down deactivation of interference from irrelevant spatial or verbal stimulus features

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience

Background:

• The selective-attention model proposes top-down deactivation of distractors.
• This deactivation should result in an inverted-U-shaped activation function for distractor representations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To test the distractor deactivation account against attentional zooming.
• To investigate visual selective attention mechanisms using Stroop and Simon tasks.

Main Methods:

• Experiments employed the Stroop and Simon tasks.
• Performance functions were analyzed for responses to both incongruent and congruent distractors.
• Stimulus onset asynchrony was varied to observe effects on reaction times and error rates.

Main Results:

• Both tasks replicated a quadratic trend in performance for incongruent distractors.
• Linear trends were observed in performance functions for congruent distractors.
• Results support the distractor deactivation hypothesis over attentional zooming.

Conclusions:

• Top-down deactivation of distractor representations is a validated mechanism in visual selective attention.
• The findings provide further evidence for Houghton and Tipper's selective-attention model.